The Gambit Guide to the Modern Benoni - download book

   The project before you, like so many investigations in the chess world, has proven full of surprises. As often happens with authors, I have been struck by how theory, incredibly deep in some lines, is superficial or just wrong in many areas. We tend to assume that everything is more or less worked out in established openings, but that is perhaps a confusion between the great mass of games, which often don't signify much, and the best moves. It turns out that much of the Modern Benoni is still unexplored territory.

   This is a repertoire book for Black, which means that instead of trying to cover the opening as a whole, Black is provided a set of suggested lines. The drawback to such a book is its lack of comprehensiveness; its advantages are in attention to detail and in the discipline it imposes upon the author. That is, the author is responsible for specific lines of play, and to the extent that it is practical, should not ignore any reasonable move by White, whether or not it has been played or discussed.

   My method has been to offer the reader a first, second and occasionally third system against the most critical and popular variations. Thus if one line fails due to a theoretical development, or if it doesn't appeal to you, there's another option or two to look into. The majority of older or lesser variations are dealt with in the same fashion, although there are some exceptions. In most cases, the first suggested repertoire system is a more established strategy, whereas the second repertoire system tends (with very important exceptions) to be somewhat lesser known, less theoretical, and in many cases, more fun. I have also analysed or simply mentioned further options for Black in the notes to these proposed systems.

   The Benoni was my first defence, inspired by the play of the great Mikhail Tal. Other world champions such as Spassky and Fischer used the Benoni only sporadically, but the early Kasparov had it as his main weapon. The best-known contemporary Benoni players and theoreticians are probably Psakhis, Kapengut, Nunn, Suba and Topalov. A selective list of other players who have strongly contributed to its theory would include Suetin, Velimirovic, de Firmian, D.Gurevich, Sax, Ljubojevic, Matulovic, Pigusov, Lobron, Magerramov, Marin, Shabalov, Kindermann, Y.Grunfeld, A.Schneider, Yudasin, Spraggett, Wahls, Wedberg and Emms. My apologies to the other deserving names I have left off this list.

   Enjoy this book, and have fun with your Benoni adventures!

Author: Watson John
Title: "The Gambit Guide to the Modern Benoni"
Released: 2001
Format: djvu
Quality: good
Number of pages: 208
Size: 2 Mb