The Lazy Man's Review of The Lazy Man's Sicilian
Valeri Bronznik & Steve Giddins, The Lazy Man's Sicilian: Attack and Surprise White with the Basman-Sale Variation (New in Chess, 2015). 222 pp., $22.95/€19.95. Sort of reviewed by Dennis Monokroussos.
The "Lazy Man's Sicilian" is 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Bc5. If you meet this with 5.Be3 Qb6 6.b4! Black will be very unhappy, e.g. 6...Qxb4+ 7.c3 Qb6 8.Nd2 (8...d6? 9.Nc4 Qd8 10.Nb5+-) 8...a6 9.Qg4 with a clear or almost clear advantage. Work on this variation with your computers a bit, and you can happily disregard the other 221 and 3/4 pages of the book if your only concern is how to face the "Lazy Man". The book does mention this line (though it's hidden almost as well as a government employee's emails, for possibly the same reason), and what little it has to say about it isn't encouraging.
Giddins, who translated Bronznik's original work (published in German in 2004) and updated it for this edition, starts by saying that 6.b4 is Stockfish's top choice in the position (even though it doesn't merit a letter in the chapter - it's stuck between White's options "B" and "C", all of which are subsidiary to the chapter's main line with 6.c3 - and it doesn't show up in the index, either) and that "a top-class GM" of his acquaintance analyzed it seriously and "considered it to be promising". That's his intro to the move; the outro offers the altogether unsatisfactory remark that "6.b4 is a definitely a move the black player would be advised to take a proper look at." (Well, yes...but isn't this the author's job? We're not talking about a line where this is just one of Black's options; there are NO alternatives given in the context of the book's repertoire and the problematic line is suggested by the computer from the start - after 4...Bc5 - and has the backing of his anonymous high-level GM acquaintance.)
In the interest of benefiting prospective non-buyers playing White against this nuisance system I'll carry the line a bit further: 9...Kf8 10.Qg3 d6 11.N2b3 Nf6 12.Nxc5 dxc5 13.Nb3 Nbd7 14.f3. White is a pawn down but has the bishop pair, targets, a safer king and will soon enjoy a threatening lead in development. Black isn't losing, but his position is both objectively and subjectively unpleasant. Worse still, White's research time is negligible, while Black has to worry about 200+ pages worth of material.
White lived happily (and lazily) ever after.
The end.
Reader Comments (8)
If that's all it takes to basically turn the book into a paperweight, that's very sad. Firstly, I'm used to seeing books from New In Chess that are much more useful than that. Secondly, I liked Bronznik's 45 Techniques of Positional Play with the same publisher, and it seems his reputation as a writer may suffer from a dud of this kind. Same goes for Giddins, whose books I admittedly haven't gone out of my way to read but about which I've heard and read a lot of favorable things until this one.
Basman is a familiar name to me, and frankly given his association in my mind with 1.g4 or whatever back in the day, to call a line with his name on it the 'Lazy Man's anything' is a natural association for me to make, unfortunately. But who is Sale? Is it Kirkpatrick Sale? Unlikely, since as far as I know that writer never played serious chess, but again, it would not surprise me.
This instance reminds me of a player I know in my region who, when meeting 1...c5, invariably plays the Closed. He used to regularly unburden himself of the opinion that the Open variations were inferior because, following Larsen, White is giving up a center pawn for a wing pawn--in his mind, the argument was over right there. He's not a particularly weak player, but he obviously did himself no favors in terms of his broader understanding of the game by holding this rigid attitude.
I mention this little story because, together with your presentation of this new book, it makes me wonder if the Sicilian Defense is particularly susceptible, among openinngs at least, to dogmatic ways of thinking on the part of many chessplayers. Maybe people take such sweeping positions as a short cut through what otherwise would be a lot of work to get to a real comprehension of this opening.
Thanks. If there is one thing I dislike in repertoire books it's omitting, neglecting or hiding the best options for the opponents. It's intellectually dishonest and as there is money involved it's even a form of cheating.
Lazy person's Sicilian, surely... Although we do have the great Basman, not Basperson.
To be fair towards Bronznik: He wrote the book more than ten years ago. It's entirely possible, even likely, that at the time 6.b4 was underestimated by the engines. So, the intellectual dishonesty of hiding a problematic line in the comments, might be entirely an issue of the translation/rehash of the older German book.
[DM: I agree - the problem/fault is Giddins', though he's also put in a tight spot having to update an 11-year-old book. And what do you do if the line is simply bad, or at least dubious? It's hard to just scrub the project, especially if contracts have been signed.]
I enjoyed this short and snappy review that gets right to the heart of the subject. Well done.
Love this review. More humor, please!
What do you think of the 2013 Serbian championship game Perunovic (2618) - Solumonivic (2433)
that went 6 b4 Bxb4+ 7 c3 Bc5 8 Nd2 a6 9 N2b3 d6 10 Qg4 g6 and Black eventually won?
[DM: Black's 6th and 7th moves are just a funny alternative way to reach the same position I mentioned after 6...Qxb4+ 7.c3 Qb6. Instead of spending two tempi with the queen to grab the b-pawn, Black spends two tempi with the bishop, and in both cases the capturing piece returns to the square it came from. Therefore, it's just a transposition after seven moves, and after 8.Nd2 a6 I gave 9.Qg4 rather than Perunovic's 9.N2b3. So the Perunovic-Solomunovic game is irrelevant, strictly speaking, to the claims made in the post.
That said, the P-S game may be interesting in its own right. After 9.N2b3 d6 10.Qg4 g6 (10...Kf8 11.Qg3 would transpose to my analysis in the post) 11.Be2 Qc7 White would have enjoyed a serious advantage after 12.Nxc5, when Black's dark squares are rather porous. 12.Qh4 was a mistake, allowing Black to keep his dark-squared bishop and leaving White with the irrelevant knight on b3.]
Hum... And what about 8... Nf6 and the Queen can not go to g4?
[DM: That's logical, but definitely worse than 8...a6. As shown in the brief line with 8...d6, Black needs to cover the b5 square. Thus after 8...Nf6?!/? 9.Rb1 leaves Black with a bad choice. The best move is 9...Qd8, returning the pawn to "achieve" a lousy but perhaps not yet lost game after 10.Nxe6 fxe6 11.Bxc5. If Black tries instead to keep the pawn with 9...Qc7, then 10.Nb5 (that's why ...a6 is necessary) 10...Qc6 11.e5! is an outright winner. If 11...Nd5?, then White trades bishops and checks on d6, followed by Qh5 and/or N2e4 in one order or another. 11...a6 is a little better, but after 12.Nd4! Black loses a piece. This is obvious after anything but 12...Bxd4, and if Black tries that White plays 13.cxd4, threatening not just the knight on f6 but to win with the skewering Rc1. Thus 13...Nd5 14.Rc1 Nc3 is obvious, but 15.Qb3 picks up the knight all the same.]