Sveshnikov vs the Anti-Sicilians: A Repertoire for Black Paperback – March 7, 2015

Intersante

Sveshnikov's approach to opening books - for example in his works on the 2 c3 Sicilian and Advance French - is idiosyncratic, relying on the analysis of a large number of games rather than concrete opening variations. In this way the reader learns to understand the openings, and consequently those volumes will stand the test of time. He adopts a similar approach here but doesn't achieve quite the same the same effect. This is possibly because there are a large number of anti-Sicilians, each with their own positional themes. Perhaps it is also because the author's great analytical contribution is to the above to openings plus of course the Sicilian Sveshnikov, and he has less to say about the anti-Sicilians.Nonetheless, the repertoire presented is reliable and "main-line", with the exception of the 2.c3 Sicilian where he recommends a sub-line as an alternative to the main lines presented in his 2 c3 book. He doesn't cover the Rossolimo/Moscow complex, which is one of the two key anti-Sicilians (but then neither did Richard Palliser in "Fighting the anti-Sicilians").I suspect you will need to do quite a bit of extra work with the help of databases and engines, and I am sure Evgeny would say "that's what you should be doing!"

The book is good, it offers simple and effective lines and it is well analyzed, I did not find any serious tactical mistake. The problem is the Rossolimo variation, which is not covered in this book, it will be analyzed later according to Sveshnikov.