Dismantling the Sicilian Jesus de la Villa 9789056912949 Books
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The Sicilian Defense is by far the most popular chess opening, both at club level as well as with top grandmasters. Former Spanish Champion and succesful chess coach Jesus de la Villa presents a complete repertoire for White after 1.e4 c5 2. Nf3. Each variation is clearly organized with its history, ideas, statistics, examples of tactics and strategies, and instructive games. With frequent summaries of the material presented, this is an extremely accessible book for casual and improving chess players. Dismantling the Sicilian has never been easier.
Dismantling the Sicilian Jesus de la Villa 9789056912949 Books
The three stars are for the second edition. The first edition gets five stars.TL;DR: the revised version is less user-friendly, less coherent, and harder to follow than the first edition.
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Had this been a stand-alone book with a separate title, I wouldn't be as disappointed as I am. In what follows I'll outline why I'm disappointed and neither recommend the book nor recommend that you stay away from it. But first, the positives:
The original edition of Dismantling the Sicilian was published (in English) in 2009, making it nearly ten years old. Since it deals with the theoretically labile Open Sicilian, it makes sense to get the book up to date. de la Villa and Illingworth (or Illingworth and De La Villa - more on that below) provide an updated repertoire based on, as Illingworth says in his preface, always recommending the strongest possible move. I have no reason to doubt that the suggestions are, if not the strongest moves, the moves that at least one, and possibly two grandmasters believe are the strongest. The upshot: this book is a dense, one-volume repertoire against the Sicilian that takes no shortcuts and seeks to provide the reader with the best possible responses in all cases.
Now for the critical parts. Note that none of these imply that the recommended repertoire is objectively bad.
This book is not so much an updated edition of Dismantling the Sicilian so much as a totally new book. If you read Illingworth's preface, it becomes clear that he, not de la Villa, is the driving force here. This left me feeling cheated immediately - I bought the book I wanted a de la Villa book. I used to own the first edition of Dismantling the Sicilian, and also own 100 Endgames You Must Know: Vital Lessons for Every Chess Player, and both books struck me as extremely lucid and clear. This is not so in the second edition of Dismantling the Sicilian.
More substantively, I have three basic objections to this book. First, the book is poorly organized. Like the first edition, this edition generally has a chapter per major variation, with some reasonable exceptions. In this edition, each chapter is divided into two parts: a theoretical section, and a section of illustrative games. In his preface, Illingworth suggests that the games can help novices get a feel for the repertoire, while the theory section can help more advanced players develop more depth and breadth.
Unfortunately, each of the two sections has problems. The theory section is poorly formatted - it's not easy to follow major branches of the tree of variations, or, for that matter, which variations are important branches and which are mere twigs. The games section often have games that feature extremely sparse annotations, often beginning at move 18 or later. Contrast this with the first edition of Dismantling the Sicilian, where the long stretches of unannotated moves made sense because previous games did the job of commenting on those early moves. The lack of annotations here make the games almost superfluous - it would have made more sense to just jettison the games and provide a "tree of variations" approach as Watson does in Play the French (Cadogan Chess Books).
Second, the comments are way too laconic. Illingworth says that he likes comments to be "punchy," but here they're often missing when needed and unhelpful when they appear. Illingworth clearly feels the constraints that come from trying to write an up-to-date, one-volume repertoire against the Sicilian, but at this cost I'd rather just bite the bullet and buy a multi-volume work. Saying "well, this book is for advanced players" (which the authors do not say) would miss the point. Advanced players would benefit from more thorough coverage and would be happy to buy a multi-volume work. What's more, many books aimed at strong players do exist. Shaw's Playing 1.e4: Caro-Kann, 1...e5 & Minor Lines (Grandmaster Guide) and Tzermiadianos' How to Beat the French Defence: The essential guide to the Tarrasch are two excellent examples of readable books that scale very well from intermediate player to very strong player.
But wait, how did de la Villa get around this in the first edition? By recommending a coherent repertoire based on the English Attack. This leads me to my third and final critique: the abandonment of a coherent repertoire in favor of an ad-hoc approach where the repertoire varies significantly depending on where Black steers the game. To be fair, this is consistent with Illingworth's policy of recommending what he feels are the best moves. He argues that the English Attack has been analyzed to a draw in some variations, which he uses to justify his decision to advocate a less coherent repertoire.
Yet this eliminates the main appeal of the original edition of Dismantling the Sicilian. First, top players still do play the English Attack, making it a variation that is at least viable for White. Second, and this is a frustration that comes up repeatedly when reading the book: to whom is the book addressed? The original Dismantling the Sicilian succeeded at giving readers a credible mainstream repertoire that walked the line between bleeding-edge theory and avoidance of main lines altogether.
