The Ruy Lopez Revisited: Offbeat Weapons & Unexplored Resources [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

The natural comparison for this book is Sabino Brunello's Attacking the Spanish: Marshall, Schliemann & Gajewski, which came out recently. Both cover something other than the main closed lines, and both are of great value to anyone trying to adopt the Ruy Lopez / Spanish for the first time.

Sokolov mentions right up front that he decided to take up the open games (1. e4 e5) about 20 year ago, abandoning the Sicilian, and had to find a way to absorb the mammoth amount of material on the Ruy Lopez. He decided to begin by learning Black's early deviations from the main lines. For many years he played the contents of this book -- the Schliemann / Jaenisch, the Classical (3. ...Bc5), the Bird (3. ...Nd4), the Cozio (3. ...Nge7), and the Smyslov (3. ...g6). All are contained in this book, with White's different approaches to each presented in tree format. He comments that he later added the Open and the Marshall Gambit to his repertoire, and finally the Closed.

Both Sokolov and Brunello write about ...f5, the Schliemann or Jaenisch. Both spend about half of the book on this variation. Brunello focuses on developing a repertoire for the black player. He provides no coverage of 4. Nc3 fxe4 5. Nxe4 d5, focusing all his attention on 5. ...Nf6 as his repertoire choice. Sokolov covers both. Sokolov uses more dense variations with less text commentary; at times the book can resemble an Informant. Brunello includes sections describing some of the strategic and tactical principles of each variation, while Sokolov weaves his more-limited textual comments into the variation tree itself. After 6. Nxf6 Qxf6 both consider 7. 0-0. Both authors follow the same line to move 17, where Sokolov stops and says that in the given position, White's Rook and Bishop will be stronger than Black's Queen. However, Brunello continues to follow a stem game out to move 30 to a perpetual-threat draw, and along the way shows the reader how Black might handle the position to offset the advantage that Sokolov correctly perceives. Both consider White's main line to be 7. Qe2. At move 10 Sokolov mentions an alternative for Black that Brunello does not consider; on move 11 Brunello looks at an alternative for White that Sokolov skips by, and indeed from this point forward Brunello offers many more ideas than Sokolov does.

Overall, where the two books overlap, Brunello is more interested in getting a new player up and running with a good set of ideas, while Sokolov is writing a definitive conclusion to each variation.

For the purchaser, the lesson is pretty clear:
1) If you want more of the material on the Marshall and the new Gajewski gambit, get Brunello's book.
2) If you want more early deviations in the Ruy Lopez than just the Schliemann / Jaenisch, get Sokolov's book.
3) If you want a repertoire of ideas as Black in the Ruy Lopez, either book will do.
4) If you have a real interest in playing the Schliemann / Jaenisch, you can only profit by having both.