In the last post I promised that I would be trying an experiment soon. And here it is - a book review.
Although it's something I've wanted to do in the past, somehow I have never got round to reviewing a chess book until now. After all, it sounds uncomfortably like my degree! But recently I was given a new release and asked for some thoughts on it. Since I have some spare time at the moment, I decided to take up the challenge. And a challenge it was: it would have been easy to have some fun casting my eye over one of the truly awful books out there, but my actual specimen has both strengths and flaws.
The main challenge it presented, however, was the fact that I know the author very well - I am reviewing Play the Accelerated Dragon by Peter Lalić. For anyone that doesn't know, I went to school with Peter and still keep in touch. How on earth, I wondered, could I write a review that would be treated as totally impartial? Eventually though, I accepted the simple fact that I can't. Of course I have tried to be as objective as I always am, but this can never be a totally innocent review. For me this is just a bit of fun, shorn of the risk of my house being fire-bombed by the disgruntled author.
Well, hopefully.
Play The Accelerated Dragon (Everyman Chess, 2014) £15.99, 172pp
Although it's something I've wanted to do in the past, somehow I have never got round to reviewing a chess book until now. After all, it sounds uncomfortably like my degree! But recently I was given a new release and asked for some thoughts on it. Since I have some spare time at the moment, I decided to take up the challenge. And a challenge it was: it would have been easy to have some fun casting my eye over one of the truly awful books out there, but my actual specimen has both strengths and flaws.
The main challenge it presented, however, was the fact that I know the author very well - I am reviewing Play the Accelerated Dragon by Peter Lalić. For anyone that doesn't know, I went to school with Peter and still keep in touch. How on earth, I wondered, could I write a review that would be treated as totally impartial? Eventually though, I accepted the simple fact that I can't. Of course I have tried to be as objective as I always am, but this can never be a totally innocent review. For me this is just a bit of fun, shorn of the risk of my house being fire-bombed by the disgruntled author.
Well, hopefully.
Play The Accelerated Dragon (Everyman Chess, 2014) £15.99, 172pp
The Accelerated Dragon (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6) has a definite appeal for black: white can easily get into a real tangle if he doesn't know what he's doing, and even if he does it's not easy to prove any advantage. But more than this, it is a very simple system, and that makes it easy to learn. That is the theme of this book, which covers the opening from black's perspective. The author's interpretation is very ideas-driven, dipping into the specifics of move-orders only with reluctance. The book consists of 50 annotated games, and is basically structured in two halves: 5. Nc3 and minor lines take up 98 pages and 29 games; the Maróczy Bind (5. c4) gets 63 pages and the remaining 21 games. In keeping with the theme of simplicity, it seems only logical to ape that structure for this review.
The Main Line: 5. Nc3
Shortly after losing their first encounter with the Accelerated Dragon, every amateur player discovers why the line is so popular at lower levels: trying to play a Yugoslav Attack won't work. In contrast with the full-blooded Dragon, black can play ...d5 in one move and this means his central counterplay will be too fast. The book makes several promises in the introduction, and avoiding white's most fearsome attacking plan is top of the list. The first chapter showcases such misguided attempts, with white repeatedly blown away pathetically easily. Repetition is the mother of understanding, and it becomes obvious that black's play is straight-forward. You play ...Bg7, ...Nf6 and ...O-O on moves 5-7, a pawn break on move 8 and win around move 20. If only chess was always so easy!
Being the stubborn sort, I've always wanted to try for a Yugoslav Attack anyway, and the only serious way to do this is 5. Nc3 Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Bc4 O-O 8. Bb3!, closing down on the ...d5 break. I had a personal interest in what he had to say here, and was surprised to see one of the two main antidotes blithely dismissed: "8... Qa5!? may compel him into 9. O-O, but the cure seems more extreme than the illness. L. Nisipeanu-M. Carlsen, Sarajevo 2006, became standard Dragon territory, where Black never pushed a pawn beyond the third rank." (p48) True, this manouevre is more standard on move 7, but it's not bad. One would think that Carlsen was crushed in that game; in fact it was a 20-move draw. Instead the recommended move is 8... a5, which does fit in with the 5. Nc3 repertoire well - in Lalić's words (p93) "whenever White stops ...d5 with a minor piece on b3, we disturb his defence with ...a5, and only then detonate the centre."
