Are you bored of playing the same old openings time and time again? Fed up with constantly having to keep up with modern chess theory? Or perhaps you simply wish to play something new and exciting, but cannot decide between the numerous options available? Don't despair - help is on hand!

In Dangerous Weapons: The Queen's Gambit opening experts Richard Palliser, Glenn Flear and Chris Ward team up to investigate one of the most popular openings in chess history, but in a revolutionary way. They concentrate on little-explored and fun-to-play variations of the Queen's Gambit, selecting a wealth of 'dangerous' options for both colours. Whether playing White or Black, a study of this book will leave you confident and fully-armed, and your opponents running for cover!

Dangerous Weapons is an exciting series of opening books which supply the reader with an abundance of hard-hitting ideas to revitalize his or her opening repertoire. Many of the carefully chosen weapons are innovative, visually shocking, incredibly tricky, or have been unfairly discarded; they are guaranteed to throw even your most experienced opponent off balance.

• The Queen's Gambit in a completely new light
• Packed with original ideas and analyses
• A large array of weapons to shock your opponents

Preface

A Dangerous Weapons project in the Queen's Gambit may at first appear a little surprising, but it is not just the ancient Queen's Gambit Declined which was in­vestigated by your authors. On the contrary, the Semi-Slav, the Slav, the Queen's Gambit Accepted and even the likes of the Albin and the Chigorin came under the microscope as we searched for dangerous new variations, as well as for wrongly-neglected lines to rehabilitate.

By meeting 1 d4 with 1...d5, Black initially sets out quite a solid store. It is usually up to White whether or not to allow Black the chance to complicate the game, as he does when he meets the QGA with 3 e4 or the Semi-Slav with 5 Bg5. Thus it should not come as a huge surprise to discover that the majority of the Dangerous Weapons in this book are for White. Furthermore, by and large Black's sharper op­tions have either amassed a sizeable chunk of theory, especially the huge Semi-Slav complex, or are simply unsound: for instance, I was unable, despite some effort, to resuscitate the Dutch-Peruvian Gambit. Nevertheless, unexplored and very interesting paths for Black were still found: not so surprisingly in the case of both the QGA and the Slav, but perhaps more so in the venerable Exchange Varia­tion of the QGD.

Throughout this project, I have been very impressed by the creativity and dili­gence of my co-authors. I hope that you enjoy studying their contributions as much as I have done. Glenn Flear was responsible for chapters 1, 9, 10, 13 and 14; Chris Ward wrote chapters 2, 5, 7 and 8; and I contributed chapters 3, 4, 6, 11 and 12.

Richard Palliser,

York,

December 2007

Content:

005 Preface

006 Series Introduction

009 1 Playing ...b5 with Confidence

(1 d4 d5 2 c4 dxc4 3 e4 b5)

031 2 Having Fun Against the ...a6 Slav

(1 d4 d5 2c4 c6 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 Nc3 a6 5 c5 Nbd7 6 Bf4 Nh5 7 Bg5)

045 3 Exciting Byways in the Main Line Slav: Part One

(1 d4 d5 2c4 c6 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 Nc3 dxc4 5 a4 Bf5 6 Ne5 e6 7 f3)

060 4 Exciting Byways in the Main Line Slav: Part Two

(1 d4 d5 2c4 c6 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 Nc3 dxc4 5 a4 Bf5 6 Ne5 Nbd7 7 Nxc4)

078 5 The a-pawn Cramp

(1 d4 d5 2c4 c6 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 Nc3 dxc4 5 a4 Bf5 6 e3 e6 7 a5)

095 6 The Hodgson-Smallbone Variation

(1 d4 d5 2c4 c6 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 Nc3 dxc4 5 a4 Bg4 6 Ne5 Nbd7)

115 7 The a-pawn Abstention

(1 d4 d5 2c4c6 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 Nc3 e6 5 Bg5 dxc4 6 e4 b5 7 e5 h6

8 Bh4 25 9 exf6 gxh4 10 Ne5 Qxf6 11 g3)

135 8 Going Long in the Moscow

(1 d4 d5 2c4 c6 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 Nc3 e6 5 Bg5 h6 6 Bxf6 Qxf6

7 Qb3 dxc4 8 Qxc4 Nd7 9 0-0-0)

152 9 Livening up the Exchange Variation: Part One

(1 d4 d5 2c4 e6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 cxd5 exd5 5 Bg5 Be7 6 e3 c6 7 Bd3 Bg4)

164 10 Livening up the Exchange Variation: Part Two

(1 d4 d5 2c4 e6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 cxd5 exd5 5 Bg5 Bb4)

175 11 Shocking the OGD

(1 d4 d5 2c4 e6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 Nf3 Be7 5 g4)

186 12 The Anti-Vienna Gambit

(1 d4 d5 2c4 e6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 Nf3 dxc4 5 e4 Bb4 6 Bxc4)

207 13 Tricking the Tarrasch

(1 d4 d5 2c4 e6 3 Nc3 c5 4 cxd5 exd5 5 Nf3 Nc6 6 Bf4)

225 14 Taking the Fun out of the Albin and Chigorin

(1 d4 d5 2c4 e5 3 dxe5 d4 4 a3 Nc6 5 e3)