Just finished a new edition of my (paperback) book
'Better Chess Openings'
(from beginners to advanced, in different sections).
available at Lulu
The only book which nowadays covers most of all modern opening theory
(based on 'nnue' top engines and other books) in one single book.
In recent month, updated the awesome Chess Gambiteer (open source) package (and gambits
in the polyglot book) again. You can get this free chess training software at:
(being open source, it's completely free (suitable for chess training).
Ofcourse you also can buy the GM Alterman video series:
but playing around with with the Chess Gambiteer package (play against an engine where
you can set the strength in Elo) or watch mastergames with gambits, based on Winboard
and without one combined GUI but simple double clicking on the .bat files should be easy
enough (for most users, and then there is a readme.txt as well ofcourse).
As GM Alterman states (in his book with White gambits), players at lower levels (than GM)
learnmuch more from playing gambits, especially tactics (but also attacking plans) than
simply parroting positional GM games (eg. Ruy Lopez, or Slav). In the old days of
chess it was thought by many players (including Gm's) that you can build up a positional
advantage with White, if you choose the 'best' opening moves. This turns out to be not 100 pct
solid, if Black defends well, also knowing such lines, you can't get a fundamental advantage
in the game (for top engines at longer time controls the end result is draw).
Thus playing sharp (often gambit) lines, especially those you know, is a better way to
induce tactical opportunities or exploit possible tacticial mistakes of your opponent in the
game; whereby in blitz it often doesn't matter how sound the gambit is (in the above Chess
Gambiteer package, the gambits in the big book are quite sound, and in the small
(Polyglot) opening book, reasonable sound. And when playing against a weakened engine,
which plays such sound gambits, you first learn defensive skills and then also by learning
those gambits for yourself, you can also practice those gambits against the comp (or online
opponents eg. on chess.com or lichess.org).
Good luck!
Nb in recent two months updated the content of some gambits in my educational book about
chess openings (link below), especially the Smith-Morra. Compared to known theory (and
historical games). It should be now again a higher quality, of importance for those
intermediate players who may choose to play gambits e.g. in blitz or rapid.
Edition 2.04 (July, 2024):
Kindle version of the book
In general, talking about modernized opening theory (as result of the Nnue engines), besides some recent opening books with 'Modernized' or 'Revisited' in the title as from Thinkers Publishing in Belgium, i don't know of any other chess opening books which is dealing simultaneously with all new theory at once (which i've done by chosing an optimal repertoire, at two levels, intermediate or advanced). You can buy Chessbase 17 ofcourse, for 190 $ or so, but for intermediate players this book (with lots of diagrams) should give sufficient info for opening study at such levels. And it's a lot cheaper too :)
The new edition of my chess opening book has arrived!
End December a new version was ready, with everything corrected
according to the new neural net (NNUE) evaluations, and layout
changed/updated (less info for beginners, and the former intermediate
chapter(s) now changed to 'advanced'.
The new intermediate chapters (the former chapter with 1.e4 for 'beginners')
after the updates, now are called the chapters for intermediate players,
more in line with the educational guidelines e.g the Dutch step method
(with mostly only general openig guidelines at the beginners phase).
Although the basic repertoire did not have to be changed,
many moves in variations >5 or 6 ply or so had to be updated.
March 2024: final corrections to the book, the result now
is a high quality, solid opening/repertoire book for all levels of play
(up to IM level or so).
Ofcourse it's a matter of taste at the advanced levels, what variations
you want to choose for your repertoire, but at least the lines given
in this book are solid, and give high practical chances for achieving
an opening advantage during the opening (if your opponent deviates
from the recommended lines).
E- book available at Amazon Kindle:
Next months i am going to work on the new edition, which will probably take me a few hundred
hours. At first, the main updates will be presented in the E-book versions, eg on Amazon
Learning-Chess-Openings-intermediate-levels-ebook (Amazon)
The paper version will get the same updates, but in addition also the comprehensive
appendix with the details of all variations (not in the E-book) will be updated, thus
making it a timeless reference guide for almost all chess players.
