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Good book to fight black fianchetto defenses?

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hhnngg1

I've been really making some breakthroughs as of late with actually studying opening lines using books that have repertoire-like recommendations for what to play rather than just solely relying on self-analysis without a coach or just using Stockfish - the lines given are much more robust and interesting and playable by humans in these books!

 

On my checklist of big gaps in my game that really need to be addressed is to study white responses to black fianchetto defenses such as the Modern/Pirc or Owen's defense (b6 then Bb7). 

 

I'd vastly, vastly prefer it if there was a book from EVERYMAN Chess that someone could recommend from experience. I single out Everyman because they sell the books in .pgn/cbv format, and I have found that not having to enter the moves is a revelation. Books that I'd typically avoid like the plague due to the mass of complex variations are suddenly no problem as I can step through them without worrying about getting lost or putting in the wrong move. 

 

But I'll also take good recs for regular books. (I do use Grandmaster Shaw's Kings Gambit book which is great, and yes, I have to painfully enter the moves which slows me down 3-4x.)

ThrillerFan

Well, I can tell you that the best solution is not an Everyman Book, but that said, you should be studying on an actual board with pieces.  I've played tournament chess for 18 1/2 years.  Trust me on this one.  I know!

That said, here's your answer:

http://www.amazon.com/Beating-Fianchetto-Defences-Efstratios-Grivas/dp/1904600484/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Also, entering the moves yourself rather than click click click, and again, doing it on an actual board with 32 physical pieces is even better, actually forces you to think about what you are doing.  Not only will it force you to actually analyze rather than looking at a bunch of numbers change from +0.44 to -0.93 after a bad move by White, but with the repetitive movement of pieces to recreate the position if you are in a spot where a diagram is not provided will also re-itterate the sequence of moves and ideas!

hhnngg1

I hear your point, but I'll respectfully disagree for my circumstances.

I don't deny that if I had tons of time to look at boards and set up pieces again and again, it would be best for OTB tournament play, as you said.

 

As is, the amt of time I can spend on chess is pretty limited, and the sad reality is that if I say I'm going to set up the pieces OTB to study, what ends up happening is that I never study, or study a fraction of what I would do on the computer.

 

I've done the piece-analysis before as Polgar recommended it, but it's just a mess for me - I spend more time worrying about if I moved the pieces right when I'm deep in a subvariation than I do about the actual chess. Maybe when I'm a stronger player or more familiar with the lines, I'll get better at it, but not for now.

 

There also a huge advantage right now for using Stockfish as a coanalysis partner. I'm not strong enough that I can eliminate all the 'reasonable blunders' on my own, reliably. With Stockfish, I'll play out lines that look 'playable' for me, and see the actual refutation and then STORE it so I can re-analyze it again. (Which I actually do - if I didn't, there'd be no point in doing this.) At my level, without STockfish, the book might say "obviously this move is a disaster for white", whereas it's not that obvious for me and I have to play out another 5-10 moves to see how winning it is.  Stockfish analysis is just as important in my learning the lines, as very few players at my level play the book line more than 5 moves in - I have to be ready to refute the most common stuff right away, accurately, and I'm not strong enough to naturally do it on my own right now.