Chess Digest, a small chess publishing company, is one of the oldest chess businesses in the United States. A family affair founded by Ken Smith in 1962, it sells books and equipment by mail. But Chess Digest also publishes its own books--lots of them. Older U.S. players grew up carting around grubby copies of Chess Digest monographs. For better or worse, they were inexpensive and readily available, although not up to today's standards. Even in recent times, Chess Digest authors have had an annoying habit of "borrowing" material (without attribution or, presumably, permission); this is a serious failing, but it would be unfair to saddle the honest Chess Digest writers with the sins of the few.

The key to Smith's operation is that he has always kept his prices low and tailored his products for amateurs and club players. I think that this serves a very useful function; not everyone can afford to dish out $25 a pop just to fill in a corner of his or her repertoire. Moreover, many grassroots players have used Ken's methods and publications as a guide to improvement; and while his teaching approach doesn't exactly correspond to Dvoretsky's, there are after all many ways to skin a cat. (Actually, I can't think of even one, but you get the idea).

Traditionally, Chess Digest publications have unfortunately included some works of truly dubious quality, both in the sense of the chess material and the production quality. The trick to buying from them is to look over the book itself, or at least a trustworthy review, before purchasing. As indicated in a previous review, even a strong player and (normally) good writer can and does put out low-quality books when the economic incentives are right. The good news is that, in recent years, the proportion of quality books from Chess Digest has markedly risen, and the production quality in particular is vastly improved. A top-flight example of this is Jeremy Silman's Winning with the Sicilian Defense, 2nd Edition. I have two precursors to this book in my library, also from Chess Digest: Jeremy's miserable 1984 pamphlet on the Accelerated Dragon, which is little more than a 50-page, badly-typed manuscript; and his 1991 edition of the current work, which is thoughtfully written, but cheaply produced and simply too short at 172 pages. Now there appears this revised 2nd edition, which is, well...just terrific! First, there's a high-quality cover, nice binding, and vastly improved typesetting and layout. More importantly, Silman has 353 pages of excellent analysis and explanations, and his research is vastly improved. Significantly, as part of his repertoire for Black, he gives numerous alternative lines in case the reader doesn't like the main recommendation. The core of this repertoire is the Accelerated Dragon (a long-time Silman specialty); but any Sicilian player can get his money's worth from this book, since almost 200 pages are devoted to the many White deviations from 2.Nf3 and 3.d4, for example, 2.Nc3, 2.c3, the Smith-Morra Gambit, the Grand Prix Attack, and others. (On that subject, by the way, Jeremy wants the reader to know about a move-order omission, i.e., that 1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 is given as the main antidote to 2.c3; but nothing is recommended for 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c3, when 3...d5 does not transpose, although it is still playable). Winning with the Sicilian Defense is perfect for someone who wants to take up the Sicilian for the first time, and has loads of valuable information and suggestions for the experienced 1...c5 player as well. If Chess Digest can continue to publish books like this one, they will quickly gain the respect and thanks of tournament players everywhere. Just a great book at a great price.