English Grandmaster James Plaskett has a reputation as a slashing attacker and seems the right sort of player to write a book entitled Sicilian Grand Prix Attack. The sequence where White counters the Sicilian with an early f4 received the name Grand Prix Attack when it was used with great success by players on the British weekend circuit in the 1970s. Though the line can be treated positionally in some variations with Bxc6 and play against Black's weakened pawn structure, it is usually thought of as an attacking line with f4-f5 the characteristic thrust. Plaskett covers both 2.f4 and 2.Nc3 followed by 3.f4. The latter is featured in many of the examples, because top players typically only enter into the Grand Prix when Black has committed to ...d6 as in 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 d6. This move is a necessity for Najdorf and Dragon players who dare not answer 2...Nc6 for fear of 3.Nge2 (or possibly 3.Nf3) angling for an open Sicilian! White gains a lot by getting Black to play an early ...d6 as the classic counterthrust ...d7-d5 must be played with loss of tempo.

This leads us to the question what is White supposed to play after 1.e4 c5 2.f4 g6 (or 2.Nc3 Nc6) 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.Nc3 Nc6 (only now when the White Knight is on c3)? Plasskett does a convincing job of showing that the old main line with 5.Bc4 e6 6.f5 Nge7 is just good for Black. This means White must try 5.Bb5 Nd4 6.O-O, a favorite of one of the great Grand Prix experts, Mark Hebden. Sicilian Grand Prix Attack looks at 6...Nxb5 7.Nxb5 d5 and concludes that Black is doing fine after both 8.e5 and 8.exd5. This is correct, and it would be a bit odd if the Grand Prix gave White a slight edge against the Sicilian by force. Still, it would be encouraging if there were some suggestions for White as to where he might look for improvements. The Everyman format of arranging material around important games makes for increased readability, but sometimes at the cost of getting a feel for where the opening really stands theoretically.

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