The Fianchetto Solution

En slik åpningsbok som mange ønsker seg. Den gir deg et trygt og sunt repertoar, faktisk med både hvit og svart. Som forfatterne skriver, er innholdet ikke "spisset" slik at det spilles maksimalt på en objektiv fordel. Det er krevende, og samtidig er sjakk en kamp.

Her spilles altså g3 og Lg2 med hvit og g6 og Lg7 med svart, med ulike fortsettelser som alt gir trygge og greie stillinger å gå inn i midtspillet med.

Forlagets egen omtale:

A Complete, Solid and Flexible Chess Opening Repertoire for Black & White – with the King’s Fianchetto

When experienced chess teacher Emmanuel Neiman learned that some of his pupils hesitated to play in competitions for fear of being crushed in the opening, he wanted to help.

Neiman knew that amateurs have little time to seriously study opening theory, so he had to come up with a practical, complete, easy-to-learn and solid opening repertoire that would not outdate rapidly. And that is what he did. Neiman advises amateurs to play (with both colours!) the flexible King’s Fianchetto system, where the Bishop is a defender of the King and at the same time an attacker.

No matter what side you are, you use the same basic ideas: as White you are targeting the light squares and as Black the dark squares, while applying roughly the same strategies, plans and tactical motifs.

Neiman has teamed up with Samy Shoker, who gained the Grandmaster title by mainly playing the King’s Fianchetto systems (and sometimes beating 2700+ rated players with it!).

The result is a complete and practical repertoire which will give club players a sound and flexible middlegame position they can feel at home in. In many lines Neiman and Shoker not only present a solid approach but also a sharp and aggressive alternative.

The authors don’t promise you a large advantage every time you play their system, but one thing is certain: after studying this entertaining book you can play the opening confidently and you will be a better all-round player because you have learned many essential middlegame lessons. Even (very) strong players will find the ideas of Neiman and Shoker useful as an easy-to-play occasional weapon.

Emmanuel Neiman (1964) is a FIDE Master who teaches chess in his home country France. He is the (co)author of Invisible Chess Moves and Tune Your Chess Tactics Antenna, highly successful books on tactics and training. Samy Shoker (1987) is an International Grandmaster who plays for Egypt.

PRAISE FOR EMMANUEL NEIMAN:

Yasser Seirawan, four time US Champion, on 'Invisible Chess Moves': “An enjoyable and challenging book that will make you redress your competitive play.”

Lubomir Kavalek, The Huffington Post, on 'Invisible Chess Moves': “An outstanding book.”

Marshtower Chess Reviews on 'Tune Your Chess Tactics Antenna': "The material is very accessible and will suit players of all strengths."

Fra innledningen i boka:

... So we decided to adopt a system that was playable with both colours, based on a king’s fianchetto approach (...g7-g6 with black, g2-g3 with white), with the idea to play with different pawn structures – which we will carefully explain – according to what the opponent plays.

Sometimes we will play like a King’s Indian Defence player, sometimes like a
Benko Gambiteer, sometimes like a Benoni aficionado, sometimes like a Dragon addict. Our moves will be inspired by the pawn structure, and what we try to achieve or defend against it.

This is a repertoire book, but also a middlegame book, which will offer you some positions that you have to understand in order to be able to play the opening
well. It is also a tactics book that will enable you to work with the specific themes relative to the king’s fianchetto (how to defend against an attack, how to get your bishop to play when it is blocked, etc.) so that hopefully you will be able to navi - gate safely between the lines, knowing where to go throughout the game.

The advantage of such a repertoire is that you limit considerably the time spent on studying the openings: that is our main goal. This repertoire has a stylistic unity: you will quickly find yourself in a certain kind of position that you will get familiar with, so that you will be acquainted with the typical tricks, piece placements, etc. This repertoire has been used by some of the world’s best players against their peers on a regular basis. We’re not just providing you with some tricks to be used against weakies, you can play these lines against 2700+ players ...

The drawback of this repertoire is dual: 1. Firstly, you have to play the same positions, king’s fianchettos – this is precisely the aim of the book! It is possible that some day you will want to play something else – great ! Or that you will only want to use this repertoire at intervals – perfect! Some people like to play the same thing all the time, others don’t. In both cases, this repertoire can be useful for you. 2. This repertoire is competitive at every level. Yet our fianchetto approach en - genders certain dangers. We want to keep elasticity, in order to be able to achieve the ideal pawn structure; so we won’t occupy the centre with pawns in the first moves. This means that the opponent is free to build a large pawn centre himself, and if we don’t play accurately during the first moves, we can be crushed, regardless of the colour we are playing with. Playing a king’s fianchetto with white means that if we play a bad move in the opening, we may give the opposite player an opportunity to get the advantage early, which will not be the case when we play 1.e4 or 1.d4. With black, there is a possibility of being outplayed very quickly by an attack on our king, or dominated by an imposing pawn centre. This will not be the case if we play 1...d5 on 1.d4 and 1...e5 on 1.e4.

If you like a solid game, with simple play without any risk or strategic finesse, this is not a repertoire for you! The idea of this repertoire is to make you able to play without opening preparation (provided that you have read this book – all of it! – and played some training blitz games with it beforehand, of course) at every level, with reasonable chances to outplay your opponent. ...

We are not looking for an advantage, we look for an interesting game, with ideas that we will present you, and then: may the better player win! We have checked all the lines we suggest with Stockfish 7. Some are somewhat adventurous, but we did not find a refutation of them. Some lines that we wanted to try were discarded, because we could not make them work. This does not mean that the variations in question are bad, just that we did not manage to find a playable game against standard play by White: take the centre, castle, place rooks in the centre. So we gave those up.

Of the lines that we present, some will certainly be refuted. A perfect repertoire does not exist, because nowadays, mainly thanks to the computer’s help, many
discoveries are made. So opening theory is today shakier than ever! But we do not present any variation that we think is unplayable.

In some cases, there was disagreement between the authors. Samy Shoker is an enterprising player, he likes complicated play and tactics. Emmanuel Neiman is a solid player, he likes simplicity. Wherever we disagreed on an opening, mostly because SS was offering an ambitious line and EN found it too risky, we have suggested an alternative, solid option. In some variations, we acknowledge that our variation leads to a slightly worse position for Black. Yet, in such cases we keep this variation, because slightly worse is quite normal for the black side! In other cases, we recommend a variation for White where Black can equalize, and we evaluate the game as equal but complicated – unclear. This is not a classical opening book. We want to provide the reader with a repertoire that he can use with ease, because it is simple to understand, quick to learn, and it enables him to play the entire game with clear plans, accordingly to the pawn structure that he has chosen.

The ideal for us would be when the reader, after carefully reading this book – two times, exercises included! – and after some blitz training on the topic, will be able to play the positions by hand. In other words: by intuition, because he understands how to handle the fianchetto complex. Then, should you forget the tenth move of a variation in line B221 (just kidding!), don’t worry: you will be able to find a good move, as strong as the one we recommend, or even a better one!

Playing this fianchetto repertoire will force you to think early in the game, but it will force your opponent to do the same. And, after all, isn’t that what chess is all about? Chess to us is about skills and ideas rather than memorization. Some people will call us ‘coffee-house players’. Yet we are basically following the approach of the current World Champion. So have fun, dear reader, this book is intended for you! Best wishes, Samy and Emmanuel Paris, June 2016