An Opening Repertoire for the Positional Player

Book excerpt: One of the hardest tasks faced by competitive chess players is the development of an opening repertoire suited to their own style of play. As in their companion volume An Opening Repertoire for the Attacking Player (also translated by Ken Neat), the authors provide a refined and thoroughly up-to-date opening program, this time selecting variations of a more positional nature. For example, this title includes practical repertoire based on 1 e4 as White and the Classical Sicilian and King's Indian Defenses as Black. It concentrates on solid and reliable lines of play and provides an easy-to-learn explanation of the typical plans and ideas. Eduard Gufeld is one of the most popular and widely traveled grandmasters, and is known throughout the world as a coach, opening theoretician, journalist and author. Nikolai Kalinichenko, author of more than 30 chess books, holds the International Master title in correspondence chess and enjoys a growing reputation as a specialist in opening theory.