Grandmaster Repertoire is a new series of high quality chess books based on the main lines, written by strong grandmasters. The aim is to provide the reader with a complete repertoire at a level good enough for elite tournaments, and certainly also for the club championship. Grandmaster Repertoire provides a repertoire to last a lifetime. Mihail Marin's reputation as a chess author is unsurpassed. In this book he reveals his own white repertoire with the English Opening. The theory is state-of-the-art with many novelties suggested, but most useful of all are Marin's lucid explanations of how to play the resulting positions.
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About the Author
Mihail Marin is a grandmaster from Romania. His previous books for Quality Chess have established him as one of the world's finest chess authors.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
English with g3 vs 1...e5,
By Fx3 (California, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Grandmaster Repertoire 3 - The English Opening vol. 1 (Paperback)
Despite Marin's formidable reputation as a chess writer, this is my first book by this author. I can now say that his fame is well-deserved. Marin writes with great clarity and thoroughness, and his understanding of the subject is terrific. I give this book my highest recommendation, but read on to see if this masterpiece is appropriate for you.
Let me start with some notes about the opening system that is the focus of Marin's book. I play the English with g3 regularly, and I am quite satisfied with this opening. This approach to the English is rather positional, with most lines achieving small but long-term pressure on the Black position. In general, there is a lack of early contact, which avoids simplification and results in rich middlegames where both sides have a wide range of possible plans. Given the lack of tactical melee in the opening, the play normally relies on understanding typical structures, avoiding the memorization of variations to a large degree. This same claim is often made by the authors of opening manuals to lure club players, but I can guarantee that it is true in this case. My main source for this opening so far has been Kosten's The Dynamic English : The aggresive player's guide to a traditional chess opening, which has aged remarkably well. It is also critical to point out that the English with g3 as interpreted by Kosten and Marin is a strategically ambitious system, that strives to achieve a significant positional advantage against every Black reply. As a result, the White player must master a large number of pawn structures and associated plans, with plenty of examples of subtle play and hypermodern counterattacks against the Black center. To be frank, I have found this difficult to digest, despite some hard work looking for related games and multiple readings Kosten's book. I cannot recommend the English with g3 as a quick fix of your repertoire with White, as Black has many choices and White has to avoid many positional pitfalls to reach a good position. I learnt to play the Colle/Stonewall Attack much faster for example, and I sometimes miss all those rapid King side attacks against unprepared opponents. Here is where Marin's book reveals itself as a phenomenal contribution. There are two things that really shine in Marin's writing. First, he bothers to explain with words many moves that are difficult to understand for the average club player. Second, he often examines every legal (and sensible) reply by Black, which gives me great confidence in his choices and makes it very clear how to utilize the general ideas to obtain a concrete advantage. Given the subject matter, such a presentation is priceless. My heavy use in the last two weeks since I received this volume has lead me to many new insights in difficult variations that I could never understand from Kosten alone. To go over the contents more in detail, this volume focuses on 1...e5. It is divided in 8 main parts and 33 chapters. The first two parts explore the early Bishop developments Bc5 and Bb4. In the former, I was pleasantly surprised by the delay of e3 and a3, which I never found fully convincing in Kosten's. Marin's d3 favors faster development and it is probably easier to play. The next part focuses on the Botvinnik, and Marin does an excellent job explaining this system. The Botvinnik is the cornerstone of the repertoire, being the primary way to tackle King's Indian structures with e5, and it is far more difficult to play than most players think. Next comes the Reserve Sicilian, where Marin chooses 5. Nc3. My results with Kosten's Nf3 are so good that I haven't examined this part yet. The remaining material looks at the Keres, the accelerated Keres and some minor lines. I was eagerly waiting for Marin's take on the accelerated Keres, which featured as a refutation of the English with g3 in Palliser's Dangerous Weapons: Flank Openings: Dazzle Your Opponents!. Marin's logical and incredibly thorough analysis of these lines is well worth the price of the whole book. I also would like to mention the production qualities of this outstanding book. It is simply a pleasure to stare at the pages, which employ a very readable two-column layout in a pleasant serif font. Main lines and variations are always easy to distinguish, and no page feels crammed or underutilized. Almost every page has two or three diagrams, and the use of slightly smaller variation diagrams is a very nice touch. Overall, Quality Chess fully honors its own name with this edition.
