The Modernized Philidor Defense

En ganske stor og svært aktuell bok om å spille det populære forsvaret Moderne Philidor, altså 1 e4 d6 og gjerne fulgt av 2 d4 Sf6 3 Sc3 e5. Se hva forfatteren skriver om dette i forordet:

Fra forordet:

But Inigo, how can this be good for Black? It was the first thing I asked my good friend and FIDE Master InigoMartin Alvarez after he taught me the queen exchange line (1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5 4.dxe5 dxe5 5.Qxd8+ Kxd8) of the Philidor Defense. I confess I couldn't believe it. He also insisted that against 6.Bc4, the best response was 6...Be6, allowing pawns to be doubled! I could not get over my astonishment–a variation in which Black quickly surrendered the possibility of castling and voluntarily doubled (and isolated) pawns in the center!

I naively thought that the best way to prove to my friend how wrong he was, was to play against him in that position and to beat him –but I couldn't. There was no way to break that pawn structure. So, as the popular saying goes: "If you can't beat your enemy, join him!"

Since the time when he taught me this defense, atan under-12 Spanish Championship, I have not stopped playing it. It has always been part of my opening repertoire, even becoming my main weapon for much of my life, with great results.

But it is one thing to play it and quite another to write a book about it. Me writing a book? Even though the idea has been in my head for quite some years, I have to say that I didn't think I would be able to do it until Grandmaster Romain Edouard offered me the opportunity – I couldn't refuse it, although it would be quite a challenge for me.

I had the advantage that there were not many specific books on the market about this defense which, on the one hand, made my task easier; on the other hand, this placed a considerable responsibility upon me to write a book that could become the main authoritative reference on the Philidor Defense.

The biggest challenge has been to fight against the engines that, at first glance, don't credit this defense with the value it deserves. This is because the engines significantly value the space that White usually has against the Philidor, but there is one aspect that neither Leela Zero nor Stockfish nor any of the other engines take into account – and that is the counterattack!