by Alexander Khalifman, 380pp. (Chess Stars, 2010)

Read an excerpt here

This volume is devoted mostly to the English Attack in the Najdorf Sicilian, that is the variation beginning with 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.f3.

White’s plan is simple and clear in the majority of cases: Qd2, g4, castling long and then a pawn-offensive on the kingside. Naturally, Black cannot be happy following this script and he tries to create counterplay in the centre and on the queenside.

There are numerous variations in which he leaves his king in the centre, since castling short early may turn out to be even more dangerous. The Najdorf system has become the most popular in the Sicilian defence long long ago.

Robert Fisher and Garry Kasparov were understandably its most famous exponents. Still, it looks like it will remain tremendously fashionable in the future as well.

White began to play the English Attack (that is the plan with Be3+f3+Qd2) regularly during the middle of the 1980ies of the past century, while prior to that, the main theoretical discussions concerned the lines with 6.Bg5 and 6.Bc4. (..)

Having discussed all that, the readers will be probably amazed that we have dealt in the first part of our book with... the Scheveningen variation (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6). (..)

The second part of our book begins with the analysis of some seldom played moves for Black in the Najdorf system after 6.Be3.

It would be reasonable to add that we do not consider 6...Ng4 and 6...e5 (together with the main line 6...e6) as rarely played and we will deal with them in the last volume 14 of our series. (..)

Finally, in the third part of our book, we have analyzed the main lines of the English Attack arising after 6.Be3 e6 7.f3 b5.

This is exactly where the main theoretical disputes are taking place nowadays, moreover that we can even say that the correctness of the Najdorf system and maybe even the entire Sicilian Defence hinges on the evaluation of this particular variation. (..)

We hope this book will help you to play beautiful combinations and games and may they be not only spectacular but effective as well. - A.Khalifman, 14th World Chess Champion