Most players struggle to develop a repertoire, not knowing exactly how much they should or shouldn’t study, and it is rare to find a book that has a sure hand and guides the player in the proper direction. Nigel Davies’ ALEKHINE’S DEFENSE is one of those rare books.

The ALEKHINE’S DEFENSE is an underrated alternative for a player seeking a fighting defense to 1.e4. It avoids the reams of analysis associated with the Sicilian Defense, but it is forcing and offers white few choices that avoid an unbalanced game. It is also helpful that many white players underestimate it and spend more time on other defenses.

While there have been times where this defense has been something of a backwater, there are a lot of world class chess fighters willing to take their chances with the defense. In previous years, these included the likes of Fischer, Larsen, Korchnoi and Alekhine himself. In more recent years, Alburt, Agdestein, Kengis, and Baburin have taken up the charge. What strikes me about all of these players is their general willingness to fight over the board – they are not a careful, keep the draw in hand bunch, and this is not the defense for those who back off from a struggle.

The author is a player who has specialized in unbalanced defenses, having previously championed the Modern (1.e4 g6). These defenses have similar unbalancing characteristics, and both are on the periphery of “mainstream” theory. It is not surprising that Davies is now dabbling in the Alekhine’s, and he seems ideally suited to write this book.

Davies, who has spent time as a trainer as well as a player, provides the sort of practical discussion that most players will find helpful. He guides the player to the lines that need the most elaboration, points out lines that will need extensive theoretical knowledge, and suggests some lesser played alternatives for those who choose to miss out on the depths of theory.

While Davies is a practitioner of the defense as black, the book does not come off as a “white/black to play and win with the xyz opening/defense.” Davies notes the lines that he believes are strongest for white, and he presents these lines in a reasonable fashion – i.e., white does indeed have reasonable chances to retain an edge in the Modern (4.Nf3) and Exchange (4.c4 Nb6 5.exd6) variations.

The author is also willing to take exception to opening fashion and suggest lines that he thinks have been overlooked. As an example, in the Four Pawns Attack, black’s most popular try at present might be 5.f4 dxe5 6.fxe5 Nc6 7.Be3 Bf5 8.Nc3 e6 9.Nf3 Bg4. However, Davies does not believe that black really gets enough for the two bishops, and I must admit to feeling uncomfortable as black in the positions after 10.Be2 Bxf3 11.gxf3 Qh4+ 12.Bf2 Qf4 13.c5 Nd7 14.Bb5. Davies prefers either the older 9…Be7 or the less analyzed 9…Qd7 and 9…Bb4. This is another case where the author provides more than one way to play – both something with a fair amount of theoretical history and some lines that get both players more off the beaten path.

The bulk of the book deals with the lines Davies feels are critical, with 70 pages devoted to the Modern 4.Nf3, 28 to the Exchange variation with 4.c4 Nb6 5.exd6, and 27 to the Four Pawn Attack with 5.f4. Here, too, the author is not shy about sharing his personal views on the best ways to approach these lines. Where some authors are content to parrot back the status of theory, Davies goes further. Among other useful insights, he believes that in the critical Kengis system with 4…dxe5 5.Nxe5 g6 black may be better off avoiding tricky lines like 6.Qf3 Be6 7.c4 by simply playing 4…g6 5.Bc4 c6 with a later …dxe5. While white can try to avoid this by capturing on d6 himself, Davies believes that black obtains a reasonable game in these lines. This is just one example – Davies also suggests that white has largely overlooked a good method in the sharp lines with 4…Nc6, and he also has his own opinion about lines in the popular Voronezh variation after 4.c4 Nb6 5.exd6 cxd6 6.Nc3 g6 7.Be3 Bg7 8.Rc1 0-0 9.b3.

Davies closes the book with 10 pages on the Chase variation (4.c5 Nd5) and 15 pages on other lines. Of the other lines, Davies pays a fair amount of attention to 2.Nc3, and he notes that GM Johnny Hector has scored well as white with the “normal” lines after 2…d5. Black has, of course, other alternatives, but they tend to lead the game into other openings (such as 2…e5, which is a Vienna Game, and 2…d6, which could lead to the Pirc after 3.d4 g6 or perhaps the Philidor after 3…e5). Unfortunately, Davies points out that some of the previously accepted lines for black don’t look all that good. For example, after 3.e5 Nfd7 the gambit lines with 4.e6 are quite dangerous for black. He also suggests that 3…Ne4 4.Nce2 f6 5.d3 Ng5 6.Bxg5 fxg5 7.h4 g4 8.Nf4 Bf5 9.Nge2 Nc6 10.Ng3 Qd7 11.d4 Nb4 12.e6 also leads to a good game for white. This is indicative of the book as a whole – Davies gives a fresh look to theory from older books rather than just cataloguing it.

As with other books in this publisher’s line, this is written as a repertoire book. While I prefer the tree of analysis method, the Alekhine’s Defense doesn’t contain as many transpositions as many other variations. As a result, there are few occasions where this approach causes analytic confusion. Otherwise, the book includes a useful bibliography and interesting introduction. The text at the beginning of each chapter is helpful for understanding what is to come. The author does a nice job of mixing analysis with explanation, and most of the illustrative games are of a recent vintage.

In conclusion, the Alekhine’s Defense has not received Grandmaster coverage in some time, and Nigel Davies has done a nice job of selectively filling in some of the critical areas in this underestimated defense. The practical player should find the right mix of theory and explanation, and even the experienced player should benefit from Davies analysis and theoretical improvements.

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