1.c4 players

I've been studying this opening and I need a decent opening book on it from GM games.

can you name some GMs (preferably super GMs) that favoured the english and played it a lot in their career?

thanks in advance.

Originally posted by diskamyl
I've been studying this opening and I need a decent opening book on it from GM games.

can you name some GMs (preferably super GMs) that favoured the english and played it a lot in their career?

thanks in advance.

Karpov and Kasparov both used it

Originally posted by diskamyl
I've been studying this opening and I need a decent opening book on it from GM games.

can you name some GMs (preferably super GMs) that favoured the english and played it a lot in their career?

thanks in advance.

Ulf Andersson has an absolutely phenomenal record playing 1.c4 as White. In the chessgames.com database there are 324 such games, of which he wins 101 and loses only 19, the rest being draws. It isn't a style of the English I'm comfortable with at the moment, and I don't know where one would get a book about it, but it is undoubtedly impressive. The same source lists his "current FIDE rating" as 2528 with a highest rating achieved in that database of 2625.

Originally posted by diskamyl
I've been studying this opening and I need a decent opening book on it from GM games.

can you name some GMs (preferably super GMs) that favoured the english and played it a lot in their career?

thanks in advance.

What might be of interest for you (although not GM play) is to look through the games of MotownDave on this site. He played this line almost exclusively and was a 2000+ player here...although not currently active as he's taken a break to concentrate on ICCF games. I used to be in a clan with him where he was always very generous about taking time to share his knowledge.

"Beating Unusual Openings" by Richard Palliser has the first four chapters dedicated to playing against 1.c4 all starting with the reply 1...c5 - and you may well find the rest of the book of general interest too.

Originally posted by diskamyl
I've been studying this opening and I need a decent opening book on it from GM games.

can you name some GMs (preferably super GMs) that favoured the english and played it a lot in their career?

thanks in advance.

Ulf Andersson, Wolfgang Uhlmann, and Mihai Suba are all excellent players to study. Suba has written a small book on the English Opening, titled The Hedgehog, which is narrow in scope, but very entertaining because of Suba's footnotes, asides, and stories. For example, "Ratmir Khomov used to produce brilliant games and now and then could beat any one of the Soviet elite, when he was not altogether drunk. From the long list of stories and jokes arising from his habit, here's one, as told by Karpov. The game starts 1.e4 Nc6 2.f4 b6 3.Nf3 e5 4.fxe5. At this point Ratmir plunges into deep thought, while whispering, 'I've played the Grunfeld all my life and never got into such a bad position!' " As fun a read as The Hedgehog may be, for a player who wants a larger overview of all the English Opening, this book only covers the Hedgehog variations and probably shouldn't be a player's first book on this opening.

The new Chess Explained series of books has a recent offering that may fit the bill for a player new to the English.

The English Opening, Franco (2006).

This book has a lot of verbal discussions, it talks about plans and themes, and uses recent games to illustrate the ideas. It's not a repertoire book, or a theory book; it is geared more toward introducing a player to the English.

For books with less emphasis on teaching, and more emphasis on theoretical lines, the following set of one-two punches are available.

English Opening: Classical & Indian, Bagirov(1994).
English Opening: Symmetrical, Bagirov (1995).

The Gambit to the English Opening: 1...e5, Carsten Hansen (1999).
The Symmetrical English, Carsten Hansen (2000).

Symmetrical English, David Cummings (2001).
English ...e5, Raetsky & Chetverik (2003).

Neither duo covers absolutely everything, and there are some sidelines that might get coverage in one set, that don't get coverage in another set. The English is so fluid and full of transpositions that it is hard to nail down absolutely all the variations, but these books honestly try to do their best. In the end, the English Opening is truly more an opening about ideas and plans rather than strict easy-to-follow variations. I will give a special thumbs-up to Raetsky & Chetverik who continue to make excellent contributions with every chess book they author.

For someone looking for repertoire book from the White side, one might go for

The Dynamic English, Kosten (1999).

This book promotes 1.c4 and then tries for 2.g3 against Black's replies. This keeps the amount of material down and gives a cohesive feel to the repertoire. Because of the age of the book, some lines have seen improvements and altered conclusions in practice, but this is still a good beginning for someone looking to dive into the opening.

And now we come to

How to Play the English Opening, Karpov (2007).

It's by Karpov, right? It's "How to play," right? It's got to be great, right? Well, yes and no. This book is not a "how-to-play" at all, and I have my suspicions that Karpov banged this book out to complete his three-book deal which started with Caro Kann Defense, Panov Attack and Caro Kann Defense, Advance and Gambit Systems but never saw the conclusion of a Caro Kann classic/mainline/...Nd7 offering for reasons that have not been made public. The quality of Karpov's English is good, nice cover, nice binding, nice paper stock , legible easy-to-read printing. The book is not a reference book, but rather a collection of thirty games (with notes) that Karpov finds interesting. On the other hand, as mentioned on the back cover, "Karpov believes the best way to learn an opening is to play through well-annotated grandmaster games, and then you will assimilate the recurring ideas, plans and tactics naturally, almost effortless -- in much the same way as you would best learn a foreign language by talking to native speakers."

reference/tree format: Hansen and Bagirov
complete games format: all the rest.

