A Review of Mikhail Golubev's *Understanding the Sicilian*
Mikhail Golubev, Understanding the Sicilian (Gambit, 2017). £19.99/$26.95. 239 pp.
Long, long ago, in a galaxy very near this one - it was this one - both Mikhail Golubev and I worked for the online publication Chess Today. That overstates my role though: he wrote for them regularly, while I wrote the occasional book review. Still, it's worth mentioning that we were colleagues of a sort, for two reasons: first, for the sake of disclosure; second, because I came to understand quite a few things about him from seeing hundreds of examples of his work over a multi-year stretch.
First, he's a diligent worker: I can't recall him ever "mailing it in". Second, while his work was always reliable, he was clearly passionate when it came to annotating games in his favorite openings and opening lines. If the game of the day was a King's Indian, or a 6.Bc4 Sicilian or in the Dragon, you knew he'd be enthusiastic and would have something to teach the readers.
So it's not surprising that his new book, Understanding the Sicilian, would exhibit those virtues. On the bottom of the front page, we read "Practical lessons and detailed analysis from a lifelong Sicilian warrior", and it would have better or at least simpler to have subtitled or even retitled the book "My Life in the Sicilian". The book consists of 120 games by Golubev covering many variations of the Sicilian, but certainly not all of them. That the Dragon and various 6.Bc4 are well-represented are no surprise - he has written entire books on both systems. He has long been a fan of the Dragon with Black, while he uses 6.Bc4 against the Najdorf and the Classical systems. There are 46 Dragons in the book and another 29 in the 6.Bc4 systems.
The remaining 45 games cover everything else, with the bronze medal going to the Taimanov, which shows up nine times. If you're looking for 6.Be3 against the Najdorf or Scheveningen, or 6.Bg5 against the Najdorf or Classical, you're out of luck. That aside, you'll find at least a little of almost everything else: the Alapin, the Closed Sicilian, the Kan, the Sveshnikov, the Accelerated Dragon and so on.
Stylistically, he's an enjoyable writer. There are plenty of variations, but the prose is helpful and clear, and very honest. Golubev is honest almost to a fault, often writing with a good deal of generally mild self-deprecation. Some examples:
After 21...Qxe5 22.Rxc6 White [Golubev] may be a bit better, but I had already used much more time than my opponent, and offered a draw, which was accepted. This was a decent Sicilian game and I would have been glad to play more like it (p. 90).
A rare case where I agreed [to] a draw in a superior position not because of overall stupidity, but also because I felt ill that day (p. 108).
Why did I not play the more precise 34....f3!-+? I hardly can understand now (p. 110).
In this already approximately equal position White offered a draw, which I accepted. "It was just a bad game", as Nispieanu said after the game. That happened after another of our games, but this one was bad too (113).
As is obvious from three of the four examples, the book is not a collection with only his wins. My quick count totaled up 40 draws and 23 losses. 57 wins makes for a clear majority, obviously, but it's just as obvious that this is not a vanity project. What comes across is his fascination with the Sicilian, both as a practical player and as a researcher. In this one is reminded of Lev Polugaevsky and his fantastic book Grandmaster Preparation, and sure enough, Golubev mentions both in the Introduction:
In some cases the reader may rather learn what not to play, but this is also useful. Ironically, I have never played with Black the Polugaevsky Variation in the Najdorf System, even though the book by its inventor about his variation certainly had more influence on me than any other. Polugaevsky's passion, hard work, findings, doubts and disappointments provide a brilliant example of how one can be (or should be) devoted to 'his' systems.
Polu was not his only influence, nor was he influenced only by researchers, but that influence is evident throughout the book.
Enough meta-talk; what can you find in the book? There's a pdf sample here (or you can access it from the book's page).
A decade ago I interviewed Golubev for the first edition of my blog. That version of the blog is no longer extant, but it seems that he kept a copy and posted it on one of his own sites. You can see it here; it includes one of his great Sicilian wins, which he has also annotated in the book. The notes aren't replayable there, but I still have the original and am posting it here. The analysis is similar to what's in the book, but there are some differences. On the whole, though, what you see here, both in style and substance, is what you'll find throughout the book.
To sum up - no surprise here - I like the book and recommend it heartily to all Sicilian fans, whether they want to uphold it or crush it. It won't substitute for specific works on particular variations, but anyone who goes through this book will learn plenty about the variations he covers.