Ivan Sokolov explains matters profoundly, honestly and objectively, and includes lots of inside stories from top-level chess, neither sparing his collegue grandmasters nor himself in his comments.

Ivan Sokolov is a top grandmaster who was born in Bosnia in 1968 and has been living in the Netherlands for many years. He was Yugoslav champion in 1988 and Dutch champion in 1995 and 1998.

In his rich career Sokolov has beaten former world champions Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik as well as current world champion Viswanathan Anand.

From the Foreword by GM Michael Adams:
"This structured approach is quite instructive as often players choose their opening repertoire according to quite haphazard criteria, randomly picking up lines without giving serious consideration to how the resulting middlegames would suit them."