Vassilios Kotronias, Mikhail Ivanov: Your Jungle Guide to 1.d4! - 1B Queen’s Gambit Accepted

Thinkers Publishing, paperback, Englisch, ISBN: 978-94-6420-124-6, 480 Seiten, 2022.

Your Jungle Guide to 1.d4! - 1B, Queen’s Gambit Accepted - Aggressive Enterprise.

What you are holding in your hands is the natural follow up of Volume 1 where some “lesser” openings aft er 1.d4 d5 2.c4 were examined, as well as a couple of less popular variations of the Queen’s Gambit Accepted. This second Volume comprises all of the established main lines of the QGA aft er our recommended 3.e4 with the intention of giving you a full picture of this topical opening while helping you build a repertoire based on aggressive ideas. Objectively speaking, it is very hard for White to find an advantage in the event of the absolute main lines 3…Nf6 and 3…e5, but we believe we have done our duty. We scrutinized multiple interesting variations with the help of engines while applying our human understanding to select those lines that would be the most unpleasant for Black. Additionally, we tried to provide you with as many alternatives as possible so as not to become “victims” of a narrow repertoire.

In the end a chess game may be a draw, but an author’s duty is to provide you with several ideas with which you may confront your opponent to deprive him of that very draw. We believe our work has achieved this goal. We are going to stress the view that you should not strive to remember all the material included as that is impractical. What we suggest you do is memorize the recurring patterns and try to understand why they appear so often. Additionally, try to spot the differences between similar patterns as that is the essence of good theoretical knowledge which will enhance your arsenal. This knowledge is a “must” if you want to master classical play after 1.d4.

We wish you a creative study in the QGA as White as it is the most natural reaction aft er 1.d4 d5 2.c4. If you work hard superior results will follow and the saying “tough training, easy game” will be vindicated. But please remember that the strategy “you win some, you draw some” should definitely be part of your “modus operandi” in this opening as we are talking about one of the best systems against 1.d4 and one that has been throughly studied by multiple generations of chess players. This classical system will never be refuted no matter the number of books that are written. That is why we take the approach of winning while understanding that we will also have draws.

GM Vassilios Kotronias
GM Mikhail Ivanov

Vassilios Kotronias was born in 1964 and is the first Greek Grandmaster. He is a former top-50 player and has represented both Greece and Cyprus in many chess Olympiads, mostly on the 1st board. He has also authored several chess books, his most notable work being a 5-Volume work on the King’s Indian Defense. He has been extraordinarily successful in individual competitions overall, winning prestigious events such as Gibraltar, Hastings, Capelle la Grande (in a tie) and numerous other closed and open tournaments. He did qualify several times for FIDE’s knock-out World Cup tournament and participated often in European Individual Championships, as well as club events. He won trophies with prestigious chess clubs in the leagues of Greece, Serbia, Italy, Sweden, Hungary etc. As a trainer he has coached the Greek National team and strong world class players like Alexei Shirov, Veselin Topalov and Nigel Short.
 

Mikhail Ivanov, was born in 1969, Bryansk, Russia. He earned his Grandmaster title in 1993 and won countless chess events in the European chess circuits.  We remember him being among the winners of one the largest opens in Europe (the Neckar Open, now better known as the Grenke Chess Open), 2002 with L.Aronian and winning this event in 1998. He played for several different European clubs in the Bundesliga, Austria, Iceland, Finland, France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Czech Republic, etc. During the European Club Championship in Ohrid (2009), he took 3rd place on the 2nd board. He mainly focused now on coaching and writing.

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