In his new book, former world champion Anatoly Karpov, winner of over 200 international chess tournaments, shares his first-hand knowledge and experience of the English Opening with club and tournament players of all levels.
Adopting a practical approach to opening preparation and application, Karpov says: 'When you want to avoid long theoretical variations and rely more on "understanding", you won't come up with anything better than the English Opening... This is not a standard opening manual or reference book, which is obliged to contain all systems. It has a different format: it represents a collection of 30 interesting, important and systematically arranged games, many of which have a place in the development of the theory of the opening.'
Karpov believes the best way to learn an opening is to play through well-annotated grandmaster games, and then you will assimilate the recurring ideas, plans and tactics naturally, almost effortlessly - in much the same way as you would best learn a foreign language by talking to native speakers.
Whether you play the English - with its opening move of pawn to c4 - as White, or have to face it as Black, Karpov's crystal-clear commentaries will help you to think for yourself and give you confidence to handle any situation that might arise.
In his long and highly successful chess career Anatoly Karpov played a series of memorable world title matches against Korchnoi and Kasparov and gained a record-breaking number of first prizes in grandmaster tournament play. He is the coauthor of Caro-Kann Defence: Advance Variation and Gambit System and Caro-Kann Defence: Panov Attack, also published by Batsford.
Foreword
My new opening book is devoted to the English Opening. There is no way that chessplayers can get round this opening. If you are playing Black, then there is nothing to stop your opponent from choosing the move 1 c2-c4. And with White? Among grandmasters you cannot find anyone who sometime or other has not turned to the English Opening. Of course, this opening is not so fundamental, as, let's say, the Spanish Game, Sicilian Defence or Queen's Gambit. But when you want to avoid long theoretical variations and rely more on 'understanding', you won't come up with anything better than the English Opening. Here opening revolutions are rarely encountered and you don't get such forcing variations on the board - indeed the price of a move if not as great as in the majority of other openings.
In this way, the English Opening lies rather on the side from fashionable trends, but in terms of its frequency of use it is quite popular. It is sufficient to recall that it has been constantly adopted by such leading lights as Botvinnik, Smyslov, Petrosian, and Spassky. This opening is also a frequent guest in the games of Karpov and Kasparov. In our matches for the chess crown, the 'English' discussion arose regularly. Finally, super-grandmasters Kramnik, Ivanchuk, Gelfand and Topalov also employ this opening with success.
It is necessary to say that you have in front of you not a standard opening manual or reference book, which is obliged to contain all systems, including those which at the present moment in time have gone out of fashion. The book has a different format: it represents a collection of 30 interesting and important games of recent times, played with the English Opening. Many of them have a place in the development of the theory of the opening. The games are systematically arranged according to variations; in precisely which order, the reader can see for himself.
Be assured that a careful study of the presented games will be more beneficial for mastering the English Opening than the blind memorisation and learning by rote of different variations and schemes. As a result you will be able to penetrate deep into the opening and discover its close connection with the middlegame and even the endgame. You will discover strategical plans of struggle, learn some technical devices, and trace the development of various ideas in this opening. Besides this, getting to know the games of famous grandmasters is in itself a pleasant and useful pursuit.
Overall, as we have already said, in the book are assembled 30 games, played in competitions of the highest level and in the last decade. But if we take into account the examples given in the annotations, then the total number of games increases no less than three times. Many valuable ideas first saw the light of day in my games and it is not surprising that 17 illustrative games out of the 30 are by the author. So the book can also treated as a thematic collection of selected games by the 12 th world champion. Here are gathered together all the most interesting games I have played in the present opening over recent years. And in the annotations I have also given older examples.
I must admit that it is not by chance that the year 1987 has been chosen in the book for the start of the countdown: it was then in Seville, in the match against Kasparov, that I succeeded at once in winning three 'English' openings!
I hope that the book will be useful and of interest to all chess amateurs, irrespective of rating and opening tastes, including also those readers who have still not managed to include the English in their opening repertoire.
To conclude it remains for me to thank chess master and writer Evgeny Gik, my co-author in many books, for his great help in the work.
Anatoly Karpov
Content:
005 Foreword
007 1 Garry Kasparov - Anatoly Karpov
013 2 Garry Kasparov - Darmen Sadvakasov
017 3 Garry Kasparov - Anatoly Karpov
023 4 Garry Kasparov - Vasily Ivanchuk
027 5 Robert Hubner - Anatoly Karpov
032 6 Viktor Korchnoi - Anatoly Karpov
038 7 Joel Lautier - Garry Kasparov
046 8 Boris Gelfand - Anatoly Karpov
051 9 Mihail Marin - Anatoly Karpov
060 10 Jaan Ehlvest - Anatoly Karpov
067 11 Mikhail Gurevich - Alexei Shirov
075 12 Anatoly Karpov- Johann Hjartarson
081 13 Ljubomir Ljubojevic - Anatoly Karpov
086 14 Loek van Wely - Garry Kasparov
093 15 Anatoly Karpov - Miguel Illescas
101 16 Vladimir Kramnik - Anatoly Karpov
109 17 Vladimir Kramnik - Miguel Illescas
115 18 Zbynek Hracek - Rustem Dautov
120 19 Vladimir Kramnik - Vishy Anand
126 20 Anatoly Karpov - Viktor Korchnoi
131 21 Eric Lobron - Vladimir Kramnik
137 22 Jan Timman - Boris Alterman
143 23 Anatoly Karpov - Ljubomir Ftacnik
153 24 Viktor Korchnoi - Alia Grinfeld
158 25 Anatoly Karpov - Michael Adams
163 26 Vishy Anand - Vadim Milov
171 27 Valerij Filippov - Loek van Wely
177 28 Anatoly Karpov - Veselin Topalov
181 29 Anatoly Karpov - Garry Kasparov
187 30 Anatoly Karpov - Michael Adams | 
