Wojo's Weapons, Volume 2: Winning with White [Paperback]

My review of Volume 1 of this effort appears elsewhere on Amazon. There I noted why I find games by GMs against weaker players particularly instructive, and I therefore registered my excitement for this project about Wojo, who had many such opportunities. Volume 2 exclusively covers a Wojo-inspired white repertoire against the KID utilizing the Fianchetto Variation. Whether or not you are interested the Catalan, the subject of Volume 1, this volume stands alone as an accessible, focused, and instructive KID repertoire for white. Like Volume 1, this is not a database dump but a well-explained selection mirroring Wojo's own sense of efficiency (or laziness, which is just as well). The fact that Wojo won about 80% of the time when facing the KID instills a sense of confidence in the lines and in the authors' perspective on the subject matter.

I thought Chapter 5 on move order variations was particularly useful, containing an orienting review of the type often missing from opening books. On the other hand, Chapter 7 on the 9.e4 lines seemed less focused than the others and surprisingly features none of Wojo's games. Chapter 3 on the Gallagher Variation offers two alternative lines, going headlong into the chaos or sidestepping it at the risk of allowing easier equality for Black.

With respect to Volume 1, I noted, among other things, that "[o]ne may have hoped ... that, rather than assuming all the reader's opponents will know and follow theory for 15 - 20+ moves, the book would feature more deviations from deep theory to include representative tactical themes that arise from Wojo's approach against weaker opponents." To perhaps a somewhat lesser degree I feel the same about the current volume. More than half of Wojo's games here were against players a bit more than 200 rating points below Wojo's GM rating. That is probably a good sweet spot; no use in seeing games where the opposition was simply hanging pieces. Nevertheless, I would have opted to include a sampling of outright carnage wrecked on weaker players. This is a book about exploiting relatively small but stable advantages out of the opening to almost the complete exclusion of identifying early tactical opportunities in these lines. Although to a significant degree this focus is a function of Wojo's efforts to avoid hyper-critical lines of theory, it seems a book on the KID would have presented sufficient opportunities, and I doubt that Wojo's games against the 1800s he faced in first rounds of swisses typically lasted 50+ moves.

As with Volume 1, I am withholding one star from this review. In truth, were it not for my very high hopes for a project with such a rich conception for club-level players, Wojo's Weapons V.2 would rate five stars. Many may view this a sequel, and as unnecessarly as sequels typically are. In truth, not only does this seem a quite necessary follow up to Volume 1, standing alone it likely deserves to find a much broader audience given the popularity of the KID.

I have to mirror the review of the other 4 star reviewer. IMO, this book is on par with Vol 1 as one of the best opening books because of its accessibility to class level players. I have played the fianchetto as nearly as long as I have played chess and this series has taught me more than any ONE book. I was disappointed in one aspect though. The authors mention that in Vol. 3 they will be covering the Grunfeld. This is great, but I hope that they will also be covering the symmetrical english or a response to 1.Nf3, c5. I cannot see this series being complete without some in depth work on this first move by black.

I got the book because I wanted to learn something about chess, and it had a pretty blue cover. Most of the other chess books I've seen are really bland.

You shouldn't get this book if you're a beginner at chess because you probably won't understand it. The book is intended for people who have played chess before. If you've already bought the book and you're just a beginner, just take things one move at a time and be patient. However, I don't think I'd recommend buying the book until you're at least comfortable with the names of all the pieces and the moves they make.

Also, I must add that the authors are rather handsome. I don't think I'd buy the book though just for their pictures because you can get them on Google.