Play 1.b4

PLAY 1.b4!
Author: Yury Lapshun and Nick Conticello
Everyman Chess (2008)
172 pages
$22.95

Reviewed by John Donaldson

Opening related works may account for roughly 75 percent of the books published on chess, but don’t blame the first move 1.b4. Alexei Sokolsky’s ancient tome and a couple of efforts by Andrew Soltis - the latest from the early 1990s - were the only previous works that came to mind when a copy of PLAY 1.b4! arrived on my doorstep. The impression that this opening doesn’t get a lot of attention was confirmed when I checked the author’s slim bibliography.

1.b4 is one of the few opening moves where the history of what it is called is quite well known. The authors refer to 1.b4 as the Sokolsky after its most ardent champion rather than the Orangutan, the inquisitive fellow primate Tartakover first saw at the Central Park Zoo during the great New York tournament of 1924. So impressed was Tartakover that he felt inspired to play 1.b4 against Geza Maroczy and named it after his new friend.

Realizing that 1.b4 is not the most theoretical of openings, the authors have appropriately arranged the material around complete games that break down as follows:

● Bibliography (1 page)
● Introduction (5 pages)
● 1 The Sokolsky Gambit (24 pages)
● 2 1.b4 e5 2.Bb2 Bxb4 (13 pages)
● 3 Black Plays ...e5 and ...d6 (25 pages)
● 4 Queen’s Indian Systems (27 pages)
● 5 Black Plays ...d5 and ...e6 (21 pages)
● 6 Black Plays ...d5 and ...Bf5/Bg4 (22 pages)
● 7 1...c6, 1...f5 and Unusual Moves (28 pages)
● Index of Complete Games (3 pages)

Several reviewers have pointed out that the weighting of material in chapters 1 and 2 is a bit puzzling - that 1.b4 e5 2.Bb2 f6 is almost never seen and that 1.b4 e5 2.Bb2 Bxb4 (along the lines of 1.Nf3 b5 2.e4 Bb7 3.Bxb5) is critical, being recommended for Black in both Perelshteyn, Dzindzichashvili and Alburt’s repertoire book (CHESS OPENINGS FOR BLACK EXPLAINED) and IM Richard Palliser’s BEATING UNUSUAL CHESS OPENINGS. This is true as is the observation that the state of theory in the sequence 1.b4 e5 2.Bb2 Bxb4 3.Bxe5 Nf6 4.c4 0-0 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.Bb2 d5 7.cxd5 Nxd5 8.e3 Re8 9.Be2 has not been worked out.

With these caveats aside, PLAY 1.b4! has a lot to offer. Most of the games in the book are either by Sokolsky, with his annotations appearing for the first time in English, or Lapshun, a strong IM who has been rated over 2500 FIDE.

While it might seem slightly immodest to use so many of his own games, I don’t see that Lapshun had much of a choice. While it’s true that the French 2600+ GM Christian Bauer has toyed around with 1.b4, I couldn’t find a single game where he played it against an opponent rated over 2400. Likewise another maverick, the late Tony Miles, gained fame for beating Anatoly Karpov with 1.e4 a6 2.d4 b5 but seems to have only played 1.b4 once against top flight opposition (a win over Zoltan Ribli). The fact is that 1.b4 has not been played that often by top players though its cousin 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.b4 (covered extensively by Nigel Davies and Angus Dunnington in their respective repertoire books on the Reti) has.

One thing I learned from PLAY 1.b4! is that 1...c6 is not as great as I thought it to be when I was a kid. Then I dreamed of the trap 1.b4 c6 2.Bb2 a5 3.a3 axb4 4.axb4 Rxa1 5.Bxa1 Qb6 6.c3 d5 7.e3 Bf5 8.Nf3 e6 9.Be2?? Qa7 10.Bb2 Qa2 snaring a piece and thought that 2.e3 was best to meet 2...Qb6 with 3.a3 a5 4.b5 cxb5 5.Nc3 b4 6.axb4 Qxb4 7.Ba3 with interesting compensation for the pawn. PLAY 1.b4! points out that 2.Bb2 is in fact quite playable and 2...a5 should not be met by 3.a3 but 3.b5. White has a good version of the Wing Gambit in the Sicilian after 4.e4 b4 5.a3.

PLAY 1.b4! is not the definitive work on the Sokolsky, but if you play this opening regularly you will want this book.

Click to buy (or get more information about) PLAY 1.b4!

Other fine books that Mr. Donaldson mentioned in this review:

CHESS OPENINGS FOR BLACK EXPLAINED ($27.95)

BEATING UNUSUAL CHESS OPENINGS (by Palliser - $22.95)

DYNAMIC RETI (Davies - $19.95)