It’s an ambitious task to “master” each of the thematic black structures of the Sicilian Defense in a little over 100 pages, and while the author gives it a fair shot, in the end there is not enough material here to justify the title. Danny Kopec is a seasoned player, writer, and teacher familiar with the black side of the Sicilian, and the book is written from the second player’s perspective. The book concentrates its attention on common themes and structures through the study of games (many played by the author).

The bulk of the material consists of seven chapters, most of which deal with a specific pawn structure in the Sicilian. The book leads off with the Scheveningen Structure (23 pages), followed by the Dragon Structure (23 pages), the Richter-Rauzer Variation (20 pages), the Boleslavsky Structure (21 pages), the Kan and related Structures (10 pages), Offbeat Systems and a repertoire (3 pages), and Closed Systems (17 pages). Each chapter begins with a discussion of the pawn structure and its effect on the plans and play for both sides. The bulk of the chapter consists of annotated games demonstrating the key ideas of the variation. The Scheveningen, Dragon, Richter-Rauzer and Boleslavsky chapters each contain 12 illustrative games. The Kan chapter is the smallest, with just six games. The Closed Systems chapter contains 14 games, although they are generally not annotated with the same depth as in the earlier chapters.

Each of the games is preceded by a “mastery lesson,” which is meant to give the player an overview of the key themes covered during the game. This can be a useful feature, but the bulleted themes are often repeated from game to game, and where there are more than a few, they run together into a big long list that may not be all that helpful for the reader. As an example, the first “mastery lesson” bullet in games 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 is exactly the same: “the setup with ...Nc6, ...e6, ...d6, ...Nge7, and ...Bg7 against the Closed Sicilian is very solid for Black.” While I don’t disagree, need I be told that five times? In three of those games, the reader is also informed that “Black often plays an early ...Nd4, possibly in conjunction with ...Nec6.” In three of the games, the reader will also learn that “Black also usually plays ...Rb8, with ...b5 and ...b4 to follow.” In the Najdorf section of the Boleslavsky structure, you’ll learn, four times, that “The Najdorf is based on the deployment ...d6, ...Nf6, ...e6, ...a6, ...b5, ...Nbd7, ...Bb7, and ...Be7.” These repetitive comments can be found throughout the book, and after awhile the mastery lessons seem to blend together in a big glop of bulleted sentences.

It’s too bad that the “mastery lessons” come across as bland, because many of the games are interesting expositions of thematic black play in the variations under discussion. As mentioned elsewhere, the author draws liberally upon his own play as black to provide these examples – of the 82 games, Kopec plays black in 23 of them. By contrast, the only other black players with more than three examples are Kasparov with nine and Fischer with six.

There are, of course, good reasons for an author to draw upon examples from his own play, and this book generally puts them to good use. An author who is a Sicilian practitioner will have many games from which to choose, and he will have a better understanding of how the game unfolded than an author who was not as actively involved in the game. In this book, the author’s annotations reflect a useful familiarity with the thought processes of the black player, and that is one of the book’s strong points. You’ll also get a bird’s eye view of some off-beat favored lines, such as the “Pseudo-Dragon” after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 6.Bc4 Bd7. At the same time, the coverage of these alternatives (3 of the 12 Dragon games deal with this line) means that you may not get coverage of the perhaps more important Accelerated Dragons (arising from 4...g6).

The book has plenty of good instructive content, with the chapter on the Scheveningen being perhaps the best in the book. Without a doubt, this a book for “understanding” the opening rather than learning a lot of theory. While not wanting to discount that approach or the author’s effort, there’s an awful lot of Sicilian understanding (given its chameleon-like variations) to cover in just 128 pages. As a consequence, there are key white approaches that get little or no coverage. For example, the very sharp Sozin-Velimirovic lines after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 6.Bc4 are really only covered by the author’s switch to a Dragon structure after 6...Bd7. While that is a playable line, it doesn’t really help the player wanting to “understand” the key lines beginning with 6...e6. As previously noted, the important Accelerated Dragon is not covered here.

The book’s biggest blind spot, however, involves the Sveshnikov and Kalashnikov Variations. The Sveshnikov (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 has become a key method of playing for the win as black in the Sicilian, and while sharp and tactical, it can be played by someone seeking to “understand” the variation. This is perhaps even more the case with the Kalashnikov (4...e5 5.Nb5 d6), which offers black more flexibility in his piece deployment. These are useful structures that often play off the key characteristics of the Boleslavsky structures and the counterattacking themes of the Sicilian in general. To author a general book on Sicilian structures and not include them is wrong.

The miss on these structures is indicative of material that shows some age. This is underscored by the “off beat” lines the author recommends in his chapter on developing a repertoire. He suggests investigating lines based on 2...a6, 2...Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nb5 a6, and 2...Nf6. While none of these has a particularly good theoretical standing at the moment, lines based on an early ...Qb6, which have been doing pretty well, are ignored.

There are other coverage gaps as well. This book is geared toward the average player, but there is no discussion of gambit tries by white. At the lower levels the Smith-Morra Gambit (1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3), for example, is quite popular. While the author does discuss the move order 1.e4 c5 2.c3 Nf6, many players will not generally make the connection between these variations.

In the end, I think this book is best suited for a player who has an interest in finding a variation of the Sicilian to take up, but is not sure which that would be. This book provides coverage of most (but not all) the key choices and may allow a player to make that decision. Some players who specialize in one of the variations that receives the most extensive coverage may also find value, but they may find that the pages spent on “their” variation don’t justify the cost.

Batsford is a well-known publisher of chess books that has taken a bit of a breather of late, and it is good to see them back. At the same time, the price to content ratio of this book trends a bit higher than its rivals. With 128 pages and a fairly modest page size, the $23.95 list price struck me as a bit high compared to similar offerings from Gambit Publications and Everyman Chess. While the print and diagrams were reasonable (although the font is a bit smaller than I prefer), I found several obvious typos and errors that I would hope would have been caught in the editing process.

In conclusion, this book concentrates on providing thematic examples rather than in-depth theory on playing the black side of the Sicilian Defense. There are plenty of useful games that would benefit many players, but I suspect that most players will find the content to cost ratio to be not generally in their favor.

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