31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply fascinating,
By top opening reviewer (Texas) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Grandmaster Repertoire 3 - The English Opening vol. 1 (Paperback)
The Grandmaster Reportoire series hold arguably the best opening books ever written. Tony Kosten, Jeremy Silman, and John Donaldson all confirm this. The 2nd Volume ( of both The English and 1. d4 works) will be released Jan. 27 2010.
Comparing the reviews of both the 1. c4 and 1. d4 reportires, I noticed one big difference. Grandmaster Reportire 1. d4 Vol. 1 seemed to clearly be written for players 1900+ which is fine, the target audience for this series is definitely for advanced players and Boris (the author of Grandmaster Reportoire 1. d4) assumes one has been playing 1. d4 or skilled enough to know what to do in the positions. Not a whole lot of plan discussions in that book. BTW the 1. d4 book is excellent. It has totally revolutionized 1. d4 theory and has given the black side maximum difficulties to work out. You just can't beat superb anaylisis of a super theoretical opening. Now on to Marin's book Grandmaster Reportoire 1. c4 Vol. 1 (AKA The English Opening). This book is unfathomable. Marin's anaylisis is completely new and original, he has also busted theoretical variations that were previously thought to have been good for black. Do you want an example that will give you chills? Take a look at this: 1.c4 e5 2.g3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg2 Bc5 5. Nf3 d6 6. d3 0-0 7. 0-0 a6 8. a3 Ba7 9. b4 Bg4 ok so far this is standard theory, its called the Karpov Variation for black... the tactics that follow will require the use of a chess board, unless you can do it in your head (yeah right!) 10. Bg5!- a theoretical novelty the author discovered, the old move was 10. h3 10...h6 11. Bh4 Nd4 12. Ne4 g5 13. Nfxg5!! (a queen sacrifice!) I don't want to spoil the rest of the analysis for you but white will build a devastating attack. And there's fresh, original, and bone chilling analysis like that all over the book. The analysis in here has not only shattered concepts about the english opening, but completely redefined its theory. Not only that but the author takes his time to deeply explain the position, including plans, tactics, issues, key maneuvers, and imbalances. The author also states why a psoiton is +/= or vice versa. This is a godsend to the average club player. All in all, what more can you ask for? A Grandmaster's reportire has been made available to us mere mortals. A deep study of this book while not only improve your rating, but your understanding of chess will skyrocket. Reccommended for players 1500 all the way to GM The 1. d4 reportoire is on equal grounds with this book but with a little less emphasis on explanations. Cannot wait for Vol. 2 which will include everything except 1...e5 which is the subject of Vol. 1 Please rate if this review was helpful.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely awesome,
By Jeremy "Metal bigot" (United States) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Grandmaster Repertoire 3 - The English Opening vol. 1 (Paperback)
This book as with every Marin book I've read(4 total) is absolutely exceptional. If anybody exemplifies the publisher's(Quality Chess) name it is Marin.
This is not your typical book full of computer lines and tons and tons and tons of games that just want to help you memorize lines book. This book helps you LEARN the ideas and thus the lines. You can tell Marin put a lot of hard work and thought into this book, it just shows. The explanations are lucid and clear(1530 USCF). He rarely if ever leaves you hanging with a variation with simply "White is better", he tells you WHY White or Black is better even if it is a simple comment. As I read through the book I kept having questions like "Yeah, but what if they do X" and then a few paragraphs, pages, or maybe a chapter later he covered it!! Everytime. This is a true repertoire book, he covers it all, but it is not over-whelming. I loved reading this book, feel my knowledge of the English and just chess in general improved because of it and I absolutely can't wait for the next two volumes to complete the repertoire. I guarantee when all three volumes are out, this will be the absolute definitive collection on the English opening for a very long time. BUY THIS BOOK.
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