The original Dismantling the Sicilian worked precisely because its coherence obviated the need for constant explanations. Mastering the concepts behind the unifying framework allowed readers to follow commentary that would otherwise be too obtuse for them. The new version of the book leaves readers adrift, and the author(s) (and typesetter) don't do a very good job of guiding the reader through each chapter.
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In sum, the book was a disappointment. It's a reasonable repertoire book on the Sicilian that I probably would not have bought had Amazon had a "see inside" option at the time of purchase.
To re-iterate: I have no doubt that the recommendations are sound, and the book clearly isn't useless. You could do much worse than this book, and some people will love it. If you want a one-volume repertoire book against the Sicilian and don't want to back off from the Open Sicilian, this is a definite contender to consider. Just be aware that either this book was written by a different author than the first edition, complete with a different approach, or de la Villa radically changed his pedagogical style.
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Tags : Dismantling the Sicilian [Jesus de la Villa] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Sicilian Defense is by far the most popular chess opening, both at club level as well as with top grandmasters. Former Spanish Champion and succesful chess coach Jesus de la Villa presents a complete repertoire for White after 1.e4 c5 2. Nf3. Each variation is clearly organized with its history,Jesus de la Villa,Dismantling the Sicilian,New In Chess,Csi,9056912941,Chess,Chess - General,GAMES & ACTIVITIES Chess,Games,Games Chess,Games Gamebooks Crosswords,GamesPuzzles,Games: Chess
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Dismantling the Sicilian Jesus de la Villa 9789056912949 Books Reviews
It's a great repertoire. It's pretty much a completely new book from the first edition. He gives you a choice between 6 h3 and 6 Be2 against the Najdorf. A bonus chapter even explains why he doesn't agree with repertoire choices from other books.
This book may be very different from the previous edition and may be more like an entirely new book, but in any case, it is a great book in its own right. Max Illingworth appears to be the lead author for this edition and he has clearly put a lot of effort into it. Each chapter has both a substantial theory section and a good number of illustrative games, selected both from correspondence and over-the board games. Overall the reader is presented with recommendations and ideas of very high quality. I am looking forward to making good use of them in my correspondence play.
If you want to start understanding how to play against Sicilian... This is, hands down, the best book I own on it. It will show you how to break down the Sicilian. This does not mean you are always going to win against it. But it will show you what you need to know/ learn to achieve good results against it. I would say this is a must have for all e4 players and Sicilian players. Great book, has Helped me so much find new and creative ways in my own games to take down the Sicilian. Mater of fact, I came across the Sicilian 3 times in the World open 2012. I won 2 of those games in less then 25 movies. The other game I made it out of the opening with a better position. However, I miss played the endgame going into hour 5. But this book has helped me a lot and I credit it for helping me find the right ideas/ plans.
The problem with opening monographs is that they quickly become dated. The Sicilian is a very difficult opening for 1.e4 players with all the many variations and the enormous theoretical load. Jesus de la Villa gave brief histories of variations and the ideas behind the variations, as well as a rating of the strength of the opening for black players in the 2nd edition. He also built the repertoire around the English attack except where that strategy fails, e.g., against the Kan/Paulsen variation.
Max Illingworth has dispensed with the more user friendly features and the revised 3rd edition is very much a typical opening monograph. One cannot really disagree with his attitude that it is best to play the strongest moves despite the necessity of greater memory work. The repertoire remains centered on the English attack, but with a few more wrinkles. Frankly, I would recommend those wishing a comprehensive variation tree approach invest in Parimarjan Negi's recent three volume work from Quality Chess..Grandmaster Repertoire 1.e4 vs The Sicilian I. Other alternatives are subscritpions to one or more of www.chesspublishing.com, the Informator, or New in Chess magazine.
There is really no way around putting in some serious work if one wishes to have good results against the Sicilian, but personally, I find it more useful to work my way through variations as part of full games rather than wading through variation trees. I apologize if that makes my rating unjustly low.
The three stars are for the second edition. The first edition gets five stars.
TL;DR the revised version is less user-friendly, less coherent, and harder to follow than the first edition.
