When you play Black, the basic question is whether to equalize first and then try to outplay your opponent or seek imbalances from the beginning. The Queen's Gambit Declined and Ruy Lopez belong in the former group, the King's Indian and Sicilian in the latter. The first book by the Georgian GM Lasha Janjgava espouses the classical approach. His book, The Queen's Gambit and Catalan for Black, advocates playing the Lasker, Tartakover and Orthodox variations against the Queen's Gambit. Janjgava prefers the move order 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7 as he believes that 3...Nf6 allows White a favorable version of the Exchange Variation (4.cxd5) as the option of putting the King Knight on e2 has been retained. Two defenses are offered against the Catalan: the aggressive 4...dxc4 5.Nf3 Nc6 and the classical 4...Be7 5.Nf3 0-0 6.0-0 dxc4.

Janjgava writes in the introduction, "I hope that this book will prove useful not only to accomplished players, but also to a broad spectrum of chess enthusiasts." Titled players will definitely find this book quite useful, but I fear that players below 2400 USCF are going to have a hard time using it. There is very little explanation of the strategy for both sides. Space is always a concern for a publisher, but I wonder if some of the theoretical material might have been left out and some model games with good notes inserted. The way the book is organized, the prospective convert to Janjgava's repertoire must still choose between three main line defenses for Black in the Main Line QGD. It's not as if the Tartakover, Lasker or Orthodox is going to get refuted tomorrow. There is also a lot of material on the Exchange Variation that isn't really relevant to Janjgava's suggested move order of 3...Be7.

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