Are you tired of playing the same old openings time and time again? Perhaps it's time for a change, but you cannot decide between the numerous options available? Here's the answer: choose Dangerous Weapons and amaze your opponents with new and exciting opening ideas! In this book, three renowned opening experts get together to take a revolutionary look at Flank Openings. Instead of travelling down well-trodden and analysed paths, they concentrate on fresh or little-explored variations, 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 a 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 opponents off balance.

• Flank Openings in a whole new light
• Packed with original ideas and analysis
• Ideal lines to shock your opponents

International Master Richard Palliser , Grandmaster Tony Kosten and FIDE Master James Vigus are all well respected authors who are well known for their opening ideas and expertise.

Preface

The term 'flank openings' encompasses a vast territory, ranging from the respect­able 1 c4 to the disreputable 1 g4. Your authors decided that openings like 1 b4 and 1 Nc3 contained sufficient unexplored and exciting lines that they could almost be considered dangerous weapons in their own right. Thus we focussed our attention on the more mainstream flank openings; specifically, the English, the Reti and Bird's Opening. These openings already occupy a prominent place in many players' reper­toires and, of course, everyone has to face them from time to time as Black.

In keeping with the Dangerous Weapons ethos, we spent a fair amount of time casting our net for potential ideas. The resulting catch was pretty large - due in part to the generous folk on the ChessPublishing website's forum - and led to a great deal of analysis. Many lines were discarded, but those that remain should serve the reader well, at the same time as leading to an exciting game. Several of the ideas included are recent developments, but by no means all: a couple of long-neglected lines have been more than resurrected, and we have also included a couple of relatively theo­retical openings in the Mikenas Attack and the Kasparov Gambit. I would assume that many readers have heard of these, but for whatever reason they remain rather neglected at club level. That's a pity and deserves to change, as both are powerful weapons and should serve their users well.

My fellow authors have greatly impressed me with their imagination and enthusi­asm throughout this project. Tony Kosten wrote chapters 1, 4, 5, 8, 9 and 10, James Vigus contributed two chapters (11 and 12) on one of his favourite openings, the Bird, and I wrote the remainder (chapters 2, 3, 6 and 7). Finally, some thanks are due: once again Norman Stephenson kindly let me make use of his excellent library, while James is most grateful to Ernst Werner for supplying useful material on the From and to Simon Bibby for his help.

I certainly can't wait to employ a number of these ideas in my own games! Now I just hope that the reader too will gain much satisfaction from analysing and making good use of this selection of dangerous weapons.

Richard Palliser,

York, September 2008

Content:
005 Preface

006 Series Introduction

009 1 Fun Times with Nimzowitsch's 4 e4

(1 c4 e5 2 Nc3 Nf6 3 Nf3 Nc6 4 e4)

032 2 Fighting Back against the Kostenites: Part 1

(1 c4 e5 2 g3 c6 3 d4 e4)

060 3 Fighting Back against the Kostenites: Part 2

(1 c4 e5 2 g3 Nf6 3 Bg2 c6 4 d4 exd4 5 Qxd4 Na6)

075 4 Disaster on the Dark Squares

(1 c4 Nf6 2 Nc3 e6 3 e4 c5)

093 5 Further Aggression with the Mighty Mikenas

(1 c4 Nf6 2 Nc3 e6 3 e4 d5)

113 6 An Improved Löwenthal?

(1 c4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 eS 5 Nb5 a6)

131 7 The Kasparov Gambit

(1 c4 c5 2 Nf3 Nf6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 e5 5 Nb5 d5 6 cxd5 Bc5)

165 8 Slaying the Slav

(1 c4 c6 2 Nf3 d5 3 e3 Nf6 4 Nc3 e6 5 b3 Bd6 6 Bb2 Nbd7 7 Qc2 0-0)

186 9 Kramer's Gambit

(1 Nf3 d5 2 c4 dxc4 3 e4)

197 10 An Enhanced Benoni

(1 Nf3 d5 2 c4 e6 3 b3 Nf6 4 Bb2 Be7 5 g3 0-0 6 Bg2 c5 7 0-0 Nc6 8 e3 d4)

208 11 Larsen's Antidote to the From

(1 f4 e5 2 fxe5 d6 3 exd6 Bxd6 4 Nf3 Nf6 5 Nc3)

226 12 Beware the Polar Bear!

(1 f4 d5 2 Nf3 g6 3 g3 Bg7 4 Bg2)

249 Index of Variations

253 Index of Games