Book review: The Scandinavian for Club Players by Thomas Willemze

The Scandinavian for Club Players

by Thomas WIllemze

New in Chess 2021, 267 pages

Sample pdfavailable from the publisher's website

Introduction: Unsidesteppable

Subtitles are becoming increasingly elaborate. This book's is 'Start playing an unsidesteppable and low maintenance response to 1 e4 and simultaneously improve your chess technique'. Well, it is true that a 1 e4 player can hardly avoid 1...d5. Willemze also makes an impressive case for his repertoire being 'low maintenance'. The repertoire is thematic and well-explained enough to support the claim about improving our technique, too.

This book has been on my shelf for a while. It suddenly occurred to me that as an alternative to getting embroiled in the trendy Caro Kann or dusting off my old favourite, the Pirc, a simpler method against 1 e4 could be a good idea.

IM Willemze's work based on 1 e4 d5 2 exd5 Qxd5 3 Nc3 Qa5 fits that bill perfectly. The presentation is wonderfully clear and methodical. Each chapter begins with 'tools' for both sides, which set up the theory sections very well. The many diagrams and prose explanations make the book easy to follow, even without using a board. 'Flash cards', meaning diagrams with reminders of key moves, conclude the chapters.

Contents

006 Explanation of symbols
007 Preface
009 Introduction
013 Part I The main line
020 1) 6.Bc4 - the d4-d5 break
033 2) 6.Ne5 - kingside expansion
053 3) 6.Bd2 - aggressive queenside castling
063 4) 6.Bd3 - easy development
073 Exercises Part I
075 Part II The Nge2 set-up
077 5) 5.Bc4 - bullying the bishop (I)
097 6) 5.Bd2 - bullying the bishop (II)
121 Exercises Part II
123 Part III b2-b4, g2-g3 and d2-d3 set-ups
125 7) Three aggressive lines with b2-b4
138 8) 4.g3 - the flexible fianchetto
157 9) 4.Bc4 - the modest d2-d3
171 Exercises Part III
173 Part IV The flexible Nf3
175 10) 3.Nf3 (and 3.d4) - a universal weapon
196 Exercises Part IV
197 Part V Early deviations
198 11) 2.Nc3 - a surprise weapon
207 12) 2.e5 - the closed centre
220 13) 2.d4 - the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit
233 Exercises Part V
235 Part VI Solutions to exercises
264 Index of variations
266 Index of names
268 Bibliography

Overview
I was pleasantly surprised to see how few serious theoretical problems Black seems to experience in this opening. The examples below provide some sense of what to expect.

Here is one critical line, in which I would have welcomed more detail, but I generally share Willemze's feeling that the edge that Stockfish attributes to White is not too significant for practical play, where the compactness of Black's position is useful.

I also noted that Willemze doesn't offer alternatives to his main repertoire recommendations. This is understandable as extra lines swell the size of a book, and an author has to put some faith in their key choices. But it's a potential problem in a line like this:

This is theoretically totally fine for Black, but White didn't feel like a fight and swapped everything off. To be fair, this is the only instance of this in the whole repertoire.

It is remarkable how easily White can overstretch in the face of Black's resilient structure and rapid development. For example:

Quite rough treatment of an almost-2700 GM.

Another critical line to check is 1 e4 d5 2 exd5 Qxd5 3 Nc3 Qa5 4 Bc4 Nf6 5 d3: White refuses to present a target in the centre. This is a weapon that has served Nigel Short well. Against this, Willemze proposes a novelty on move 6: 5...a6 6 Bd2 e6. This is really ingenious: Black meets 7 Qe2 with 7...Qh5 and if 8 Nf3 then 8...b5 and a fianchetto, while 7 Nf3 c5 seems - surprisingly - fine for Black, even in the critical continuation 8 Nd5 Qd8 9 Nxf6+ gxf6.

Conclusion

The book is full of such quirky yet practical and sound ideas. Willemze also has lesser lines convincingly covered. The exercises that conclude the book are a nice touch. This is a gem of a repertoire book.