Tony Kosten's The Dynamic English is a repertoire book from White's point of view, beginning with 1.c4. To simplify White's task and avoid certain lines, Kosten recommends the immediate fianchetto of White's king bishop (2.g3) after 1...e5, 1...c5, 1...Nf6, and even 1...e6 and 1...e6. This leads to some unique and interesting orders, for example, after 1.c4 e5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.0-0 Nb6, Kosten suggests 7.d3 Be7 8.Nbd2!?, with a relatively unexplored but promising reversed Sicilian, e.g., 8...0-0 9.a3 a5 10.b3 Be6 11.Bb2 f6 12.Qc2, and White tends to follow with e3 and d4. In this same line, Kosten suggests that the order 6...Be7 7.d4 e4!?, chosen by Timman versus Topalov in Wijk aan Zee this year, runs into trouble after 8.Ne5! f5! 9.Nxc6 bxc6 10.Nc3, although Timman's 10...Be6 11.Qa4 Qd7! intending ...c5 seemed to equalize. To Kosten's credit, when I went to check his site on Chesspublishing.com, he had included this game for his readers.

Kosten recommends the Botvinnik System with 5.e4 versus the reversed Closed Sicilian with 1...e5 2.g3 Nc6 3.Bg2 g6 4.Nc3 Bg7. He is a bit optimistic about this formation, but it serves as a simple weapon, especially for 1.c4 players who don't have experience with other setups from the Black side of the Sicilian. I was particularly interested in his ideas versus 1...c5. Now 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 is well covered, with interesting new ideas in the 3...d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Nc3 Nc7 (Rubinstein) and 3...e6 4.Nf3 d5 5.cxd5 Nxd5 (Keres-Parma) variations, making a good case for White in both lines. But the analysis of 2.g3 g6 3.Bg2 Bg7 4.Nc3 Nc6 5.a3 is awfully optimistic. For one thing, I think that Black can equalize in the variations after 5...a6 6.Rb1 Rb8 7.b4 cxb4 8.axb4 b5. More importantly, the pawn sacrifice 5...e6 6.b4 Nxb4 7.axb4 cxb4 8.d4 bxc3 9.e3 Ne7 10.Ne2 d5 11.cxd5 Nxd5 12.Ba3 is a dicey way to play for an advantage; I wouldn't be surprised, for example, if 12...Bd7 with the idea ...Bc6, while complex, even favors Black.

It's interesting to compare Kosten's recommendation versus Danny King's The English Defense. After 1.c4 b6 2.Nc3 Bb7 3.e4 e6 4.Nge2, King likes 4...Nf6"!", but doesn't mention Kosten's 5.d3, which might transpose to a known line after 5...c5 6.g3 d6 (6...d5!?), unless 5...Be7 6. g3 d5!? is worth a try. At any rate, there's a lot to think about in this book, and any 1.c4 player will be able to pick up at least a few lines to incorporate into his repertoire. Such a combination of originality and usefulness makes this work easy to recommend.

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