Title: Leningrad System: A Complete Weapon against 1.d4
Author: GM Stefan Kindermann
Publisher: Progress in Chess
Heft: 188 pages
Rating Range: 1800 and up

Construction: This is a very well constructed book. The pages are a heavyweight bright white with almost zero bleed through. This is also reflected in the $35 cover price! A bit higher than most chess books, but hey, you get what you pay for.

Bibliography: The author has included every Dutch book that I am aware of and of course a bunch that I wasn’t aware of.  Most of those volumes are in German (I think) and wouldn’t be widely known by most American chess audiences.

My Take: This is a revised English edition of a book originally published in 2002 by the same author. GM Kindermann has produced a complete repertoire to combat 1.d4 based on the Leningrad Dutch.

The layout of this book is simply fantastic. The author starts off with a history of the system, then an introduction to the English edition, and then gives the reader 16 pages titled “Typical Themes and Ideas.” He provides Black and White themes in the Leningrad with a few example diagrams, analysis lines and brief commentary of the ideas. Why this is not done more often by more authors is simply a mystery to me.

We then get the meat of the book which is covered with 28 deeply annotated illustrative games — and I mean deeply annotated. There is a lot of prose and explanatory text but there are also a bunch of figurine algebraic notation and game continuations to illustrate the author’s points. Given that the author is a GM and yours truly is a class C hack, I’ll have to take his word for it, but GM Kindermann seems to be completely honest with his audience.

For example, one of the appeals of the Dutch Defense is that it can be played against anything except 1.e4, sort of. The author does not think that playing 1…f5 is a wise response to 1.Nf3.  He gives very detailed analysis to support his opinion.

This is a very brave thing to do. Think of this, you are producing a black repertoire book and realize that there is a line that is troublesome for your chosen system. What normally happens is that an author will show you a few brilliant miniature games in favor of his system, ignore the best lines for the other side and call it a day; these books generally have “Win with the…” in the title or “an amazing System” in the description. This man actually convinces the reader (he convinced me anyway) that the Leningrad player should start with something other than 1…f5.

Is it a pain to have to learn another defense? Yes, but it’s honest of the author to warn you of any potential nastiness that might befall you should you try to play the system indiscriminately.

He does go on to show how to play the Leningrad against 1.c4 and various other tries for white, such as the Staunton gambit, and Bg5 lines, but there is no coverage for 1.b3 and 1.f4, so you will have to look elsewhere. I don’t think that this is a big deal as I’ve never faced either over the board, and I suspect that many who will buy this book haven’t either. Besides, he can’t possibly cover everything.

It’s an excellent book, but for whom is it written? That is a bit hard to tell, but probably at 1800+ players. Lower rated players can use it, of course, but should stick to the main analysis lines as attempting to go through all the variations and game fragments given will probably be confusing and cause some to lose their minds.

There is a lot of information in here and lower rated players (such as myself) would be better suited to studying something other than the reams of analysis presented in this book. There are introductory books on the Dutch that lower rated players would probably find to be a better fit (the Starting Out Series comes to mind).

I was unfamiliar with Progress in Chess before buying this book, but after looking at the inside cover I see that its editorial board includes GM Victor Kortchnoi, GM Helmut Pfleger, GM Nigel Short, and GM Rudolf Teschner, a rather impressive lot of strong players, so suffice it to say they probably put out good books! This is also volume 16 of an ongoing series so this is not a start up publishing house or a fly by night organization. I only mention this because I’m sure most American chess book buyers are familiar only with the big three (Batsford, Gambit and Everyman), but this “new” name shouldn’t deter anyone from buying this outstanding book.

I can recommend this book too. I bought it last week and it will take me some years to get through to it.

I also bought: "Dangerous Weapons: The Dutch", from Everyman Chess. Wich also handles how to fight the dutch. Or sabotage some plans.

It's time for me to learn some dutch..

GM Kindermann wrote an outstanding book. Be aware that it is a repertoire book and many important variations for Black are not covered, e.g. main line 7. ... c6 and 7. ... Nc6.

The Dutch is primarily a weapon versus the closed openings 1. d4, 1. c4, 1. Nf3, and 1. g3. However as Kindermann discussed in detail the formerly obscure variation 1. Nf3 f5 2. d3 has gotten a really bad reputation for Black in recent years. Only time will tell whether this "refutation" is going to stick. It was only a few years ago that the Lisitsin Gambit 2. e4 was supposed to be the end of the Reti-Dutch and now it seems to be just another reasonable line for White.

Black needs to be very careful about playing 1. ... f5 versus some of White's rare opening moves. 1. Nc3 f5? 2.e4 is really bad for Black. 1. f4 f5?! is not the Dutch but a form of Bird's Opening with 2. e4 leading to a very strong reverse From Gambit. 1. b3 f5 should be playable but beware that one of White's possibilites is to play an early f4 transposing to the so-called Symmetrical Bird which could be the dullest opening on the planet and not so easy to fully equalize because the symmetry seems to go on forever.

On a fun note many years ago a USCF expert who knew I played the Dutch ambushed me with 1. a3 f5 2. e4!?. Fortunately I also played Bird's Opening and was very familiar with From's Gambit 1. f4 e5 because this is an opening that cannot be played without book knowledge. Afterward I examined the variations and it appears that adding 1. a3 to the From does not matter at all.

the dutch is a crap opening.

Yup. That explains why the world champion could only score a draw with white against it last week at the Corus tournament.

On the subject of not being able to use the Dutch against certain flank openings, I tend to play a Tarrasch Defense setup against these - e6, d5, and c5, then improvise from there. I don't play the Tarrasch against 1. c4 or 1. d4 any more, since switching to the Dutch, but it's a pretty good way to get a stable position against oddball moves like 1. b4 and 1. a3. And yes, I've used it against both.

I play the Classical Dutch, not the Leningrad, so I also manage to avoid most of the anti-Dutch lines, because I play e6 before f5. Again, this "e6 against everything" approach also lets me transpose to a Tarrasch-like setup at times. And I play the French against 1. e4, so 1. d4 e6 2. e4 doesn't scare me, though VERY few 1. d4 players ever play this transposition. I'm not familiar with the problem you describe of playing the Dutch against 1. Nf3. Is this something that my 1. ... e6 move order just avoids? I know I avoid the 1. Nf3 f5 2. e4 gambit that way. If my opponent plays 1. Nf3 e6 2. e4, I play 2. ... d5 and transpose to the French.

The obvious thing to avoid is something like 1. Nf3 e6 2. d3 f5 or 2. Nc3 f5. Against 2. d4, 2. c4, or 2. g3 you are probably good to go.

Hmm... against something like d3 or Nc3, I'm more likely to play 2. ... d5 anyway. Again, going for the Tarrasch setup against the oddball flank stuff, and saving the Dutch to play against d4 and c4. Thanks for the warning.