Though 9. f3 and 9. a4 are covered, it's clear that the move he fears most is 9. O-O - though it is only allotted one game, he admits that black is slightly worse in the main-line. Whether the reader will buy into his argument that black's clear plan is more important than the computer evaluation (of about +0.3) is a personal thing, though the book is clearly more of a guide to the opening than a survey of cutting-edge theory. At least this line is given respect - and some of the games in this chapter are fights! Nevertheless it's clear that as a whole, Lalić has little respect for 5. Nc3 - more than once we are told that white is the one striving to equalise, and black is always the one having fun. After being guided through some of white's even more suspicious-looking tries, lumped together in 15 pages under that most loaded of terms, 'deviations', we come to the true test: the dreaded Maróczy Bind.
The Maróczy Bind: 5. c4
If the 5. Nc3 variations are the reason many people play the Accelerated Dragon, then surely 5. c4 is the reason that more don't. White clamps down on the d5 square, snuffs out black's dynamism and forces the second player to suffer in his cramped shell for a long time. On the other hand, in the absence of active pieces and forcing tactical lines, an understanding of plans and ideas is invaluable, and that is what these chapters are built around. In my opinion this is where the book is at its best.
Even if you don't play the Accelerated Dragon, it's useful to know how to combat the Bind given how many openings it can arise from. I play the 2... d6 Sicilians and I've never understood why white can't just play 3. c4 - so this time my sympathies lay with black, and I was pleased to learn quite a lot from this section. The first of the two Maróczy chapters is 'Strategic Ideas' and gives examples of Lalić's five preferred routes to counterplay - first with master games and then some of his own, which perhaps only someone rated around 2150 could make work. When an author is writing well, I've found that they can present ideas that had never occurred to you before, make them seem completely self-evident and still not make you feel stupid (a striking example being Nunn's Secrets of Practical Chess.) Perhaps in view of its fearsome reputation, black's position against the Maróczy had always seemed pretty lifeless to me, but now I can see that he is not without resources.
Although in the second chapter we are given a rather intricate move order to get into the Gurgenidze Variation (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. c4 d6 6. Nc3 Nf6 7. Be2 Nxd4 8. Qxd4 Bg7 etc.) it's clear that the author is much more at home talking about broad ideas than specific variations. There is far less analysis here than in the 5. Nc3 chapters, but conceptual points seem to crop up everywhere in the book. Be it playing on colour complexes, the power of central pawn majorities or good Knight vs. bad Bishop endgames, the reader will at least be sure to learn a lot about positional chess, irrespective of which openings they play. Since that is Lalić's forté as a player and a writer, it's hardly surprising that the positional Maróczy Bind gets a more useful treatment than the tactically-orientated 5. Nc3 variations.
So far then, not so bad. However, now I have to turn my attention to the less savoury aspects of the book.
My Kingdom For an Editor
Writing style is not an easy thing to get right - tastes differ. Personally I much prefer the dry but on-point tone of Botvinnik to Lakdawala's florid flights of fantasy; others find the sixth World Champion to be intolerably dull. Of the authors I've read, perhaps Silman and Vuković have found the best compromise between a lively tone and not distracting the reader. Sadly, Lalić goes to Lakdawala's end of the spectrum and beyond, resulting in a work that is at times unreadable. It's not that he can't be elegant; when the focus is on the chess and nothing else the text is very fluid indeed. The problem is an insistence on the most excruciating, long-winded and irrelevant digressions and metaphors, a problem which only seems to get worse as the book goes on. A few choice examples:
"That's an (sic) breathtaking kingside majority, which a weaker man might have thrust impulsively. Though tempting, that would be wrong (if only someone could have given Bill Clinton the same advice in 1995)." (p55).
"13... e5! throws a spanner in the works with tempo, and is even more irritating than when people use speakerphone on trains. My mother does it for every single mobile call; don't give her any leniency just because she's a WGM!" (p74).
"This developing move is surprisingly annoying; even more so than those public restrooms that you have to pay for. Seriously, don't they breach some clause of the Geneva Convention, and who carries change anyway?" (p88).
