PLAY THE GRUNFELD

Author: Yelena Dembo

Everyman Chess (2007)

192 pages

$23.95



Reviewed by Anthony Rotella

After having worked pretty rigorously through Yelena Dembo's first opening book (her second chess book -- Her first was THE VERY UNUSUAL BOOK ABOUT CHESS), I'm pretty impressed. I've wanted to play the Grunfeld for a long time, but there was this major block for me in that the selection of literature on this opening was very limited. I considered Rowson's extraordinarily well received book too old to take at face value, and didn't want to embark on the tedium that's involved in checking all his lines in ChessBase to make sure I wasn't about to throw myself off a figurative cliff during a game. Davies' Everyman book also falls into this category, while I thought that Khodarkovsky's THE GRUNFELD DEFENSE REVEALED wasn't nearly enough for a serious player, and would of course be riddled with missing lines, as the format for the "revealed" series always struck me as somewhat childish, and not the best way to go about teaching someone an opening. I have this silly addiction of going to the Everyman Chess website and incrementing the book ID numbers in the links to their books to find out what books are coming out before they advertise them on their site or anywhere else. I don't know why they put their books up like this, but suffice to say that I was wicked psyched to see that a Grunfeld book was coming out.

The first great thing about this book was that the bibliography is originally written. Not only is it quite extensive (17 books plus various databases and websites), but she takes the time and space to explain what she used the book for, and generally what she thinks about the book as well. This is a practice that should quickly be swept up by other authors, as it gives the reader another place to go if they want more material on the subject, and just generally makes a good impression. It says that "I've looked through all of these books, and mine will be better than all of these. You're safe with me!" The book also has a really nice 5-page introduction, mentioning a lot of history about the variation, who's played it, who's contributed a lot to the variation, and so on. This is also great information to know, since it's nice to be able to print out a person's games who really understands the variation so you can emulate their play. Another noticeable nicety is that this book departs from the normal Everyman complete games format and goes for a tree (more like a branch, since most of the side variations are just given notes) format, which I tend to prefer, at least for the sharper and more theoretical openings, when it could be difficult to grasp all the move order subtleties or different variations if they're all given in different games.

Now on to the actual content. This book is very complete. I haven't run into a variation in actual play that isn't covered in this book. Not one that's any good or makes sense anyhow. One of the strengths of this book is that her choices against the variations that are very dangerous and theoretical are less played, but not crap. For instance, 9...b6 vs. the 8.Rb1 line and 10...Na5 vs. the Bc4 systems are not only very interesting, but are a lot less work than, let's say, the Seville variation and all that crazy ...Qa5+ and ...Qxa2 stuff. The last thing I want is to run into some rain man who's memorized everything from Dearing's CHALLENGING THE GRUNFELD and just whips out the meat cleaver and hacks me up into little Alexei Shirov wannabe pieces. Her choice against the Russian System (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Qb3 dxc4 6.Qxc4 0-0 7.e4) is the slightly rare 7...Nc6. This move was a favorite of Smyslov, and as she mentions, maybe played less simply because Kasparov played 7...Na6 and the Hungarians (huge in the development of the entire opening) prefer 7...a6. Her selection of lesser played lines vs. the big boys is in direct contrast to what she advocates vs. the lesser played lines, where she generally just picks the best lines and tackles them head on, which is nice in my opinion. Why give these lines more respect than they deserve? I particularly like the interesting gambit choices against 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Na4, and 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.f3, where she recommends ...e5! in both positions.

I would give this book a solid A. I can't really think of anything that's wrong with it, other than the fact that at some points, deviations and possible moves should be given, but weren't. She never misses anything big, but I think it's always better to err on the side of putting more content in. Awesome book, and certainly one that's been needed for quite a while. Kudos to Yelena!

CLICK to read Jeremy Silman's review of this book.

If you would like to rave, praise, or flay the author of this review, write to: T-Rock@case.edu

Click to buy (or get more information about) PLAY THE GRUNFELD

CHALLENGING THE GRUNFELD by Dearing ($24.95)