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Chessville
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The Scandinavian Defence, also known in a previous life as the Centre Counter, was the first and only defence to 1.e4 I have ever played, so I ordered this book sight unseen when I spotted it on Amazon. When I started playing the Scandinavian, recommended by Eric Schiller in his "Gambit Opening Repertoire for Black", it was considered somewhat marginal and unknown, and the literature that accompanied the opening was sparse. Its popularity has increased over recent years, and this book by British GM James Plaskett is the latest treatise on the Scandinavian. I can find no evidence of the author actually playing this opening, however, so this book is written with a critical, outsiders view. It is the biggest book in my collection of Scandinavian tomes, weighing in at 190 pages covering, according to the index, 72 variations in 12 chapters. As the author states in the introduction, the Scandinavian is actually two distinct openings of very different characters arising after either 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 or 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Nf6. Accordingly, this book is divided more or less equally between the two. The first five chapters, 100 pages, cover the Centre Counter including 3.d4 e5, the main line 3.Nc3 Qa5, plus 3..Qd8, 3...Qd6 and even 3...Qe5+, amusingly dubbed the "Patzer Variation". The rest of the book is given over to the 2...Nf6 lines, including the main line Nxd5, the Scandinavian Gambit, Icelandic Gambit and Portuguese variation. Chapters four and eleven, covering the 3...Qd6 and the Portuguese variation respectively, are given 90 pages between them, almost half the entire book. It is clear where the author believes it's at in the Scandinavian, to use his own words. Plaskett typically opens each chapter with a paragraph that gives his opinion of the line in question (such as, in the 3...Qd8 chapter: "Stonewalling or what?! With this move Black....expresses no active ambitions whatsoever...") and little snippet of history, then dives straight in with example games from top level practice. Names such as Anand, Adams, Larsen and Alekhine feature on the Black side of the Scandinavian, illustrating it's elevation into respectability. I found Plaskett's writing style engaging and enthusiastic, like having a conversation about the opening rather than reading a dry list of variations, as many opening books seem to be nowadays. Plaskett writes in a chatty style that keeps the interest level healthy throughout. For example, when discussing the game Smirin-Kurajica, Solin 1999, he offers the following comments:
This small extract is typical of the style of the book, variations interspersed throughout the main games, with idiosyncratic comments on the line under discussion. There are plenty of diagrams, typically two per page, each inserted at the correct point in the text. This is a small point, but I find it annoying in other opening books when I have to look elsewhere for the accompanying diagram. The text itself is a little dense in places, but this is no bad thing. The author spends two to four pages per example game, with plenty of variations at critical points. The games range from as recent as late 2003 all the way back to 1485! Here, in a discussion of the Icelandic Gambit, is an example of the author giving some variations in a key position after 7…0-0-0:
The book is, I feel, not aimed
at beginners in that is does not instruct the reader in the themes and ideas
of the opening. It is more of a review of the state of the Scandinavian, and
an interesting collection of games. It is ideal for a current practitioner
of the Scandinavian wishing to update on theory or for somebody considering
a switch of openings. There is much material to be absorbed, and goes a long
way to bringing the Scandinavian into the mainstream.
Editor: James Plaskett was British champion in 1990. He is the author of Playing to Win, The Grand Prix Attack, The Sicilian Taimanov, The English Defence and Can You Be A Tactical Chess Genius? He lives in Alicante, Spain with his wife, the poet and authoress Fiona Pitt-Kethley.
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