Steamrolling the Sicilian: Play for a Win with 5.f3!

There are lots of games, but little explanation of the basic strategy. An advanced player would probably love it, but for an average player it is better to explain the key ideas and use the games as an illustration.

Excellent

Short version: James Wheeler hit the nail on the head. I am rated US 2350, but/and I also found the explanations to be shy.Longer version: On the whole, I'm glad I have the book. From a non-chess perspective, I enjoy the author's sense of humor and numerous asides (though I can sympathize with folks who may not. IMO, Kasparov keeps the asides brief enough, but it's a matter of taste). He has a nice conversational tone. From the chess perspective, there are pros and cons.Pros: 1) The biggest pro is that the author is himself a practitioner of what he recommends. I believe very strongly in practicing what you preach (or preaching what you practice, to be more precise). It's tempting to sit back from the fray and pontificate, but in my experience material produced by folks like that unsurprisingly shows a tendency to omit practically useful information. 2) The Najdorf is a major roadblock (possibly THE major roadblock) to a 1.e4 player. What to do against it? There's just no satisfactory solution. This book gives a glimpse into a sturdy reply, one where concepts count more than theory. 3) To my knowledge, it's the lengthiest exposition of the move 5.f3.Cons: The lack of explanations is not, I think, merely a matter of taste; rather, I think Sergey sometimes omits sufficient discussion of objectively key material. Let's head straight to his chapter "The Main Line 6...Be6", for an example. On p. 86, he begins his examination of the line 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.f3 e5 6.Nb3 Be6 7.c4 Nbd7 8.Be3 Rc8 9.Na3. Now, he writes that "this piece is usually bad on the edge of the board. However, afterwards White can launch the knight on different routes...How realistic this is, you may judge by the fragments given below". Here are some points that he neglects to mention that I think are important: 1) the knight on b3 is also badly placed. What should White do about it? 2) After 9...a6 10.Be2 Be7 11.0-0 0-0 12.Qd2 Ne8, he mentions that Black is preparing "standard counterplay" with f5. But after 13.Na5 b6 14.Nb3 g6 (these moves are explained, from his game w/ Turov on p.87), he's mum about why Black doesn't play 14...f5 straightaway. It's not that obvious, IMO, why 14...g6 is necessary preparation. 3) Continuing a bit further, 15.Rac1 f5 16.exf5 gxf5 17.f4 Nef6 18.Bf3 Nc5. This move passes without any comment, but doesn't it seem dubious? Well, it might have seemed more dubious if SK had emphasized that White's knight on b3 is badly placed too. Since this opening is strategic in nature, a more thorough discussion of the value of various minor pieces relative to each other, and the value of potential trades, would be nice. Also, what is the impact of the pawn structure on the evaluation of the position? If I were writing this, I'd say something like: "given the pawn structure, a major-piece-only ending favors Black; Black compensates his inferior pawn structure with dynamic minor piece play". If that's the logic, then 18...Nc5 looks even more unreasonable. A move much more in the spirit of the position seems 18...Ne4, challenging White to trade his good bishop; while the d7 knight can reroute to f6, supporting kingside aspirations. Meanwhile, the knight on b3 (and a3) remains clearly bad. 4) Returning to that quote of his on p.86: can we properly judge from the fragments whether the bad knights can realistically reposition themselves? Well, the game SK presents right after that comment is Ivanchuk-Sebag, where Sebag quickly and inexplicably trades the b3 knight, and Ivanchuk succeeds in repositioning the a3 knight. But SK omits mention that White's problems with his bad knights went away thanks to a) Sebag trading the b3 knight and b) the fact that Sebag doesn't go for the "standard counterplay" against White's center. Instead, SK transitions immediately and wordlessly from the Ivanchuk game to his own game against Turov, where Black does indeed play a quick f5. The catch is that when Black plays the standard counterplay (quick f5) plan, White doesn't seem to have time to reposition his bad knights. It's probably unintentional on SK's part, but it's as if he uses the Ivanchuk game to convince his readers that the knights aren't actually a problem, then wordlessly transitions to a game where Black goes for the kingside play and could have left White with 2 sitting duck knights while he built his attack. Turov neglected to do this, but IMO SK should say what White is supposed to do about these knights (and the mounting kingside initiative, for that matter!) if Black had left them be on the queenside.Sorry if I rambled a bit in the review, but hope it helps you make your decision.