I could easily go on, but you get my point. If Lakdawala's writing leaves you frothing then you are advised to steer well clear of this one. Clearly it's a concious decision by the author, but nevertheless it is one of many things that calls into question the vigilance of Everyman's editorial team. Quite apart from letting through some of the more tasteless asides ("...as in T. Nguyen Thi Thanh-A. Nguyen T Thanh, Can Tho 2001. In case you were wondering, yes, I did have to turn off my spell-checker a long time ago." [p98]) there are some instances of plain sloppiness - duplicated moves in game scores, more than a few typos, overlooking that Tiviakov is not Russian but Dutch, and so on. All of these things could easily have been avoided.
Final Thoughts:
Some time ago, we wondered why the Accelerated Dragon isn't played more often at elite level given that it seems so satisfactory for black. Though the obvious answer is that the Maróczy Bind is no fun, we actually concluded that the opening's strength is also its weakness - at times it can be too simple, such that when black triumphantly equalises he finds that he can't really play for a win. Does anyone play chess hoping for the black side of 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. c4 d6 6. Nc3 Nf6 7. Be2 Nxd4 8. Qxd4 Bg7 9. Be3 O-O 10. Qd2 Be6 11. Rc1 Qa5 12. f3 Rfc8 13. b3 a6 14. Nd5 Qxd2+ 15. Kxd2 Nxd5 16. cxd5 Bd7 17. Rxc8+ Rxc8 18. Rc1 Rxc1 19. Kxc1 (Petrosian-Spassky, W-Ch Match Game 3, 1969)? Theoretically, black seems to be in pretty good shape everywhere, but it's worth noting that this opening may not be for everyone. Naturally black makes a huge plus score over the 50 games, but a worrying number are decided by gross tactical blunders just after black has failed to prove a convincing opening advantage.
I must confess that when I first heard Peter was writing an opening book for one of the big-name publishers, my immediate reaction was that it was one of the stupidest ideas I'd ever heard. My view has softened, but I still think that if he writes another book it should be on something besides the opening. Not because of his writing style, but because books on the opening are the ones demanding the most academic approach, and from our days at school together this isn't something I would associate with him. A good writer needs an excellent command of the existing work on the topic, a specialist's understanding as well as the ability to convey it, and a coherent organisation of his material. The absence of a bibliography was rather unsettling then - I'm a history undergraduate in my spare time, but surely I am not the only one put out by this (or indeed by the liberal use of unsourced quotations that do little besides pushing up the page count.) After all, just because your blockbuster novelty (of which there are an impressive number in this book) doesn't appear in the databases, it doesn't mean it hasn't been suggested by another author. Even hapless amateurs can discover them sometimes...
Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised to conclude that when this tries to be an unassuming chess book, it actually does fairly well. A few glitches of course, but quite respectable for a first attempt. Where the book falls down is in its attempts to be 'cool' - the resultant mutations of style are totally counterproductive and very offputting. If only the author had followed his own advice and kept things as simple as possible, the verdict could have been an awful lot better. Nevertheless, if this opening interests you, and you can block the prose out better than I can, then in conjunction with other material this could be a useful starting point for a reliable system.
Finis
Well, if that's how I can treat a book written by one of my closest friends, just imagine what I'd be like with a book by an author I'd never heard of! Online reviews are in rather short supply, but I think it's fair to say that no publisher will be sending me a book any time soon. Perhaps that's for the best. But it was an enjoyable exercise (and an enjoyable read) so my thanks to Peter for giving me the book to review.
Next up in my posting schedule, something else that's slightly off the wall: a tactics quiz. I'll be asking: how hard can it be to hold your own in the British Championship?
The Main Line: 5. Nc3
Shortly after losing their first encounter with the Accelerated Dragon, every amateur player discovers why the line is so popular at lower levels: trying to play a Yugoslav Attack won't work. In contrast with the full-blooded Dragon, black can play ...d5 in one move and this means his central counterplay will be too fast. The book makes several promises in the introduction, and avoiding white's most fearsome attacking plan is top of the list. The first chapter showcases such misguided attempts, with white repeatedly blown away pathetically easily. Repetition is the mother of understanding, and it becomes obvious that black's play is straight-forward. You play ...Bg7, ...Nf6 and ...O-O on moves 5-7, a pawn break on move 8 and win around move 20. If only chess was always so easy!
