EXPERT'S GUIDE TO THE 7.Bc4 GRUENFELD

Author: Konstantin Sakaev

Chess Stars (2006)

426 pages

$29.95

Reviewed by Jeremy Silman

The Gruenfeld Defense isn't an easy opening to handle for either side. To do it justice, one needs to show a lot of theoretical preparation, a lot of energy, and a lot of subtle understanding as to how to make use of the individual structures.

After 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 White has tried just about everything. He's made use of systems with Bf4 (with and without Nf3 tossed in), he's done the same with Bg5, he's played for a quiet positional grip with g3, and he's embraced early Queen adventures via Qb3. The most natural reply, though, is the greedy central grab via 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3. Though 6...Bg7 7.Bc4 followed by 8.Ne2 was the main line for many years, it was suddenly supplanted by 6...Bg7 7.Nf3 c5 8.Rb1.

Good openings, however, never die, and 7.Bc4 has recently charged back into favor. As a result, EXPERT'S GUIDE TO THE 7.Bc4 GRUENFELD is a very timely guide through the labyrinth of variations, ideas, and theory that, if left adrift, could easily swallow a player whole and leave him horrified at the sheer mass of possibilities that both sides possess.

Grandmaster Sakaev, a Gruenfeld expert, looks through all the important theory, covering both 7...0-0 and 7...c5. After 7...c5 8.Ne2 Nc6 9.Be3 0-0 10.0-0 he explores Svidler's favorite 10...Bd7, and Black's two most important systematic choices, 10...Qc7 11.Rc1 Rd8 and 10...Bg4 11.f3.

These lines are all covered in impressive depth. For example Karpov's system, 10...Bg4 11.f3 Na5 12.Bxf7+ Rxf7 13.fxg4 is given no less than fifty-nine densely packed pages, while the famous Exchange Sacrifice Variation (10...Bg4 11.f3 Na5 12.Bd3 cxd4 13.cxd4 Be6 14.d5 Bxa1 15.Qxa1) spans a whopping eighty pages! He opens this Exchange Sacrifice section with a word of warning: "We still believe that Black's position is quite defendable and Black's failures are mostly due to insufficient theoretical preparation. This line is really hard to play without thorough analysis and excellent memory because there are so many forced lines that the tournament player should master to perfection. It often takes just one mistake to compromise the position irrevocably."

Aside from lots of very useful prose, Sakaev goes the extra mile by never accepting old assessments -- he's constantly disagreeing with past views and/or sharing his own original analysis.

I can't imagine a Gruenfeld player being without this book, and anyone who is looking for a hard-hitting reply to the Gruenfeld or already plays 7.Bc4 simply must buy it.

Click to buy (or get more information about) EXPERT'S GUIDE to the 7.Bc4 GRUENFELD