Форум о компьютерных шахматах

For whatever this may be worth ..... here's a review that I wrote on Kaufman's text, at another chess site I belong to :

" Hopeing not to sound too boastful, but since delving into Larry's suggested repertoire in this CABW, I've managed to begin winning against more of my opponents' 1.e4 games. I particularly enjoy his style of writing, which for me is important when deciding whether to purchase a chess text, regardless of the subject matter. I tend to prefer those chess texts that are more verbose, as opposed to those having reams of unexplained variations. This book fits that bill.

A major premise in Mr. Kaufman's suggested repertoire is the use of what he terms 'second best' defense variations, i.e. those not necessarily the most popular in recent grandmaster play, but as he shows you, are capable of achieving respectable results without the hugh amount of memorization often required when persuing the latest lines. Kaufman's idea is that sometimes "second best" is actually the right choice when there's a small difference in value and a big difference in cost. The "best" line (as defined by its popularity at the highest levels and its results) may score 55% and take 100 hours to learn, whereas the "second best" line may score 54.5% but only take 15 hours to learn (usually because it's more forcing and the opponent has fewer viable responses that you must learn lines against). That small difference in scoring is virtually meaningless below the GM level (and barely significant even there). The fact that it's still regularly played at the top levels, scores well, and is relatively easy to learn is why Kaufman made it his recommendation.

Kaufman used Fritz, Hiarcs, and Junior to analyze each line and finds improvements in most of them, so that a slightly lower score is likely to be improved upon. His rep. is basically just a composite of the reps. of several top GM's. Mickey Adams is the player who plays more of it than anyone else, but much of it came from the reps of Kramnik, Kasparov, Svidler, Grischuk, and Bologan. The White side of Kaufman's rep. is a bit work, since you have to learn lines against all Black's defenses to 1.e4, but still VERY well done.

This really is more than just a typical repertoire book. You'll learn a ton about how to analyze a position and what constitutes an advantage and how to play for one. I've seen a lot of rep. books, but think this is the best one by far. More than 250 well-annotated example games covering all reasonable replies by the opponent, and all the ideas are well-explained. "