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Had this been a stand-alone book with a separate title, I wouldn't be as disappointed as I am. In what follows I'll outline why I'm disappointed and neither recommend the book nor recommend that you stay away from it. But first, the positives
The original edition of Dismantling the Sicilian was published (in English) in 2009, making it nearly ten years old. Since it deals with the theoretically labile Open Sicilian, it makes sense to get the book up to date. de la Villa and Illingworth (or Illingworth and De La Villa - more on that below) provide an updated repertoire based on, as Illingworth says in his preface, always recommending the strongest possible move. I have no reason to doubt that the suggestions are, if not the strongest moves, the moves that at least one, and possibly two grandmasters believe are the strongest. The upshot this book is a dense, one-volume repertoire against the Sicilian that takes no shortcuts and seeks to provide the reader with the best possible responses in all cases.
Now for the critical parts. Note that none of these imply that the recommended repertoire is objectively bad.
This book is not so much an updated edition of Dismantling the Sicilian so much as a totally new book. If you read Illingworth's preface, it becomes clear that he, not de la Villa, is the driving force here. This left me feeling cheated immediately - I bought the book I wanted a de la Villa book. I used to own the first edition of Dismantling the Sicilian, and also own 100 Endgames You Must Know Vital Lessons for Every Chess Player, and both books struck me as extremely lucid and clear. This is not so in the second edition of Dismantling the Sicilian.
More substantively, I have three basic objections to this book. First, the book is poorly organized. Like the first edition, this edition generally has a chapter per major variation, with some reasonable exceptions. In this edition, each chapter is divided into two parts a theoretical section, and a section of illustrative games. In his preface, Illingworth suggests that the games can help novices get a feel for the repertoire, while the theory section can help more advanced players develop more depth and breadth.
Unfortunately, each of the two sections has problems. The theory section is poorly formatted - it's not easy to follow major branches of the tree of variations, or, for that matter, which variations are important branches and which are mere twigs. The games section often have games that feature extremely sparse annotations, often beginning at move 18 or later. Contrast this with the first edition of Dismantling the Sicilian, where the long stretches of unannotated moves made sense because previous games did the job of commenting on those early moves. The lack of annotations here make the games almost superfluous - it would have made more sense to just jettison the games and provide a "tree of variations" approach as Watson does in Play the French (Cadogan Chess Books).
Second, the comments are way too laconic. Illingworth says that he likes comments to be "punchy," but here they're often missing when needed and unhelpful when they appear. Illingworth clearly feels the constraints that come from trying to write an up-to-date, one-volume repertoire against the Sicilian, but at this cost I'd rather just bite the bullet and buy a multi-volume work. Saying "well, this book is for advanced players" (which the authors do not say) would miss the point. Advanced players would benefit from more thorough coverage and would be happy to buy a multi-volume work. What's more, many books aimed at strong players do exist. Shaw's Playing 1.e4 Caro-Kann, 1...e5 & Minor Lines (Grandmaster Guide) and Tzermiadianos' How to Beat the French Defence The essential guide to the Tarrasch are two excellent examples of readable books that scale very well from intermediate player to very strong player.
But wait, how did de la Villa get around this in the first edition? By recommending a coherent repertoire based on the English Attack. This leads me to my third and final critique the abandonment of a coherent repertoire in favor of an ad-hoc approach where the repertoire varies significantly depending on where Black steers the game. To be fair, this is consistent with Illingworth's policy of recommending what he feels are the best moves. He argues that the English Attack has been analyzed to a draw in some variations, which he uses to justify his decision to advocate a less coherent repertoire.
Yet this eliminates the main appeal of the original edition of Dismantling the Sicilian. First, top players still do play the English Attack, making it a variation that is at least viable for White. Second, and this is a frustration that comes up repeatedly when reading the book to whom is the book addressed? The original Dismantling the Sicilian succeeded at giving readers a credible mainstream repertoire that walked the line between bleeding-edge theory and avoidance of main lines altogether.
The original Dismantling the Sicilian worked precisely because its coherence obviated the need for constant explanations. Mastering the concepts behind the unifying framework allowed readers to follow commentary that would otherwise be too obtuse for them. The new version of the book leaves readers adrift, and the author(s) (and typesetter) don't do a very good job of guiding the reader through each chapter.
###
In sum, the book was a disappointment. It's a reasonable repertoire book on the Sicilian that I probably would not have bought had had a "see inside" option at the time of purchase.
To re-iterate I have no doubt that the recommendations are sound, and the book clearly isn't useless. You could do much worse than this book, and some people will love it. If you want a one-volume repertoire book against the Sicilian and don't want to back off from the Open Sicilian, this is a definite contender to consider. Just be aware that either this book was written by a different author than the first edition, complete with a different approach, or de la Villa radically changed his pedagogical style.
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