Although this game was played a long time ago it illustrates the point of why you can’t blindly follow opening book recommendations. First a little background. This game was played by correspondence and was played in the final round of the US Open Correspondence Championship. My opponent was a many time competitor in the US Closed Championship; those were the days when they INVITED the top players in the country. My opponent also played in the US Championship the year we played this game and finished 12th out of 14.

Anyway I was using a popular opening booklet and was blindly following its recommendations. At move 18 the normal move was 18.h5 to which Black’s reply would be 18…Nc5. The booklet I was using suggested 18.f5 as being a good alternative so that’s what I played. The game was supposed to continue 18...Nc5 19.Nxc5 Qxc5 20.fxe6 fxe6 21.Rhf1 Rf8 22.Qh5+ g6 with a slight advantage to White.

http://chess.maribelajar.com/chesspu...?id=1218115988

A couple days after mailing out 18.f5 I was looking at the position and it occurred to me that Black could also play 18…Ne5. So I thought I’d take a closer look at it.

18…Ne5 centralizes the N and gains a tempo by attacking the Q. If the Q moves off the f-file then there's no attack along it.

And if I play 19.Qf4 a5 20.h5 (No better are: 20.fxe6 fxe6 and there's no threat to Black at f7 because it's defended by the centralized N at e5 and if 20.f6 gxf6 21.gxf6 Bd8 White this has no attack.) then after 20...a4 21.Nd2 Bd7 22.Qg3 Rxb2 doesn’t look so hot either.

So about a week later I got Black’s reply and of course he played 18…Ne5 and I lost quickly. He asked if I was using that particular booklet and when I replied that I was, his comment was, “I thought so. There’s a mistake in it.”

Moral: Don’t blindly trust anything you see. Check it out for yourself. This is especially true if you have one of those “Winning with the Whatever” type opening books!

Must have been -quite- a long time ago, since it's an Orthodox Najdorf without 13 f5... I used to have long analysis sessions/blitz matches with an expert friend of mine in 13 f5 Nc5 14 f6 gxf6 15 gxf6 Bf8 16 Rg1.

After 17 ...Qxb6 I wanted to try to make f5 work by 18 e5 dxe5 19 f5, but if you're playing f5 anyway why would you play h2-h4 at all... hmmm... Najdorf is always fun to look at. Sorry for the relatively off topic post.

Yes, it was a long time ago but the point is still relevant. I remember having a book on the Najdorf Sicilian by O’Kelly where one line was soundly condemned. Not too long after I bought the book I saw a column by Gligorich in one of my magazines showing new resources in the line O’Kelly showed as busted and it was then all the rage in GM play…another reason why if you’re serious about your chess you can’t trust everything you read and the use of an up to date db is essential.

Something to always keep in mind with opening books. Most authors are making their lines and analysis as rosy as they can within the limits of credibility to sell their books. They won't care if you win or lose with it, sometimes you'll even find they don't use it on a regular basis anyway!

There are of course authors that publish good books with good opening theory and good ideas. But one should always be careful and sometimes maybe take things with a grain of salt instead of at face value.

I've always thought it was a good idea to go on chessgames.com and look to see if that player has that opening in their repertoire. Though sometimes you can't find the player on chessgames.com, but this is rare.

I have also found it odd how some authors (I believe Andrew Soltis fell into this category), writes a "Winning with the (insert opening)", then write a book "Beating the (insert same opening)". But when it comes down to whether or not you are buying groceries tomorrow, it is all understandable.

Understandable and absolutely not helpful.

The book lines are there to guide us. But if you sense that there is something wrong with the line your are playing,there is our own judgment to lean on.