Note basically, more advanced players will notice it is a 'repertoire' book; because
chess fundamentally is a draw, it is possible the chess players is deviating with his/her
'repertoire'' (built up after beginner level) from the variations in the book(s); however
in some situation we already indicate where such deviations are possible (eg for
more adventurous players, or sometimes for more advanced players), and in any case
the repertoire given in the new edition of the book will be perfect rocksolid, timeless
and suitable from a practical point of view for the majority of chess players.
A few years ago i wrote a book about opening theory specifically aimed
at beginner and intermediate levels; this is/was the paper version of the book:
Better-Chess-Openings (Amazon)
There also is an E-book version (and some other review) with various outlets (eg lulu.com/kobo), but the above is key. The book was based on chess programs (engines) at that time, which already analyzed positions better than human chess grandmasters. However in recent years the chess engines were again considerably improved due to the use of neural networks (the NNUE approach). As a result I had to check the content of the book, and the recommended 'repertoire' (main variations for Black and White). For this purpose in last two months I have analyzed two million of the most important opening positions added the improved results to my computer chess 'opening book' did 'backsolving' some checks and finetuning on the final results.
Luckily I found that the older 'main' opening choices ('repertoire') still basically are correct (as result of earlier deep/thorough analysis it appears I was ahead of my time) but many variations now do need an update in specific moves, and sometimes the order of importance for specific variations (recommended top choices) will be changed. This means it now is time for a second, completely NEW, improved Edition, based on the latest ('NNUE') engines and a systematic analysis of ALL relevant opening positions starting from scratch.
Thereby many variations will get an update wrt the specific moves usually from move 3 or 4 onwards, and sometimes the order of importance for specific variations (recommended top choices) will be changed. An example of a variation which has become almost obsolete as result of the engine analysis , is the French Winawer for Black. While I already not recommended it for Black, I know can list the best moves for White to refute the variation, in case Black would play such the -erroneous/outdated- ...Bb4?!. Also in the chapter with gambits, and the more advanced 'positional' chapter (with 1.d4) there will be changes in the recommended moves, usually after move 3 or 4 or so, while maintaining the main structure of the (sub)chapters.
today uploaded an update of my (gambit) opening training package
at Sourceforge:
Chess Gambiteer open source application(s)
There are various options available in this package,
1) play against a engine -with gambit book- at (relatively low) club level, or
2) observe games at higher level (between gambit book
and ordinary book, with two different engines; often yielding
quite interesting and instructive -unbalanced- games).
See the various readme.txt files for more info.
Announced the open source 'package' (lots of files !) again.
after i added some more instructions (in sources directory
and updated the readme.txt. Announced on talkchess.com (programmers forum).
Some history, the functionality of the program speaks for itself,
decades ago the idea was to use the program not only to study
opening theory, but to improve opening theory itself.
NB not offering support (but you always can try to 'bribe' me
of course if you really get stuck :-)
(no guarantees, however)
PS all this work resulted in my awesome (paper) chess -openingstudy- book (on lulu) :
https://www.lulu.com/shop/jef-kaan/better-chess-openings/paperback/product-1mw8r8qz.html
with five stars on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Better-Chess-Openings-Jef-Kaan/dp/1326180770/
Meanwhile i used my knowledge to play correspondence chess for some years
on ICCF and acquired a CCM (master) title.
While we are approaching the draw limit in computer chess, i've
stopped with correspondence chess, at least as long as the (endgame
and 3 pos draw) rule haven't been modified to reduce the draw rate at high levels.
Yet based on the more modern Nnue engines of last year, i'm intending to update
my (paper) book (on Lulu/Amazon) or possibly even write a new edition.
In the latest download (bookbuilder setup file), there's now
a slight update of the book.pbs file (more than one million positions)
Best move now is 1.e4 in line with experiences in correspondence chess.
With best play, chess is a draw. but humans still may enjoy the g
game; and become a bit more modest in the process.
The updated book may be useful for otb players, who like
to check/update their repertoire. But it's not perfect, of course.
In correspondence chess you may of course look at
bigger databases/ opening books.
Nevertheless, have fun
:)
