Customer Reviews

Play the Queen's Gambit (Cadogan Chess Books)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book covers the QGD, the Slav, and the Semi-SLav, and does so in a highly instructive, readable manner. It is a great book, easy to follow, jam-packed with practical tips and strategies. This book is never far from my reach. The collection of games (Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe, Kasparov, Karpov, Petrosian, etc.) it presents is phenomenal. Marovic is the best at picking games to annotate, and really explainaing what happened. Great index at the back.

This is a meaty (370 pages) and instructive book. It is a complete chess intructional course in itself; that is how good Marovic's explanations of concepts are. Everything about this book is wonderful. There is only one small quibble I have with it; that is, although Marovis is telling you to play the Queen's Gambit, about 90% of the games in the book are wins by white. Of course, normally black made a mistake at some point after the opening, and Marovic annotates these moments well; however, it does not inspire confidence if you just look at the wins and losses in the book. That aside, this is the best book on the Queen's Gambit, and I have Sadler's book and Polugayevsky's too.

In my opinion, this is Marovic's best work. It is laid out extremely well; for instance, each game has in bolface the spot where moves differ from the previous game. Also, it considers all the variations that I run into in practice. I love that it includes the Slav and Semi-Slav too. True, it does not include the QGA. But for the Queen's Gambit Declined, it is the best book in extistence. perhaps not for Kasparov, because it is heavy on textual explanations, and does not drwon you in variations. This is a wonderful book, and is my favorite openings book. Marovic's book on the King's Indian is great too, but this one has a special magic.

This book has more to do with understanding closed games found in queen's gambit declined rather than a repretoire book. The book gives you a brief thumbnail sketch as to what to expect and why when you play those closed systems. This book gives some of the best background material found for these lines. Although not as detailed as Mednis, Marovic has a very accessable style that betrays him to have a soul of a good chess trainer as seen in his more recent books Dyanamic Pawn Play. All and all a very worthwhile addition for the queen pawn player.

This is an excellent book for someone who plays the 2...e6 Queen's Gambit Declined, the Slav Defense, or the Semi-Slav Defense, (Especially when you are just beginning to learn openings, since this book isn't full of overwhelming theory, like John Nunn's books can be, but rather over 150 lightly-annotated complete games). The only bad part about it is that it's 9 years old at this point, and theory changes. For example, in the Botvinnik Variation of the Semi-Slav, some new ideas have come out in the '90s that wouldn't be in this book. Even so, I got this book in 1995 when I started studying openings, and I still refer to it at times today.

I originally purchased this book looking for a nice introduction to an opening i knew little about, mainly the Queen's Gambit Accepted lines. I couldn't find anything locally, so i ordered over the internet even though there were no reviews for it. I got the opposite of what i was looking for however: practically every main variation of the Declined systems (1.d4 d5, 2.c4 e6) and Slav (2.c4 c6), but nothing on how to readily take advantage of 1.d4 d5, 2.c4 dxc4 with the lesser player as Black attempting to hold onto the proffered pawn. Don't get me wrong, this is a good book with over 360 pages of material. It's helpful to both sides who get involved with the Declined and Slav systems. I rarely saw those lines however when i bought the book around 4 years ago because i was facing 'coffee house' players for the most part and i wasn't looking to play those variations as Black either, as it didn't appeal to me. What i needed at the time was a way to punish Black for accepting the Gambit and setting up an a6 and b5 pawn structure, attempting to hold on to the extra pawn. Also a way as Black to play the Accepted variation, how to know when to give the pawn back, while developing correctly and letting my natural ability win. So if you're looking for symmetrical Queen's pawn systems that are closed or 'stodgy' as one writer wrote concerning the Queen's Gambit Declined or Slav, i do recommend this book if you can't find anything more recent.

I've taken up the task recently of offering reviews for all the Chess books i've amassed for this very reason: to let the unwary know what exactly they are getting before making a purchase over the internet. This was a... mistake that i had made, even though at some point i would become interested in what this book had to offer. My position now is to NEVER purchase a book over the internet unless it has some form of review, unless the title is much more descriptive and i've researched it a little better using Modern Chess Openings or Batsford Chess Openings. I don't know what the ratio is for strong club players who know exactly what they're looking for compared to the beginner or novice who needs a little advice that visit Amazon looking for Chess books, i can only relate my experiences and i'm sure there are a few out there who could use this practical advice before spending their hard earned money.