Semi-Slav (Chess Press Opening Guides) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

If you want to skip to the most important reason why this is as an excellent book, skip the next three paragraphs.

There are several types of opening books out there. Some are "repetoire" books attempting to put forth a single, unified approach, or maybe two separate unified approaches, for the benefit of those without a lot of time on their hands. Others are little more than compilations of lines with sparse commentary and tons of games. These can be helpful as a reference, but are not as helpful in terms of actually learning an opening.

Still other opening books concentrate on explanation and stand motifs, with a few games for example purposes. These are better for learning, but are still not in the same league as _The Semi-Slav_ by Sadler.

The thing that separates this book is as much the _type_ of commentary as the format, but more on that later. The format is excellent: the book is broken into two main sections: the Bot. and Moscow systems. Then several lines are each analyzed, using sample games with excellent commentary.

Now, I get to my major point: the type of comments, especially in the very first chapter of each main section is extraordinarily insightful. The Semi-Slav can be pretty sharp, so many moves are forced, but Sadler does an A1 job of explaining what is going on. Not simply tactically, but on a more heurestic setting.

His commentary is invaluable because it highlights the key issues of the formation, so you know the reasons why what you should do is good. It goes one step further and often uses the _present_ situation on the board to give reasons why certain moves are good, rather than simply saying "Do this because in the future it will help achieve a this common theme."

One example of this simple yet elegant commentary is about 13 moves down in the Botvinnik variation where the placement of the light bishop and the queen are discussed. The key point is that White's KN has been traded, so it is natural to attack the g2 (which would normally be shielded by this knight) square and those central squares for which the KN and the misplaced QB are natural defenders.

I assert that it would not be overstating things to say the first chapter of each of the two sections of this book will be more helpful by themselves than the majority of opening manuals.

The one downfall to this book is that it leaves out a few of the most critical lines in all of the Semi-Slav. An example here would be the 18...d4 line in the Main Line of the Botvinnik Variation with 17...a3. This is a line that was seen in 1994 (about 4 years before the writing of the book). It is an interesting and sharp line that leads to a Rook Sacrifice on move 22 (22...Rh5, which is the ONLY MOVE), the sacrifice of yet another rook, and eventually a position considered roughly equal after going through a sequence of moves where White is up 2 rooks, but Black has pawns on b4, b2, and c3.

Another loop-hole is the lacking of Black's options other than 6...Bd6 in the 6.Qc2 lines of the 5.e3 Semi-Slav. An important alternative for Black would be 6...b6, for example.

If there was such a rating as "4 and a half stars", that's what I'd give this book, but I had to round it off to 5. 4 would be a bit too harsh. However, while I would highly recommend reading this book, I would also recommend "The Botvinnik Semi-Slav" and "The Meran System", both by Steffen Pederson, as these appear to be more complete in coverage, though also deeper into the theory, and hence I would recommend reading Sadler's book first before trying dive into the others.

A MUST READ for "First-Time" Semi-Slav Players!!!