Being the stubborn sort, I've always wanted to try for a Yugoslav Attack anyway, and the only serious way to do this is 5. Nc3 Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Bc4 O-O 8. Bb3!, closing down on the ...d5 break. I had a personal interest in what he had to say here, and was surprised to see one of the two main antidotes blithely dismissed: "8... Qa5!? may compel him into 9. O-O, but the cure seems more extreme than the illness. L. Nisipeanu-M. Carlsen, Sarajevo 2006, became standard Dragon territory, where Black never pushed a pawn beyond the third rank." (p48) True, this manouevre is more standard on move 7, but it's not bad. One would think that Carlsen was crushed in that game; in fact it was a 20-move draw. Instead the recommended move is 8... a5, which does fit in with the 5. Nc3 repertoire well - in Lalić's words (p93) "whenever White stops ...d5 with a minor piece on b3, we disturb his defence with ...a5, and only then detonate the centre."
Though 9. f3 and 9. a4 are covered, it's clear that the move he fears most is 9. O-O - though it is only allotted one game, he admits that black is slightly worse in the main-line. Whether the reader will buy into his argument that black's clear plan is more important than the computer evaluation (of about +0.3) is a personal thing, though the book is clearly more of a guide to the opening than a survey of cutting-edge theory. At least this line is given respect - and some of the games in this chapter are fights! Nevertheless it's clear that as a whole, Lalić has little respect for 5. Nc3 - more than once we are told that white is the one striving to equalise, and black is always the one having fun. After being guided through some of white's even more suspicious-looking tries, lumped together in 15 pages under that most loaded of terms, 'deviations', we come to the true test: the dreaded Maróczy Bind.
The Maróczy Bind: 5. c4
If the 5. Nc3 variations are the reason many people play the Accelerated Dragon, then surely 5. c4 is the reason that more don't. White clamps down on the d5 square, snuffs out black's dynamism and forces the second player to suffer in his cramped shell for a long time. On the other hand, in the absence of active pieces and forcing tactical lines, an understanding of plans and ideas is invaluable, and that is what these chapters are built around. In my opinion this is where the book is at its best.
Even if you don't play the Accelerated Dragon, it's useful to know how to combat the Bind given how many openings it can arise from. I play the 2... d6 Sicilians and I've never understood why white can't just play 3. c4 - so this time my sympathies lay with black, and I was pleased to learn quite a lot from this section. The first of the two Maróczy chapters is 'Strategic Ideas' and gives examples of Lalić's five preferred routes to counterplay - first with master games and then some of his own, which perhaps only someone rated around 2150 could make work. When an author is writing well, I've found that they can present ideas that had never occurred to you before, make them seem completely self-evident and still not make you feel stupid (a striking example being Nunn's Secrets of Practical Chess.) Perhaps in view of its fearsome reputation, black's position against the Maróczy had always seemed pretty lifeless to me, but now I can see that he is not without resources.
Although in the second chapter we are given a rather intricate move order to get into the Gurgenidze Variation (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. c4 d6 6. Nc3 Nf6 7. Be2 Nxd4 8. Qxd4 Bg7 etc.) it's clear that the author is much more at home talking about broad ideas than specific variations. There is far less analysis here than in the 5. Nc3 chapters, but conceptual points seem to crop up everywhere in the book. Be it playing on colour complexes, the power of central pawn majorities or good Knight vs. bad Bishop endgames, the reader will at least be sure to learn a lot about positional chess, irrespective of which openings they play. Since that is Lalić's forté as a player and a writer, it's hardly surprising that the positional Maróczy Bind gets a more useful treatment than the tactically-orientated 5. Nc3 variations.
So far then, not so bad. However, now I have to turn my attention to the less savoury aspects of the book.
My Kingdom For an Editor
Writing style is not an easy thing to get right - tastes differ. Personally I much prefer the dry but on-point tone of Botvinnik to Lakdawala's florid flights of fantasy; others find the sixth World Champion to be intolerably dull. Of the authors I've read, perhaps Silman and Vuković have found the best compromise between a lively tone and not distracting the reader. Sadly, Lalić goes to Lakdawala's end of the spectrum and beyond, resulting in a work that is at times unreadable. It's not that he can't be elegant; when the focus is on the chess and nothing else the text is very fluid indeed. The problem is an insistence on the most excruciating, long-winded and irrelevant digressions and metaphors, a problem which only seems to get worse as the book goes on. A few choice examples:
"That's an (sic) breathtaking kingside majority, which a weaker man might have thrust impulsively. Though tempting, that would be wrong (if only someone could have given Bill Clinton the same advice in 1995)." (p55).
