Dutch Stonewall - Everyman Chess

London: Everyman Chess - Everyman Publishers Plc, 2000. First Edition . Trade Paperback. As New. 6" X 9 1/4. 159 Pages with an Index of Complete Games. Nodefects noted and the interior text pages are bright, tight, and white. The Stonewall is an ideal choice for those players who are keen to avoid the reams of theory that surround more popular openings such as the King's Indian and Nimzo-Indian Defences. With the Stonewall Black stakes an immediate claim in the centre and lays the foundations for a potentially dangerous kingside attack. The route to success with the Stonewall is very much based on an understanding of themes and ideas and these are clearly elucidated by the author. Unlike some systems against 1 d4, the Stonewall is not an invention of recent times, or even this century. It is interesting that in his book about the middle-game from 1964 Euwe classifies the Stonewall as a subvariation of the Queen's Gambit, rather than the Dutch Defence. The Stonewall has been played by a number of the great players, past and present - even in World Championship matches. Among the famous names using this set-up at some time during their careers are greats such as Tarrasch, Alekhine, Botvinnik, Bronstein, Smyslov, Larsen, Korchnoi and Tal. In more recent times it has been the standard defence of such players such as Bareev, Spassky, Yusupov, Short, Nikolic, Lautier, Agdestein and, for a short period, Vladimir Kramnik. Originally the Stonewall was known mainly for offering Black good attacking prospects, but after White found ways to deal with these attacks attention turned to the more positional aspects, thus contributing to the modern Stonewall's solid reputation. This book we will follow the course of the Stonewall in chess history using the beginning of the modern era at around 1960.