I should be very happy with Carsten Hansen's The Symmetrical English on several accounts. First, he quotes extensively from my own 1988 Symmetrical English book, with and without criticism but always faithfully. For those who think that this is natural, there have been very few cases (out of many opportunities) in which an author cited one of my books on precisely the opening he was writing about (in his 1999 book on the English with 1...e5, alas, Hansen doesn't refer to my book on the subject, but I imagine that he may not have heard of it!). At any rate, I appreciate that consideration, and I am also pleasantly surprised that he retained several of the variation names that I invented for this book. Also, to be perfectly clear, without any question whatsoever, Hansen's book is far superior to my own. Quite apart from 12 years of additional, extensive theoretical developments, I had no database or analytical engines to work with, and no mainstream opening book today can be of high quality without their use. If you want to have the best book available on 1 c4 c5, Hansen's is it.

Then there is the fact that Hansen is one of the very best reviewers of chess books there is, especially because he both questions the analysis in others' books and supplies his own, a rare and time-consuming practice. I think that to some extent this sense of detail characterizes The Symmetrical English. Nevertheless, for all of the above, I haven't been completely happy with the sections I turned to in order to compare Hansen's book with a few lines I had interest in. Thumbing through the book, I started with 1 c4 c5 2 Nc3 Nc6 3 g3 g6 4 Bg2 Bg7 5 a3 e6 6 b4 Nxb4 7 axb4 cxb4 8 d4 bxc3 9 e3 Ne7 10 Ne2 d5 11 cxd5 Nxd5 12 Ba3. This is a position that Tony Kosten in his 1999 Dynamic English book (not given in Hansen's bibliography) likes so much for White that he calls 5...e6 "?!." I've never really believed in 6 b4, and I think that White's pawn sacrifice should at least be subject to analysis. Both Hansen and Kosten ignore alternatives to 12...Bf8 (Hansen calls it "sensible"), but it's also artificial and a natural place to be skeptical. In an earlier review (about Kosten's book), I mentioned that I liked 12...Bd7 with the idea ...Bc6. I think that that ultimately favors Black, but regardless of the exact assessment, this is the sort of thing a questioning author should be looking at. As it goes, Hansen and Kosten's opinions diverge about the main game that follows 12... Bf8 13 Bxf8, so Hansen really should have used Kosten's (recent) book and agreed with or challenged it.

The next example was, in the above line, 5 Nf3 e6 6 a3 Nge7 7 b4 Nxb4 8 axb4 cxb4 9 Ne4 Bxa1 10 d4 Bc3+ 11 Kf1 0-0 12 Bg5, my old suggestion, at which point Hansen thinks that "12...d5 secures Black a comfortable edge while leaving White's attack with nowhere to go." It's not as though I wouldn't have looked at 12...d5, so at least Hansen should pursue this a little (regardless of what the materialistic computer says). I looked at the obvious 13 Nf6+! for over an hour, and White has quite an attack. With hardly any details, play can go 13...Kg7 (there are a lot of pretty lines after 13...Kh8 14 h4 and 14...h5 15 Nxh5 f6 16 Nxf6 Kg7 17 h5, for example, or 14...Nf5 15 h5 h6 16 hxg6 fxg6 17 g4 Rxf6 18 gxf5; I don't have room to show them, obviously) 14 Qc1 dxc4! (14...Kh8 15 h4, again leading to fantastic play favoring White) 15 e4 Bxd4 (15...a5 16 Nh5+! Kg8 17 e5) 16 e5 Bc3 17 h4 Qd3+ 18 Kg1 Nf5 19 g4 and the analysis goes another 10-15 moves! My computer-assisted analysis shows how difficult not just this, but all the parenthetical lines and many unlisted alternatives are for Black, with equality resulting only in the main line. Some winning positions for White are actually assessed as -4.00 or -5.00 until you play moves against the computer. But the main point is that my suggestion was dismissed without a serious look.

I see that this is going to take way too long, so let me just mention a few examples by page. I prepared line 'c' 11 Qd3 on page 101 against the Keres-Parma some years ago. Hansen admirably mentions it, but just says that it's "quite good" with two old fragments. Since White's other choices (4.5 pages in the book!) lead to little or nothing (in White's best other try, Hansen himself indicates that 12 Bg5 f6 13 Bd2 Bb6 is okay for Black), then surely he should have given 11 Qd3 some analysis. On page 185-6, I think that line 'a3' 11 Qd2 is probably White's most dangerous anti-Hedgehog line, but by just quoting a game and not trying to improve, Hansen makes it looks like a harmless sideline.

Then there are omissions, e.g., on page 207, 'A2', the main line, the gambit 6 Bg5 a6 7 e4!?, which I think is promising for White and in any case important, isn't given at all.

I appreciate the traditional tree structure of the book, and in fact Hansen covers every major system thoroughly. I do think that there could have been a little more strategic explanation, e.g., on page 97, the somewhat bizarre-looking 9 Be3 only became the main line after years of trying other moves. Its main point (to stop ...Rc5) should have been mentioned. Of course, I well know how impossible it is to think about every line and find all the nuances when you're writing a book. So the above types of examples are hardly fatal flaws. Also, any look through The Symmetrical English reveals that Hansen makes a lot of new suggestions (I didn't have time to assess them), and that his book is clearly nothing at all like a database download. I can also sometimes be too critical-what we have here is after all far better, more accurate, and more professional than a typical Gufeld book. But I respect Hansen enough to hold him to a higher standard, and since I did find more 'problems-per-look' than I would have liked, I will reluctantly downgrade this work from a strong recommendation to a mild recommendation. Nevertheless, serious 1.c4 players will certainly want a copy, and defenders of 1.c4 c5 or related variations should strongly consider it as well.

ADDENDUM:

Since my review of it, I have been using Hansen's Symmetrical English book to check upon theory from some grandmaster games, and a few things have become clear to me. Most importantly, I underestimated how truly impossible it is to cover this variation (or 1...e5) thoroughly in 256 pages. If 1.c4 were as popular at lower levels as 1.e4 or 1.d4, each subsystem would have its own book. As it stands, Hansen has made a valiant effort to give each variation its due. I also failed to mention that his "Anti-Benoni" lines are particularly important to both Benoni and Benko Gambit players (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.Nf3, but also 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 c5 4.Nc3 and others), whereas many 1.Nf3 and 1.c4 move orders also lead there. Regarding the analysis, Hansen seems to be conservative about unproven pawn sacrifices, a reluctance which can be either good or bad. I ran into 1.c4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.g3 g6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.e3 e5 6.Nge2 Nge7 7.0-0 0-0 8.a3 d6 9.b4 cxb4 10.axb4 Nxb4 11.Ba3 Nec6 12.d4 a5, for example, when Hansen says "and White has yet to prove what compensation he has for the pawn." Yet after 13.d5 Na7 14.Qb3, White should be well on top, e.g., 14...Qb6 15.Na4 and Bxb4, 14...Na6 15.Ne4, or 14...Bf5 15.Bxb4 axb4 16.Qxb4 Qc7 17.Ra3!. But in the excellent Anti-Benoni chapters, Hansen's caution leads to important improvements upon some theory that has been around for a while. For example, 1.c4 c5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e6 5.g3 Qc7 6.Bg2 Bb4+! 7.Nc3, and now Hansen turns the theory of 7...Qxc4! on its head, showing Black's advantage in a position ECO calls clearly better for White. Similarly, Hansen finds ideas for Black after 5.Nc3 a6 6.g3 Qc7, in both of the continuations 7.Bg5 Qxc4! and 7.Bg2 Qxc4! (most top players have been scared to grab like this).

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