Customer Reviews

How to Beat 1 D4: A Sound and Ambitious Repertoire Based on the Queen's Gambit Accepted

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

'How To Beat 1 d4' is a world-class opening repertoire book! The opening coverage is divided into two sections: Part 1 (roughly two-thirds of the book) features the Queen's Gambit Accepted and Part 2 (roughly one-third of the book) features Queen's Pawn Games (White plays without c4). These openings include the Hodgson Attack (1 d4 d5 2 Bg5), Veresov Opening (1 d5 d5 2 Nc3), London System (1 d4 d5 2 Nf3 Nf6 3 Bf4), King's Fianchetto (1 d4 d5 2 Nf3 Nf6 3 g3), Torre Attack (1 d4 d5 2 Nf3 Nf6 3 Bg5), Colle System (1 d4 d5 2 Nf3 Nf6 3 e3), Stonewall Attack (1 d4 d5 2 e3 Nf6 3 Bd3 c5 4 c3 Nc6 5 f4), and the always-controversial Blackmar-Diemer Gambit (1 d4 d5 2 e4 dxe4 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 f3) - I should point out that this opening absorbs a tremendous beating from Rizzitano's analysis and will send its fans scurrying back to the drawing board.

'How to Beat 1 d4' offers the first comprehensive, authoritative coverage of several of these Queen's Pawn Games by a well-respected titled player - James Rizzitano earned the World Chess Federation International Master title back in the early 1980's. The idea is somewhat similar to an earlier Gambit offering for King's Pawn players - John Emms' excellent 'Play the Open Games as Black'. The difference is that here Rizzitano also covers the Queen's Gambit Accepted as Black versus 1 d4 - Emms' book was directed toward White's attempts to avoid the Ruy Lopez (1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5). The layout of the book is excellent - Gambit has gone with the larger book format and included plentiful diagrams - I think this trend was begun with the earlier Gambit book 'The English Attack' by Tapani Sammalvuo.

Rizzitano is an excellent writer; his earlier Gambit book 'Understanding Your Chess' is very highly-regarded. After reading a few pages of this book it was apparent that this guy is all business - the bibliography is among the most comprehensive I have ever seen in an opening book, and there is also a complete Index of Variations at the end of the book to make it easy to locate a specific line. Rizzitano is not afraid to take on anybody and he backs up his evaluations with variations and good explanations. I also like the fact that he appears to go out of his way to give credit to earlier opening book authors for their ideas. Another nice feature is that there are a lot of correspondence games quoted in this book - this is a big weakness in many other opening books, so it is nice to see that Rizzitano used one of the major electronic correspondence chess databases as one of his game sources.

I think this is one of the best opening books of the young 21st century and I am looking forward to more books by this author. Congratulations to James Rizzitano and Gambit Publications on another excellent book!

Rizzitano's "How to Beat 1 d4" is an example of how opening repetoire books should be written. The reader can tell how meticulously the author approached this work- all the relevant analysis, along with many suggested improvements from the author himself. The book presents the Queen's Gambit Accepted as the centerpiece of the repetoire, and also offers lines against all of White's second-move alternatives. A welcome bonus is analysis of 3 e3 e5 in the QGA, which allows Black to play alternatives such as 4...Bg4 in the main line after 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 e3. A great work.

This is an amazing book, extremely detailed and thorough. It is a totally complete repertoire against 1.d4. I don't know what the last reviewer is talking about. Contrarily, this one of the most complete and thorough opening repertoire books I've ever seen.

This is your road map when white plays 1.d4. Keep in mind that it's a repertoire book, not an instructional manual on how to play every single move in every single position. (But it comes close!) One thing the book lacks is an "Illustrative Games" section. If this is your only reference, then you will need to either find a supplemental book, well annotated QGA games, or a coach to help you work through the positions once the analysis stops.

The good news is that he basically quotes his sources on every book, game fragment, and annotator. If you want to see more, just pull the game up on your computer and have at it. This is a window into a titled player's opening preparation, so be prepared to do some work to digest the material.

I think this is good for players rated 1800+, because it can be an overwhelming amount of material at some points. It is definitely *not* the "Easy Guide" to the QGA.

I am looking forward to seeing more from the meticulously thorough Rizzitano.

I'm an ICCF Master Class player and I recently bought Rizzitano's book "How to beat 1.d4". I ever had problem with black vs 1.d4 and I read with great interest Rizzitano's book. The book was clear, extremely interesting, up to date, with all strategic ideas behind the opening well analysed and explained.

I recently tried the QGA in an ICCF Master Class tournament (EM-M-307) and the result was : +2 =0 -0 that is 100% for the first 2 QGA I ever played!!!!

Compliments to the author: the good result I get in the tournament is fully due to his book!!!

