Descripción

As I said in the introduction to the first volume, I had no idea what I was signing up for when deciding towrite a book on Ruy Lopez. This opening has such a rich history and good reputation that provingadvantages in many lines is nearly impossible. Writing the first volume on this opening was a Herculeaneffort and I thought “it cannot be more difficult”. After all, I was covering such solid variations as theBerlin and the Open Spanish. Well, I got surprised again! I am not exaggerating when I say that writingthe second volume was at least as hard as writing the first one.

This second volume on the Ruy Lopez consists of two parts. In the first part I focus on modern systemswith …Bc5, attempting to dissect both the Archangelsk and Moller Variations. These two variations havequite a rich history but in 2020 there have been several developments. If I had to name one person thatcontributed the most to the developments in those lines it is, without a doubt, Fabiano Caruana. Hisencounters in the Candidates Tournament in Ekaterinburg, then his theoretical discussion in those lineswith Leinier Dominguez, revised my opinion on many of those lines and led to interesting discoveriesthat I analyze in this book.

In the subsequent part I discuss the Closed Ruy Lopez. It is easily one of the most popular openings throughout the history of chess with many games occuring as early as the 1800s. I suggest going for 9.h3 which usually leads to a positional battle. I present new trends and find new paths and ideas in such evergreen variations as the Zaitsev, Breyer, Chigorin and others. Additionally, I attempt to crack the Marshall Attack by suggesting the Anti-Marshall lines with 8.a4. I must admit that I thought that it would be a pretty easy task to analyze those openings having some prior analysis and experience with both colors. However, time after time I was encountering new challenges and new ideas from both sides that I had to resolve. My conclusions, based on careful analysis with the most powerful engines currently available is presented in this book.

This book completes my series on the Ruy Lopez.

Sample pages