Play the Slav Paperback – Illustrated, 8 June 2008

The book is really good. The first 43 pgs gives you a really good idea of how to play the slav with some really good games. I felt like I was ready to play the opening immediately and I haven't touch any of the main chapters. Overoall good book. Received the book much faster than what I expected. If anyone is looking to buy this book, it's worth the money.

James Vigus's book "Play the Slav" is an important upgrade in existing literature on the Slav defence. Until now the best introductions to the Slav were"The Slav vs 1 d4" by Silman and Donaldson, "Winning With the Slav" by Markov and Schipkov, and "The Slav" by Sadler. These are still useful albeit dated, and the later two are somewhat more comprehensive than Vigus's repetoire book (Silman and Donaldson is also a repetoire book), but Vigus has left them all far behind. If you buy one book on the Slav, this is it. Supplemented by Burgess's "The Slav", the classic and very comprehensive theory book by Graham Burgess, this is all one needs today.Vigus's 34 page "Introduction" is alone worth the price. This is the best introduction and study of the Slav ever written in English. Through the study of about one dozen carefully selected games he covers the main strategic themes of the Slav: (1) Black's light square bishop, (2) the restraint pawn structure (c6/e6 vs d4/e3), (3) Black's doubled f-pawns, (4) Black's c6-c5 break, (5) Black's e6-e5 break, (6) the open centre, (7) Black's isolated e-pawn, (8) White's d5 break, (9) e5 vs e6 with open d and c files (which Vigus calls "Argentinean structures), (10) in the spirit of Chigorin(Black's Bg4 and Bb4 ideas to exchange bishop for knight), and, lastly, (11) Symmetry. A day or two with this very well presented material, and you can begin to play the Slav and generate ideas straightaway.Vigus's repetoire choices won't please everyone. For example, he disdains the highly topical and very sharp 6 Ne5 Nbd7 7 Nxc4 Qc7 !? for what he names "The Sokolov Defence" with 7...Nb6. He provides a more or less convincing arguement by means of thorough analysis, and a smattering of TN. The explanations are clear, and the analysis by and large quite good. One cannot always agree with his evaluations, but Vigus gives us plenty to work with. Also, his unorthodox treatment of the Exchange Variation, with 1 d4 d5 2 c4 c6 3 cxd5 cxd5 4 Nf3 Nf6 5 Nc3 Nc6 6 Bf4 answered by the rare 6...Nh5, which Vigus names "The Russian Counterattack" will not be to everyone's taste, but it serves to liven up what can be the one boring reason not to play the Slav. Vigus treatment of the classic Dutch variation and the Tolush-Geller gambit (5 e4) are more traditional, but thorough and instructive.Vigus's writing is solid and enjoyable. His explanations lucid. The index and bibliography are a plus. He uses a number of complete (and near complete) games in the text, without adopting the often tiresome illustrative games approach of many opening books. Even though this is a repetoire book, it gives a broad and good overview by which one may learn the Slav.The binding is weak, typical of Everyman publishing, and after a year of use some of my pages and leafs are falling out.Recommended for players rated between about 1500 and 2200. Lower rated players will gain more from the introduction than from the rest of the book. There are some interesting ideas here for masters, as well, although they are scattered about in the analysis.

Vargus comes through again. He wrote an excellent book on the Pirc Defense. I feel its the best Pirc book out there and I've read a number of them. Back to the slav. A fun opening for me and as usually Everyman and Vargus come through with flying colors. Excellent detail into all the slav lines with typical everyman format and book quality. A fun read.

Good book