Reviewed by John Watson

Nigel Davies’ THE DYNAMIC RETI is another repertoire book with White playing 1.Nf3 and avoiding main-line transpositions into openings such as the Slav, King’s Indian, Queen’s Indian or Grünfeld.

His choices for White are as follows (from the Contents):

1 Closed Reti (1 Nf3 d5 2 c4 e6 3 g3 Nf6 4 Bg2 Be7) 

2 Open Reti (1 Nf3 d5 2 c4 e6 3 g3 Nf6 4 Bg2 dxc4 or 3…dxc4)

3 Reti Slav (1 Nf3 d5 2 c4 c6)

4 Reti Benoni (1 Nf3 d5 2 c4 d4)

5 Reti Accepted (1 Nf3 d5 2 c4 dxc4)

6 Symmetrical English: 2…Nc6 or 2…g6 (1 Nf3 c5 2 c4 Nc6 or 2…g6)

7 Symmetrical English: 2…Nf6 (1 Nf3 c5 2 c4 Nf6)

8 Reti King’s Indian (1 Nf3 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 b4)

9 Reti Dutch (1 Nf3 f5)

10 Others (1 Nf3 g6 or 1…d6 or 1…Nc6)

Against 1.Nf3 or 1...g6 or 1...d6, Davies strays from the Reti to recommend the Pirc Defense, e.g., 1.Nf3 g6 2.e4 Bg7 3.d4 d6 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.h3 0-0 6.Be3 with the aggressive plan e5 (if allowed) and h4-h5, or just grabbing space. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the Reti, but if the reader likes it he may not mind. The other variations are traditional. I wrote about the setup 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 e6 3.g3 Nf6 4.Bg2 Be7 5.0-0 0-0 6.b3 c5 7.e3 b6 8.Bb2 many years back in my English Opening series. Although I don’t think that it gives White any advantage, I think that it’s a great line for the lower player as all kinds of key themes arise. The “Open Reti” goes 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 e6 3.g3 Nf6 4.Bg2 dxc4 5.Qc2 Nbd7 (5...c5 6.Na3 or 6.Ne5!? with the desired complications) 6.Na3! Bxa3 7.bxa3 Nb6 8.Ne5 recovering the pawn with a slight edge. There are some gambit lines here. Even trickier is the solution to the Slav: 1 Nf3 d5 2 c4 c6 3.g3!? Nf6 4.Bg2!? dxc4 5.Qc2 with a dynamic game in which Black can hang on to the pawn by 5...b5 but White gets open lines and superior development by 6.b3 or 6.a4. Maybe a little optimistic, but probably sound with careful play and a lot of fun!

The good thing about this book is that it save the reader a month of looking at every source and game available to figure out some sequence that pleases him. You might want to mix in part of a regular 1.d4 repertoire with this one (e.g., 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 c6 3.d4). As always the book is organized around complete games, so Davies gets away with skipping a few challenging lines in the interest of presenting ideas. He does the latter clearly and appealingly. For reasons I can’t fathom, there is no Index of Variations.

If you would like to read John Donaldson’s very detailed review of this book, click HERE.

If you would like to read Randy Bauer’s review of this book, click HERE.