The English Attack

Rating:
Summary: One more opening masterpiece by Gambit
Review: At 272 pages who are 256 mm by 172 mm this is a huge book. Huge was Tapani Sammalvuo's task: to write an opening book about the latest opening fashion to counter the Sicilian Defence, the English Attack against the Najdorf. When an opening book follows the tracks of opening fashion it risks to be out of date even before the publication date, so the best the author can do is to inform us about the state of the art in that opening at the moment that he writes. Sammalvuo - another new author discovered by Gambit's staff - succeeds: this book is a masterpiece in opening theory and maybe it is the best book published by Gambit ever (not an easy task, if you read other reviews I have written here, you know Gambit is the unchallenged leader in chess publishing nowadays).
The book is articulated into 13 chapters: 8 chapters are dedicated to pure Najdorf lines, where Sammalvuo first analyzes what he calls the "new move order" - White playing 6.f3 before committing the Bishop to e3 - and then pays attention to the intricacies related to all the playable - and even dubious - lines; the chapter (4) regarding the hypermodern 8...h5 is really illuminating. The last 5 chapters analyze the Scheveningen lines after 6...e6 and an entire chapter (13) analyzes the main line and its critical move (12Na4).
Of course the book has an index of variations and a bibliography, but what makes it the best Gambit book ever is the fact that while this certainly is a book aimed to >2200 players, it has an incredible amount of wordy explanations and informations completing and explainng the analysis, so making them understandable to a wider audience. This way the book will be useful also to players <2200 but eager to improve, I have read hundreds of opening books but I had never seen one combining both approaches: the club-player book and the Master book. Sammalvuo presents a lot of original analysis and he always presents the lines in a balanced way trying to give the best advice to both White and Black players.
So Gambit adds a new gem in its wonderful catalog, alas the forthcoming Gambit titles make me fear this one could be the last of his species, so please chessplayers, buy this book, if they sell a lot of copies they'll realize this is the right way to make chess books.
In any case Sammalvuo's book will stay on the shelves for many years and it will be necessary reading to every player interested into playing the English Attack.

Rating:
Summary: superb/awesome book!!!
Review: this is a labor of love. it is complete & updated with lots of text explanations. i'm not an expert at reviewing books, but compared to "The English Attack" by Batsford, it's not even close. this book by Mr. Sammalvuo is far more superior. kudos to Gambit Chess Publications! keep up the great work!