GM Sergey Kasparov, the author of my favorite book on the Benko Gambit, has written another fun and helpful introduction to a promising opening sideline. This time he recommends 5. f3 as a positional, space-grabbing way to gain a persistent advantage against those tactics-hungry afficionados of Sicilian variations that begin with 2...d6. One of the virtues of this approach is that it often facilitates an early c4 by white, which can slow down black's counterplay in the center and on the queenside for a long time.To be clear, Kasparov does not provide any ideas for combating Sicilian variations with other second moves, like 2...Nc6 (Sveshnikov, Kalashnikov, Accelerated Dragon), 2...e6 (Taimanov, Paulsen, Kan) and the rare 2...a6 (O'Kelly). Nevertheless this book can address a large area of the white 1. e4 repertoire, so it should be worth your while. In the chesstempo.com game database the 1...c5 2. Nf3 d6 variations constitute about 40% of the Sicilians, are almost as common as the open game (1....e5), and are more common than any other response to 1. e4 (French, Caro-Kann, Pirc, etc.).Kasparov explains the themes and move orders of 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. f3 in the context of 167 annotated games with titled players. Kasparov is a long-time practitioner of this move order and includes 42 of his own games. Other champions of the white side in the annotated games include Ivanchuk, Naiditsch, Short, Ponomariov, Nisipeanu, Judit Polgar, Moiseenko, Leko, Anand, Tal, and Timman. Kasparov also analyzes white's options after 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Nf6, in case your opponent should try to side-step your preparation with a sideline of his own.While Kasparov favors the "learn from the games" approach over the "memorize these moves" approach, he does sprinkle in some pointers for the player of the white pieces. For example, after 5....e5 he advocates the positional 6. Nb3 rather than allowing the dynamic pawn sacrifice 6. Bb5+ Nbd7 7. Nf5 d5!? Kasparov also provides 30 puzzles/exercises (about 8 per section), which provide a very useful, interactive way to learn the material.Kasparov's droll sense of humor turns what could be a laborious study task into a genuine pleasure. Sometimes his wit helps you learn an important part of the material, such as the usefulness of the pawn sacrifice 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Nf6 4. Bb5+ Bd7 5. Bxd7+ Qxd7 6. O-O:"You offer the opponent to taste the fruit on e4, with unclear consequences for the organism. Digestion may well progress with complications. In case Black refuses the delicacy, a white pawn will land on the sought-after square c4."In other cases Kasparov engages in humor purely for the sake of fun. I could offer many examples, but my favorite is when he enlivens the traditional "evaluate your score on the exercises to see where you stand" section with this gem:"75 or more [top score]: Levon, we wish you and your team good luck at the next Olympiad."The rest of this section is completely hilarious as well. Gotta love it!I haven't had many chances to employ Kasparov's suggestions in my own games yet, but when I have it has been clear that my opponents have never encountered this handling of the white side of the Sicilian Defense before. Thus I can heartily recommend this book for intermediate club players and up.The publisher provided a review copy of this book to me in exchange for my honest review. My ratings of the publisher's books have ranged from 3 stars to 5 stars.

I really like this book. In fact i would recommend this book for those who just finished working on an opening book that contain a lot of density and need fresh air but still want to work on a nice plan about the Sicilian as White.As someone said before me there is not a lot of explanation but still it's enough. Sometimes it's good to avoid putting density into the density. Breathing is important.So for me it's a five star.