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One of the first things I learned about chess is that every chess player seems to worry a lot about openings. As an aspiring beginner, I wanted to play something simple and slightly off-beat, unlike 1.e4 where pretty much everybody throws his favorite anti-X line against you or plays the first 30-something moves from memory. Therefore, I decided to play the Colle-Zukertort system as White and have been playing it almost exclusively ever since. This  opening system has enabled me to play quite a few exciting kingside attacks. But of course, any chess opening is far from simple and your opponents usually have plenty opportunities to steer the game in other directions. And with good chances to storm the black castle, quite a few of my opponents stubbornly refused to play into my favorite Zukertort main line, choosing "anti" Colle setups instead. Unfortunately, the Colle-Zukertort is rarely played at the grandmaster-level and thus receives little attention, frequently leaving the fans of this system on their own to find good moves (One exception is Susan Polgar, who used to play the Colle-Zukertort and published a DVD on the Colle-Zukertort System. The DVD nicely explains the basics, but does not cover anything beyond the main line.).
But this has changed now. With Zuke 'Em-The Colle Zukertort Revolutionized, David Rudel published a nice book on this opening system. This book is special for two very different reasons: Firstly, the Colle-Zukertort setup forces White to play e3 relatively early on, which blocks the path of White's dark squared bishop. Black can try to exploit this in several ways, which usually meant trouble for me in many of my own games. David Rudel is proposing several highly interesting alternatives for White in these cases (More about this below).
Secondly, almost all chess book authors are titled chess players. David Rudel, however, is "just" an amateur chess player. You might ask now "hey, why should I trust the analysis of some random dude who writes a book?" Well, first of all, if you read this you already spend quite some time reading the writings of a less-than-average chess player - me! While GMs certainly have superior analysis skills, they do not necessarily explain their thoughts on a level accessible to amateurs. I played through several of the annotated games in this book and read most of the analysis. While reading, I often asked myself questions like "why can't I play Ne5 right now?" Quite often, David Rudel literally asks this questions himself in the book and provides an explanation. Of course, he cannot answer all possible questions in the book. Unlike what chess publishers want to make you believe, you still have to think yourself even if you buy the latest books. But for sure, you will find much less of the useless "obviously, White wins here" statements in this book than you will find in most opening books written by GMs. But if you need more reassurance on the analysis, the book comes with good reviews from GM Aaron Summerscale, an authority on this opening, and Jeremy Silman (see here for Silman's review).
One of my main problems playing this system has been the line 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. e3 g6 where Black plans to fianchetto on the kingside. David Rudel calls this the sneaky Gruenfeld, and sneaky it is, indeed, because with the move e3 White's bishop is already locked in and Black's setup makes the White's standard Colle-Zukertort plan for attacking on the kingside tricky at best. This is an important problem for White because he will face it quite often (at least I see it all the time) and Black is doing pretty well with this line. David Rudel proposes quite an interesting line for White, starting with 4. c4!?. I did not yet have the chance to try this in my games, but certainly look forward to include this in my opening repertoire.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed reading this book and will definitely integrate some of the suggestions in my opening repertoire. The only downside I found is the cover - why do chess books, particularly the ones covering openings, always employ so strange selling tactics? If it is the "revolutionized" Colle-Zukertort in this case or the "killer" chess opening repertoire of Aaron Summerscales book on the same opening, I would prefer if chess publishers would keep it a bit more down-to-earth when it comes to choosing a title or cover image. Aside from that, the book is fun to read - I really enjoyed the lively question and answer style much of the analysis is written in! Furthermore, you can discuss the Colle-Zukertort in the Zuke-Dukes forum run by David Rudel. In the age of the Internet, I wish that more chess books would offer a place where reader can discuss the analysis. Disclaimer: I received a free review copy from the author. |
", National Master Dan Heisman tries to fill the gap between books for absolute beginners and texts written for intermediate players. I bought this book about 10 months after I started to play chess at a point where I was not sure if studying chess can make me a better chess player, or in plain English: during one of these phases where I wondered if I could get anything right during a chess game. The decision of buying this book was therefore very much based on the idea of "back to the basics" and even though I knew already most of the material covered in the book I do not regret buying it.
". Studying the games in Chernev's book was
fun and made me want to read more annotated games. Therefore, I
looked around to find another game collection with annotations that
are written with beginner-level players in mind. After a little bit
of research, I decided to buy "
" by 
Many chess players seem to love books and I am no exception of that. So what could be better than a good chess book? As I started to play chess in January, I simply could not imagine that I would ever be interested in playing through other people's games. After a couple of weeks, however, I gave in to all the recommendations of going over games played by chess masters and got myself a copy of "
Play chess in style -