Customer Reviews

The Scandinavian

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had to write this review after seeing what had been written below by other reviewers.

The Scandinavian is one of the few lines were understanding piece placement and typical themes can get you thru most of the lines. OF course, some lines are sharp, but that is why you get an opening book - to have an idea what the typical GM plans/moves are.

The line that people have given with Ne4 is not close to a test of the Scandinavian - no GM would seriously play it against a peer.

THe key to learning an opening like the Scandi is to know the typical ideas that are common within the pawn structure and with specific piece placements. GM Emms does this very well - I learned some tactical patterns after repeated use and study of the Icelandic Gambit and the attacking themes in it. He also explains the key idea of the Scandi - light square domination - and stresses it wherever it occurs.

I think the book is theoretically correct in the mainlines. Some of the sidelines are not as well explained or analyzed - but I think that will be a failing in any book where a GM has to look thru many games. Emms does recommend new moves on occasion, though since I'm not a chess magazine subscriber, I'm unsure how much of his material is new or original.

However, for anyone who wants to understand the Scandinavian, you can do much worse than buy this book. Just playing over all the games in a chapter gives you an idea of what goes on in that line. A lot of credit goes to the opening and its simple (if you can say that about chess) nature, but credit must also be given to the writer for his selection of games and his explanations of thematic ideas.

This book is hard to rate. I would have given it 5 stars from the White side, 3 stars (if that) from the Black side. I have played this line from both sides, and the main problem with the book is, as mentioned in a previous review, it lacks a lot of the deviations white can play. In order to master the White side of the Scandinavian, one doesn't have to know all the deviations, just needs a sound system to play against it. Black, however, must know what to do if a player deviates, such as that 6.Ne4 mentioned in a previous review, or in my case, I used to play the scandinavian with 2...Nf6, and 3.Nc3 isn't even mentioned, though played constantly. If it's going to cover the caro-kann panov, it should also cover the Scandinavian/Alekhine hybrid. What is good that is he isn't biased toward one side, like many opening books are. Definitely worth getting if you need something to beat that annoying Center-Counter, but if you are looking to play it as black, it's not a "bad" book, but it's far from complete, and you would need another source to fill all the gaps.

Like the other books of this series, the book provides a far from complete coverage of the opening. Especially the Scandinavian gambits require a much deeper analysis. However, the book consists of a large number of well commented games from recent tournaments. The fundamental ideas behind the Scandinavian are explained quite nicely and each chapter is concluded with a useful summary. This book is a good basis for those who want to start playing the Scandinavian.

Ok, I know that some of the reviewers have said that the book is incomplete in that it lacks some of the lines frequently played by White. I guess so, but I don't come across those lines frequently on the internet or in rated over the board events. True, Emms does not cover all the lines. You can fault him for that, but I don't think it is possible to cover all the White (I play the Black side of the Scandinavian, never White's as I play 1. d4 as White)possiblities in a book of this scope. This book is obviously designed to get you playing the Scandi reasonably well in a short period of time. Emms covers the main lines, the most likely deviations and covers the ideas and plans behind those lines. This book is for club players who need a reasonable defense to 1. e4. I will go on to say that even club players would most likely want to follow up with another book on the Scandi to fill in the gaps. I guess that I collect chess books so getting another does not bother me.
Now, about the opening. What I like about the Scandi is that at the club level, Black is more likely to have a better idea of what is going on that White. I used to play the Sicilian Dragon. In my opinion, not a good idea for club players. I have better results with the Scandi because I have a more open game with more play for my pieces. Maybe I just played the Dragon poorly, but I have never regretted switching.

I think this is the chess book to get if you want the Scandinavian to be your main defence against 1 e4. And this is indeed my main defence, so much so that I feel I could almost write a book on "My Life as a Scandinavian."

For the record, I play and recommend the following lines for Black:

1 e4 d5 2 ed Nf6 3 c4 e6 (the Icelandic Gambit) 4 de (4 d4 ed 5 Nc3 Bb4) Be6 5 Nf3 (5 d4 Bb4+ 6 Bd2 Bd2+) Qe7 6 Qe2 Nc6 7 d4 Bg4

1 e4 d5 2 ed Nf6 3 Bb5+ Bd7 4 Bc4 Bg4 5 f3 Bf5 6 Nc3 Nbd7

1 e4 d5 2 ed Nf6 3 Nc3 Nd5 4 Bc4 Nb6 5 Bb3 Nc6 6 Nf3 e5

1 e4 d5 2 ed Nf6 3 d4 Nd5 4 c4 Nb6 5 Nf3 Bg4 6 Be2 (6 c5 N6d7) Nc6

1 e4 d5 2 Nc3 de 3 Ne4 Bf5

1 e4 d5 2 e5 c5

1 e4 d5 2 d4 (Blackmar Gambit) de 3 Nc3 Nf6

1 e4 d5 2 Nf3 (trying for a Budapest Reversed?) de 3 Ng5 Bf5 4 Bc4 e6 5 Nc3 Nf6

Still, if you want to rely on this opening for Black, you ought to read some other books as well. Here are a few I recommend:

Skandinavisch und Jugoslawisch (Schwartz, 1969)
The Chess Opening for You (Evans, 1975)
Center Counter (Grefe and Silman, 1983)
Winning With the Scandinavian (Harman and Taulbut, 1993)

You probably ought to look at the recent book, "The Scandinavian Defence" by Plaskett too.