I've probably bored you to tears by this point. May you find what you're looking for in your English Opening adventures!

Originally posted by Doctor Rat
For someone looking for repertoire book from the White side, one might go for

The Dynamic English, Kosten (1999).

This book promotes 1.c4 and then tries for 2.g3 against Black's replies. This keeps the amount of material down and gives a cohesive feel to the repertoire. Because of the age of the book, some lines have seen improvements...but this is still a good beginning for someone looking to dive into the opening.

That was a very good post, and much appreciated!

In particular, I'll add my personal reccommendation to Kosten's The Dynamic English, which has served me well over the past month or so with decent lines against unusual tries against the English. Also, his unchanging support of almost always playing 1. c4, 2. g3, 3. Bg2, and 4. Nc3, in that order, has made the learning process all that much easier. Also, the fact that he himself plays the English on a regular basis speaks for itself.

I was interested when you mentioned that some lines have since seen improvements; do you have examples, or do you know if Kosten may come out with an updated edition? Any advice would be appreciated.

Originally posted by Doctor Rat
(...)I've probably bored you to tears by this point. May you find what you're looking for in your English Opening adventures!

nope, you haven't. thanks a lot to everyone.

many people would already now about this, but for anyone else who is interested in this opening, almost all of Weyerstrass' (no.1 rated player here) games as white starts with 1.c4, and it too is a great repertoire, I think.

I was also quite impressed with "The Dynamic English", by Tony Kosten. (I recently gave the book away, however, when I realized that I no longer had any interest in playing the English Opening.) I seem to remember the book receiving a quite favorable review by John Donaldson in one of the last issues of the late, great Inside Chess magazine.

smyslov was a steady practioner of 1.c4

Go with the Dynamic English. Also, there is a new book coming out from Everyman (maybe already out depending on where you live) called "Play the English". Check out www.everymanchess.com for that one.

Originally posted by diskamyl
nope, you haven't. thanks a lot to everyone.

many people would already now about this, but for anyone else who is interested in this opening, almost all of Weyerstrass' (no.1 rated player here) games as white starts with 1.c4, and it too is a great repertoire, I think.

Very interesting. In his recent 1.c4 games against high level opponents he seems to be favoring the invariant 2.g3 line. He got some rather unusual positions against Akizy but fought his way out of them. I'm not sure I'd want to play the same way given my level of (in)competence.

Originally posted by Mark Adkins
Very interesting. In his recent 1.c4 games against high level opponents he seems to be favoring the invariant 2.g3 line. He got some rather unusual positions against Akizy but fought his way out of them. I'm not sure I'd want to play the same way given my level of (in)competence.

what is so interesting is that he always gets "unusal" positions.

he plays 1.c4 and 2.g3 against anything except 1...d5. he has a very uniqe and magnificient style. I had tried to ask what his style could be described as in the "chess playing styles" thread, but no one had responded. I think one has to make a serious study of his games, his play is so unlike what so many general principles suggest, but I'm not at the level to make this kind of study yet.

if you're interested, search "top 150" and "database" in the forums and you should find a link to all the games of top players in RHP, and if you have chessbase, making an opening book using all his games is just an excellent way to get an idea about what his style is like.

Thanks for your very thorough review. I really appreciate it as I was shopping for a book on the english.

There is an older book by Andrew Soltis called "Winning with the English Opening" that focuses on the same move order as Kosten's excellent "Dynamic English" (2.g3). Soltis gives Reti-type lines against Slav and QGD set-ups (Kosten's coverage of these lines has received some criticism). Soltis also give some other options vs. the symmetrical. Combining these two books would give you a very solid, positional repertoire.

Scott

p.s. Make sure to get the revised edition of the Soltis book.

One book I really like that's come out Nigel Davies' "The Dynamic Reti". While the uncreative title might have been inspired by Tony Kosten's English book, the material is quite good. One thing I like is that his suggestions are interesting, and have quite a bit of bite, while not being offbeat. Some of the more shocking and interesting ideas are:

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. b4!?

1. Nf3 f5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 e6 4. c4 Be7 5. d4 0-0 6. 0-0 d6 7. b4!?

1. Nf3 c5 2. c4 Nf6 3. g3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. Bg2 Nc6 6. Nc3 Nc7 7. a3 e5 8. b4!

The b-pawn causes all kinds of problems!