How to Beat the French Defence: The Essential Guide to the Tarrasch [Kindle Edition]

Wow! - When I got the book I was first of all very positively surprised by the weight of the book...it's not the 192 pages as advertised but rather an impressive 320 pages(!) purely devoted to the French Tarrasch Variation for White (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2...)
Additionally, this EverymanChess-book sports white and clean quality paper, not the poor newspaper-type recycling paper Everyman used for some other books recently.

The book is then divided into 5 Parts
Part1 - General Ideas
Part2 - 3rd Move Alternatives after 3.Nd2
Part3 - 3.Nd2 c5
Part4 - 3.Nd2 Nf6
Part5 - 3.Nd2 de4: 4.Ne4:

I particularly like Part 1 which is divided into:
1 - Tips how to work on your openings in general
2 - French Tarrasch Middlegame Strategy
3 - French Tarrasch Typical Endgames

The bibliography sports all relevant books written about the French/Tarrasch Opening over the last 15 years, among others Watsons' "Dangerous Weapons" book from 2007 and the rare "Winning with the French" by Uhlmann.

I have to admit that I haven't worked through the entire book yet, but from what I can judge by a first glance (I'm 2000 USCF rated) is that the author, an International Master, obviously provides you with a first-class repertoire for White covering all possible Black responses.
He also discusses the topical middlegame positions ('tabiyas') that arise from the opening, and this approach is exactly what the best players do when studying openings.
320 pages on the Tarrasch variation alone indicate that the author provides you with all relevant information you will need for playing this opening for White.
By the way, this variation is very popular among the world's best players and today Morozevich playing a French with Black got blasted away in 31 moves by the Ukrainian player Efimenko Zahar at the Dresden Olympiad with the Tarrasch variation. So you can bet that this opening is Spot On!.
In my opinion this will become the new French 'Bible' for White.
Recommended for all tournament players who are looking for building up a serious repertoire.

As a French Tarrasch player with the white pieces, I was incredibly excited when I heard that this book was coming out. After it arrived, I couldn't believe it - 320 pages dedicated solely to the FT! All in typical high quality Everyman format. I've worked (and I mean WORKED) my way through most of it, and feel somewhat inclined to write a review (so here I am).

Before I continue, I must confess something: I'm fairly confident that this is a chess book that is above my ratings pay grade. Plain and simple. I'm not developed enough as a chess player to glean all the good stuff from these pages...and even though I am confident that this is an excellent book, I found much of the going laborious and frustrating. Maybe it's because the book was simply written for someone much, much better than me?

I saw where Donaldson recommended this book for players rated 2000 and above. I suppose that seems right. Make no mistake about it, this is a TOUGH, TOUGH book for an "average" player like me (I'm USCF 1550) to get through. I usually do just fine with most chess books (even the purportedly difficult/expert only ones). Not the case with this one.

So please keep that in mind as you read my comments below.

The "General Themes" section at the front of the book is great, and gives an overview of the basic ideas and themes you can expect/need to know in the typical opening, middlegame and endgame of this opening. I would guess that we will continue seeing more and more opening books written with this type of "general" opening knowledge about specific openings in the future (in fact, it seems we already are starting to see that change).

My biggest "issue" with the book, if you could call it that, is that it's just too damn dense in many areas...but then it will turn around and fail to address a move that is both natural (and thus likely to be seen by me and those of my ilk in our patzer games) and is backed up by big silicone Rybka god. In many areas there is incredible (overwhelming?) depth...in others, an odd absence of depth (or even inclusion at all).

I would argue that the book could have easily been 100 pages shorter, but for the author insisting on taking each and every possible sideline he mentions 25-30 moves deep. I'm not kidding. There are actually games in the book that are awarded a '?' or '?!' on, say move 9, but then another 20+ moves are included beyond where this dubious move or blunder occurred. This is THAT kind of openings book. In this area, I think the author could take some real inspiration from an openings writer like Andrew Greet or James Vigus, who both seem excellent at conveying both the "general" opening ideas and the nitty gritty details to us mere mortals, without burying us in line after line after line of moves and analysis.

To the author's credit, he's clearly done his homework and he put himself heart and soul into this book (which can't be said for many of the authors putting out opening books), and again, if I were rated 2100 I may have a very different review (something more akin to Sinbad's review below). I would guess that this will probably be the French Tarrasch user's bible for a number of years to come...I just wish it was a little more "user friendly". You would think that something less than 320 pages would have sufficed to get the point across.

''How to beat the French defence'' by Andreas Tzermiadianos (EVERYMAN) is one of the best openings books I've read so far, the author explains 3.Nd2 (Tarrasch system) with ease and most of the excellent analysis is companied by explanations making it easy to remember and understand better the type of positions that arise from the opening.

The structure of the book is also quite good, Chapter One explains ...

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