In any case, I recommend the present book by Emms. It contains 72 analyzed games, 47 of which are from 1998 or later. It definitely presents a modern assessment of this defence.

I would give the content of this book 3 stars, but since it's much better than Plaskett's effort on the same topic, I give it 4.
Too much emphasis on variations and move orders (sometimes the author will have you flipping pages and you can get lost in the maze of transpositions).
Also, I have the impression the book is written from white's point of view. This is especially visible in the short section on the Qd6 variation, where the author shows how black can quickly get into trouble without providing any improvements.
Be aware also that the book is centered around the Qa5 and Nf6 main lines, with only a few pages devoted to Qd6. So if you only play the Qd6 line, there's very little here for you.

John Emms' second edition of the Scandinavian is an expanded version of the first edition,organized in the same way.
As is normal for the Everyman format, lines are presented as complete games,with a variation index at chapter's end.Personally I like this format.
Chapters have (in my opinion) a useful introduction, plus again in my opinion Emms is objective about results.
In this edition an expanded coverage of the Panov Attack is included, thus filling a gap from the first edition.
In gneral I would say 2...Qxd5 gets more attention than 2...Nf6,and in 2...Qxd5 only 3...Qa5 is paid much attention to as an answer to 3.Nc3.
My only reason for not awarding 5 stars is I wish for a better treatment of transpositions in the main line. For example,1.e4,d5 2.exd5,Qxd5 3. Nc3,Qa5 4.d4,Nf6 5.Nf3,c6 6.Bc4,Bf5 is "main line",according to Emms, and in the above 5...Bg4 is labeled inferior. {chapter 3). But also (game 16) in the above 6...Bg4 is labeled "seems to give Bk an inferior version of the mainline",altho perhaps justified now that White will not fianchetto his KB.Finally,in chapter 4 after 1.e4,d5 2.exd5,Qxd5 3.Nc3,Qa5 4.Nf3,Nf6 5.Bc4 the move 5...Bg4 (game 28) is described as the suspected "best answer".Of course here 6.d4 would transpose the best answer to the inferior version. As a result one is left in doubt regarding Bk's QB development. (or at least I am).Or in general the move order choices in the first half dozen moves of the 2...Qxd5 line.
Still, overall I find the book well-written and a very good reference for the Scandinavian.

This is the best "English" book on the Scandinavian. Emms gives a good overview over the most important part of this opening. Studying opening theory in Scandinavian deeply may be neglected, because many believe that this opening is easier to understand than other openings. That's wrong, Scandinavian is full of tactical possibilities and especially for white (discovered attack on the queen, d5 breakthrough, attack the Scandinavian bishop with g4, strong knight on e5, pawn storm on both kingside and queenside etc). Black has to deal with all this threats and more. Emms manage to explain all this quite well (1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5), though I miss more positional evaluation for Black from Emms in several variants. And when I read this book I get the impression that several variants actually are very dangerous for black (for instance a white setup in the "1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5" variant, with Bc4, d3, etc) when Black has to play very carefully. Emms has trouble managing to comfort the black player with clear advice how to meet all the treats from white. So this book is more an opening book on the Scandinavian, than a repertoire book for black.

There are written few books about Scandinavian. Andrew Martin has written "The Essential Center Counter: A Practical Guide for Black", which indeed have some value for Scandinavian players, but has a rather chaotic layout with some errors in text and diagrams, it is also rather thin book with large font. You should stay away from Plaskett's "The Scandinavian Defence", which is just a book with a lot of Scandinavian Games, with very poor instructive comments. Plaskett never manage to layout neither the tactical ideas nor the positional ideas in Scandinavian with this book (1 star).

Scandinavian is a fun opening, and I hope one day there will be an English translation of Wahls "Modernes Skandinavisch Band 2", which is the Scandinavian bible, very instructive, an unusal opening book.

Every time I play the Scandinavian, I'm taken out of this book by 1.e4 d5 2.ed5 Qd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Bd2 c6 6.Ne4 ... . The positions following this line aren't bad, but they're thematically much different than the main lines, and not as easy to play for black. White's game plays itself. In any case, more coverage of early deviations would have been nice.

If you are looking for a book on the 2...Nf6 Scandinavian, this is not it, as 2...Qxd5 steals the lion's share of the attention. The 60 pages devoted to the principal lines of 2...Nf6 is simply inadequate. Underscoring the fact that 2...Nf6 plays second fiddle, the author's attention to general overall observations (and how welcomed a small offering of prose can be in efforts of this sort) and unusual early move variants is almost exclusively focussed on 2...Qxd5. The author also presumes that every opponent will know the first dozen moves or so of theory for every 2...Nf6 line, and information to aid Black in punishing weaker White responses is lacking. Having said all that, I'm not aware of much in the way of satisfying alternatives. There is a monograph on the Portuguese Variation, but there are a lot of other lines, including reasonably intuitive lines, throughout the 2...Nf6 tree that appear to have escaped being the subject of any significant inquiry in Emms' book or elsewhere.