Winning with the Slow (but Venomous!) Italian: An Easy-to-Grasp Chess Opening for White

by Georgios Souleidis

Overview

One of the best and most popular ways to meet White's first move 1.e4 remains the tried and tested 1...e5. After this move the majority of games steer for the Ruy Lopez. A perfectly fine choice for White, but one that requires you to study the countless different setups and follow the continuously evolving theory in that opening.

Karsten Müller and Georgios Souleidis present an alternative that is ideal for the average club player: a complete repertoire for White in the Italian Opening. This modern version of the age-old 'Giuoco Piano', with the innocent looking pawn moves c3 and d3, is not only popular at club level, but is also regularly adopted by many strong Grandmasters including the very best, such as Magnus Carlsen and Anish Giri.

The set-up is easy to learn and understand, and theoretical novelties are much less important than the sound principles it is based on, such as the pawn push d3-d4 or bringing the b1 knight over to the kingside and into the attack.

The Slow Italian may look innocent, but is actually full of venom, because White has a lot of options to create aggressive play by making natural looking moves with his pieces. Müller and Souleidis have created a solid weapon that every amateur chess player will delight in playing. With a foreword by Anish Giri.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789056916749
Publisher:	Continental Sales, Inc.
Publication date:	03/07/2017
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	777,310
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Karsten Muller (1970) is a mathematician and a chess grandmaster from Hamburg. He is a prolific writer whose books include the bestselling 'Bobby Fischer: Career and Complete Games' and 'The Modern Scandinavian'. Georgeos Souleidis (1972) is an International Master from Germany who works as a chess trainer and journalist. He has played the Slow Italian with good results himself.

Table of Contents

Explanation of symbols 6

Foreword Anish Giri 7

Preface 9

Introduction 10

Concept of the book 11

Chapter 1 Third move sidelines 15

Chapter 2 Italian fourth move sidelines 22

Chapter 3 Two Knights without …c5 26

Chapter 4 Black plays …d7-d5 41

Chapter 5 Minor black alternatives 55

Chapter 6 The knight transfer to g6 68

Chapter 7 Black plays …h5 83

Chapter 8 Black plays …e6 90

Chapter 9 White alternatives 116

Chapter 10 Black repertoires 128

Chapter 11 Strategy 133

Chapter 12 Typical endgames 177

Chapter 13 Tactical exercises 186

Typical strategies 199

Chapter 14 Solutions 202

Solutions to strategic exercises 226

Bibliography 231

Index of Games 232

Editorial Reviews

"A brilliant book, everyone who plays the Italian with White or Black should have it."--Christian Hoethe "ChessBase News "

"An amazing book. I wish these two authors would write more on other openings, because clearly they went above what I expected from an openings book."--David Anastasio "Georgia Chess News "

"One easy, yet prideful way out of the opening carousel, or madhouse if you wish, is the Italian Game. The basic principles, the plans and the concepts as well as the model game offered in this book will help many ambitious chess lovers."--Anish Giri, From the foreword by Grandmaster

"The authors seek a solid foundation before pushing for any greater activity. This will suit many a reader, of any strength, as it's all very natural (..) The authors have clearly spent plenty of time working out a way to get their message across (..) Chapter 10, dealing with 'Black repertoires' was a particularly cunning inclusion."--Glenn Flear, Grand Master, author of 'Starting Out: the Open Games'

"This book contains some highly powerful ideas. There are not only very well selected exercises with typical tactics, but also strategic test that illustrate and train typical motifs. Then there is a long chapter on quintessential strategies that not just reinforces the theory but also presents additional new ideas (...) Excellent in my opinion is the chapter on how to deal with the various recommendations for Black in recent repertoire books by other authors."--Dirk Schuh, International Master "Rochade Europa Magazine "

From the Publisher

"The authors seek a solid foundation before pushing for any greater activity. This will suit many a reader, of any strength, as it's all very natural (..) The authors have clearly spent plenty of time working out a way to get their message across (..) Chapter 10, dealing with 'Black repertoires' was a particularly cunning inclusion."

Glenn Flear

"A brilliant book, everyone who plays the Italian with White or Black should have it."

ChessBase News - Christian Hoethe

"One easy, yet prideful way out of the opening carousel, or madhouse if you wish, is the Italian Game. The basic principles, the plans and the concepts as well as the model game offered in this book will help many ambitious chess lovers."

Anish Giri

"This book contains some highly powerful ideas. There are not only very well selected exercises with typical tactics, but also strategic test that illustrate and train typical motifs. Then there is a long chapter on quintessential strategies that not just reinforces the theory but also presents additional new ideas (...) Excellent in my opinion is the chapter on how to deal with the various recommendations for Black in recent repertoire books by other authors."

Rochade Europa Magazine - Dirk Schuh

"An amazing book. I wish these two authors would write more on other openings, because clearly they went above what I expected from an openings book."

Georgia Chess News - David Anastasio