Dr.Mauro Marchisotti, Torino, Italy

This book is divided into three parts. Part 1 consists of queen gambit accepted lines which not include the classical variation, part 2 handles the classical variation and part 3 handles openings where white do not follow up with c4 (Colle, London, Veresov, etc.)

Rizzitano handles the 3 parts very differently. While the classical variation is very deeply explained (as for 2300 players), Rizzitano handles for instance the Torre Attack more lightly (as for 1700 players).

So this book is not for ordinary club players. In many positions where white has more than just one alternative, Rizzitano often just describe just one alternative. The other alternatives may be less attractive, but for an ordinary club player who plays black, it is not easy to understand why. This book is full of variations and variations. Rizzitano surely knows how to use a chess database. But I miss some informative text, and not just variations after words like: Alternatives:, then:, now:, White has some alternatives here:, Let's examine: When someone write "Let's examine" I want some explanation text, not just variations. I believe it may be difficult for a normal chess player to benefit 100% from this book, without doing his one opening description from this book.

So I will not recommend this book for players rated below 2000.

What I also miss in this book is a more specific description of strategically ideas about each variant and some complete games showing when these strategically ideas are successful.

Missing a couple of critical lines that Black should be aware of.

Of course, all the initial analysis through the earlly stages of the ooening is spot-on, but at that nebulous threshold between the end of an opening and the onset of a full-blown middle game, this book serves the function of dropping us off at a couple of key (and very complex) intersections with a map that does not show all the avaliable roads that can be taken. Of course, this is not an real big deal if these are options for our side (the good guys!-- it is a repertoire book afterall), but when these options are important (and powerful) moves that are opponent can spring, and they are not even mentioned, it makes me wonder what the full intent of the author really was.

Don't get me wrong, I like this book, and if the player with the white pieces cooperatively stays within the confines of the repertoire proffered, Black is doing fine. But for a volume of this size and reputation, I was disappointingly surprising to see it completely overlooks some key lines that Black will probably see OTB.

I never could have played the following game without this book. I haven't checked it out with my computer and maybe it wasn't perfect but I feel I finally understand how to play the QGA now, thanks to James Rizzitano.

Event "ICC 15 0"]

[Site "Internet Chess Club"]

[Date "2012.02.15"]

[Round "-"]

[White "Eliasroberto"]

[Black "korbindallas"]

[Result "0-1"]

[ICCResult "White resigns"]

[WhiteElo "1887"]

[BlackElo "1853"]

[Opening "QGA: classical, Rubinstein variation"]

[ECO "D27"]

[NIC "QG.07"]

[Time "09:23:08"]

[TimeControl "900+0"]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Bxc4 c5 6. O-O a6 7. a4 Nc6 8.

Nc3 Be7 9. Ba2 cxd4 10. exd4 Nb4 11. Bc4 O-O 12. Bg5 Nfd5 13. Bxe7 Nxe7 14.

Ne5 b6 15. Qf3 Rb8 16. Rad1 Bb7 17. Qg4 Ned5 18. Nxd5 Bxd5 19. b3 b5 20.

axb5 axb5 21. Bxd5 Qxd5 22. Qf3 Qxf3 23. Nxf3 Rbc8 24. Ra1 Nd5 25. Ra5 b4

26. Rc5 h6 27. Rfc1 Ra8 28. Ne5 Ra3 29. Rb1 Nc3 30. Re1 Rxb3 31. Nc4 Ne2+

32. Kf1 Nxd4 33. Rd1 Nf5 34. Nd2 Rc3 35. Rb5 Rd8 36. Rxb4 Rcd3 37. Ke1 R8d4

38. Rbb1 Nh4 39. g3 Rxd2 40. Rxd2 Nf3+ {White resigns} 0-1

Gambit Publishers has found a new way to turn out their famous (or

infamous) database dumps : it's using Chernev's Logical Chess Move by Move approach. The only difference is that instead of explaining every move, Rizzitano dumps some 5 or 6 games after every move! Verbal explanations are few and far between, trees ( or perhaps I should say forests ) abound. It's extremely easy to get lost. No pun intended but you can't see the forest for the trees here. If you read Yermolinsky's book Chess Explained : Classical Sicilian (Gambit

too) you'll see that the author gives you a very important clue: he said that when he started his career he had very little use for openings books! That's it. Gambit books -- without exception -- are like that -- good for nothing. If you want to play the QGA, you'll have to paddle your own canoe, because the Starting Out book on it is another piece of garbage. From now on I'll be following Capablanca's sage advice in his book Last Lectures: leave the openings alone and concentrate on endings. It'll pay off eventually.

When somebody tells you that he plays the Rimsky variation of the Korsakoff defense, don't fret : he's probably developing a knight to f6!!!