"13... e5! throws a spanner in the works with tempo, and is even more irritating than when people use speakerphone on trains. My mother does it for every single mobile call; don't give her any leniency just because she's a WGM!" (p74).
"This developing move is surprisingly annoying; even more so than those public restrooms that you have to pay for. Seriously, don't they breach some clause of the Geneva Convention, and who carries change anyway?" (p88).
I could easily go on, but you get my point. If Lakdawala's writing leaves you frothing then you are advised to steer well clear of this one. Clearly it's a concious decision by the author, but nevertheless it is one of many things that calls into question the vigilance of Everyman's editorial team. Quite apart from letting through some of the more tasteless asides ("...as in T. Nguyen Thi Thanh-A. Nguyen T Thanh, Can Tho 2001. In case you were wondering, yes, I did have to turn off my spell-checker a long time ago." [p98]) there are some instances of plain sloppiness - duplicated moves in game scores, more than a few typos, overlooking that Tiviakov is not Russian but Dutch, and so on. All of these things could easily have been avoided.
Final Thoughts:
Some time ago, we wondered why the Accelerated Dragon isn't played more often at elite level given that it seems so satisfactory for black. Though the obvious answer is that the Maróczy Bind is no fun, we actually concluded that the opening's strength is also its weakness - at times it can be too simple, such that when black triumphantly equalises he finds that he can't really play for a win. Does anyone play chess hoping for the black side of 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. c4 d6 6. Nc3 Nf6 7. Be2 Nxd4 8. Qxd4 Bg7 9. Be3 O-O 10. Qd2 Be6 11. Rc1 Qa5 12. f3 Rfc8 13. b3 a6 14. Nd5 Qxd2+ 15. Kxd2 Nxd5 16. cxd5 Bd7 17. Rxc8+ Rxc8 18. Rc1 Rxc1 19. Kxc1 (Petrosian-Spassky, W-Ch Match Game 3, 1969)? Theoretically, black seems to be in pretty good shape everywhere, but it's worth noting that this opening may not be for everyone. Naturally black makes a huge plus score over the 50 games, but a worrying number are decided by gross tactical blunders just after black has failed to prove a convincing opening advantage.
I must confess that when I first heard Peter was writing an opening book for one of the big-name publishers, my immediate reaction was that it was one of the stupidest ideas I'd ever heard. My view has softened, but I still think that if he writes another book it should be on something besides the opening. Not because of his writing style, but because books on the opening are the ones demanding the most academic approach, and from our days at school together this isn't something I would associate with him. A good writer needs an excellent command of the existing work on the topic, a specialist's understanding as well as the ability to convey it, and a coherent organisation of his material. The absence of a bibliography was rather unsettling then - I'm a history undergraduate in my spare time, but surely I am not the only one put out by this (or indeed by the liberal use of unsourced quotations that do little besides pushing up the page count.) After all, just because your blockbuster novelty (of which there are an impressive number in this book) doesn't appear in the databases, it doesn't mean it hasn't been suggested by another author. Even hapless amateurs can discover them sometimes...
Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised to conclude that when this tries to be an unassuming chess book, it actually does fairly well. A few glitches of course, but quite respectable for a first attempt. Where the book falls down is in its attempts to be 'cool' - the resultant mutations of style are totally counterproductive and very offputting. If only the author had followed his own advice and kept things as simple as possible, the verdict could have been an awful lot better. Nevertheless, if this opening interests you, and you can block the prose out better than I can, then in conjunction with other material this could be a useful starting point for a reliable system.
Finis
Well, if that's how I can treat a book written by one of my closest friends, just imagine what I'd be like with a book by an author I'd never heard of! Online reviews are in rather short supply, but I think it's fair to say that no publisher will be sending me a book any time soon. Perhaps that's for the best. But it was an enjoyable exercise (and an enjoyable read) so my thanks to Peter for giving me the book to review.
Next up in my posting schedule, something else that's slightly off the wall: a tactics quiz. I'll be asking: how hard can it be to hold your own in the British Championship?
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