10/9/2012 – "I have yet to see one of Daniel King's Power Play DVDs that
I did not enjoy," writes Steve Goldberg in Chess
Cafe, "and PowerPlay17: Attack with 1.e4 is no exception."
It provides you with systems that will put your opponent on the defensive. "Thanks
to King's 'ideas-based' approach rather than pure memorization, viewers will
find it easy to recall the basic considerations." Review.
new: ChessBase Magazine 225
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Daniel King: A Simple Opening Repertoire
Review by Steve Goldberg
PowerPlay17: Attack with 1.e4, by GM Daniel King (DVD), ChessBase
2012; Playing Time approximately 6 hrs. $34.95 (ChessCafe Price: $29.95)
I have yet to see one of Daniel King's Power Play DVDs that I did
not enjoy, and PowerPlay17: Attack with 1.e4 is no exception. No matter
the topic at hand, King manages to find relevant game examples to illustrate
his points, and his commentary generally flows at an appropriate pace, keeping
the viewer's interest and attention.
In this DVD, some six hours long, King's goal is to provide a useful opening
repertoire for the white player who chooses to open with 1.e4. To make it interesting,
he pushes a generally attacking repertoire, as opposed to quiet positional struggles.
It is worth noting that King makes no claim that 1.e4 is the only way to expect
good attacking chances. He simply says that he is looking at 1.e4 because that
is the opening move with which he is most familiar.
It is unrealistic to expect anyone to cover every likely response to 1.e4,
so King chooses four of the more likely continuations: 1…e5, 1…c5,
1…e6, and 1…c6.
"What I am providing you here are systems that will put your opponent
on the defensive," he states. "If you put your opponent on the defensive,
then there's more chance that they'll make mistakes. This is a practical repertoire
that I'm suggesting here. I've selected systems where you can dictate the play
after just a few moves."
Some opening books and DVDs have featured offbeat moves or systems that require
a specific series of moves to achieve. In practice, it may be that a player
is rarely able to utilize these because his opponents do not play into the position
where a trap may be set. Instead, with this DVD, a player will frequently be
able to utilize King's recommendations. Not always, but frequently.
Against 1…e5, King advocates a delayed-castling line of the Italian Opening,
and is careful to explain the importance of move order, informing why a given
move in one position is advantageous, while in a slightly different position,
the same move is a mistake.
King is more interested in having his viewers understand the basic ideas with
each of the opening systems he presents, rather than pushing straight, unquestioning
memorization.
Against, the Sicilian response of 1…c5, King recommends the Grand Prix
attack, which generally involves keeping the center firm, and attacking with
the f-pawn.
"There are lots of attacking variations that you can play against the
French," King says when discussing how to respond to 1…e6. But King
says that he thought long and hard which variations to include here, and he's
pretty happy with what he is presenting. He notes that many variations can become
very complex, for both sides, and he wanted to find lines that are more "clear
cut."
King primarily looks at two French variations: the Winawer, 1.e4 e6
2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4; and the Classical Variation, 1.e4 e6 2.d4
d5 3.Nc3 Nf6.
With the Winawer, he suggests an exchange of pawns on d5, leaving an open game,
which might not appeal to some French players. In addition, King maintains that
in this variation, the black dark-squared bishop is not well-placed on b4.
For the Classical continuation, King avoids exchanging on d5. He maintains
that in this case, it is not as effective, since the black dark-squared bishop
is not on b4, and will simply come to e7 if White plays Bg5. He also says that
in this variation, the white knight at c3 seems misplaced. Instead, he recommends
4.Bg5 as "an excellent attacking weapon."
Against the Caro-Kann, King suggests 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Bd3,
which he admits "is not a fashionable system" at the present time.
"But this is to our advantage," he continues, because it's not one
that is widely known. As with the French Winawer that King advocates, this is
a system with a relatively fixed pawn structure, in which White hopes to have
active piece play, superior to his opponent.
King devotes several video segments to each of these four major categories
(Italian, Sicilian, French, Caro-Kann), and the database contains about thirty
complete games covering these openings. Furthermore, many of these contain multiple
games within the annotations.
Curiously, the game database appears to include a repetition of itself, so
it makes it look as if there are some sixty games in the database, but this
oddity is only noticed if one clicks on the "Games" tab at the top
of the opening screen.
I finished the DVD ready to go online to try out some of King's recommendations,
and I suspect that many other players will as well. Even players who already
have well-defined repertoires will likely find helpful nuggets here. Thanks
to King's "ideas-based" approach rather than pure memorization, viewers
will find it relatively easy to recall the basic considerations for these opening
systems. And they will have fun as well.
My assessment of this product: Great (five out of six stars)
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This video course provides a comprehensive and practical White repertoire in the Ruy Lopez! Through instructive model games and in-depth theoretical explanations, you will learn how to confidently handle both main lines and sidelines.
Chess Festival Prague 2025 with analyses by Aravindh, Giri, Gurel, Navara and others. ‘Special’: 27 highly entertaining miniatures. Opening videos by Werle, King and Ris. 10 opening articles with new repertoire ideas and much more.
€21.90
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