Help? Error in Modern Chess Openings (15th ed.) p.403

Hi there, I'm wondering if anyone can help me make sense of this page. Specifically, the issue is with the white moves (4.Bg5, 5.Bg5).

My first instinct was that perhaps it should have been 5.e3 (as in the orthodox defence), but line 25 has 8.e3. I then thought that perhaps black plays 4...h6 (in response to Bg5), but that doesn't work either as (also line 25) the f-bishop needs to move to allow castling.

Any help would be appreciated. I have tried to find corrections online but so far to no avail.

Looks like move 4 should be 4.Nf3.

It was 3. Nf3. If you look under 29, t is in reference to a line in the following game.

It should say: 5. Nf3

Because of 10. Nxd4.

(Nxd4 can only be played if there's a knight on f3.)

No, 4.Nf3, not 5.Nf3.  See move 6 for lines 29-30.  It would be illegal.

Should be 4.Nf3.  It does not have to be 3.Nf3 because that game given in post 3 could be a transposition.

Game a is also 3. Nf3

If 4. Nf3, then this might be the intended move order.

Move order does not matter much in these lines.

Let's think about it.  A book will not have misprints all over a single page.  There may be other errors and typos in the book itself, but it will not have the entire set of moves wrong.  It comes from a misprint, not an ignorant author.

So it is going to be a single move that is wrong, and the only way to modify a single move on the page and have the entire page make sense is White's 4th move is Nf3.

Also keep in mind that sample games do not have to follow the same move order.

If let's say you have the line as 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 Nf6 5.Nc3 at the top of the page.  Lines 1 thru 3 cover 5...Nc6 and lines 4 thru 6 cover 5...e6.  5...Nc6 has footnote number 1.  Footnote 1 says 5...g6?! 6.blah blah blah ... 23 Be4 1-0, Jane Doe - John Doe, Kangaroo Open, Sydney 2019.

You look up that game in a database and see that it went 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Nf6 3.c4 c6 4.d4 cxd5 5.Nc3 g6 ..., this is not a misprint, and the game does not belong in the section on the Scandinavian because of a direct transposition.  The point is that the position going into Black's 5th move (since that is where the footnote begins) is the same.  Does not matter how you got there.

So the book might have 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 Be7 at the top, but that does not mean every sample game in the footnotes to moves 5 onward started the same way.  Could be 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 e6 3.d4 Nf6 4.Nc3 Be7, or 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.d4 Be7, or one of many other move orders!

Ah, I didn't see line 29. Then yes, I agree. It should be 4.Nf3.

Thank you all for the help! 4.Nf3 looks right to me, based on the reference games and the later moves in the main lines.

Love these forums. This helped!

#7 a very instructive, and often quoted game, in many chess books.

So, just to make sure, the very top line (in bold)
should look like this?

I believe I found another error, which I will post next. For a beginner using this mostly as a reference, I find these errors almost inexcusable, especially if there is no centralized location to find corrections. I’ve checked the publisher’s site. 

Here’s the other potential error I found. 

Page 513, column 16   Shouldn’t blacks 4th move be “Nc6”?

…and one more…

pages 451 and 452, column six. On the (s) extended game—-Nxd1 isn’t possible  

Should I just throw this book away?

:)

19.Rxd1 was played in Danilov - Narva, 2002.

https://www.365chess.com/tournaments/EST-chT_2002/1616

Don't throw the book away. Typos are a fact of life in chess books, even in this electronic age.

I understand typos—just wishing there was a centralized location listing all of them.

That's a great idea. So start a new topic, call it something like `MCO-15 list of typos / errata`. Then if enough people agree it's a good place to put them, the magic of google page rank will make it "official".

4. Nf3 is certainly the needed correction. See Karpov vs Kasparov, 1984 (note c)