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# Grandmaster Repertoire 3

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Grandmaster Repertoire 3 [Marin, Mihail] on desertcart.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Grandmaster Repertoire 3

Review: English with g3 vs 1...e5 - Despite Marin's formidable reputation as a chess writer, this is my first book by this author. I can now say that his fame is well-deserved. Marin writes with great clarity and thoroughness, and his understanding of the subject is terrific. I give this book my highest recommendation, but read on to see if this masterpiece is appropriate for you. Let me start with some notes about the opening system that is the focus of Marin's book. I play the English with g3 regularly, and I am quite satisfied with this opening. This approach to the English is rather positional, with most lines achieving small but long-term pressure on the Black position. In general, there is a lack of early contact, which avoids simplification and results in rich middlegames where both sides have a wide range of possible plans. Given the lack of tactical melee in the opening, the play normally relies on understanding typical structures, avoiding the memorization of variations to a large degree. This same claim is often made by the authors of opening manuals to lure club players, but I can guarantee that it is true in this case. My main source for this opening so far has been Kosten's The Dynamic English : The aggresive player's guide to a traditional chess opening , which has aged remarkably well. It is also critical to point out that the English with g3 as interpreted by Kosten and Marin is a strategically ambitious system, that strives to achieve a significant positional advantage against every Black reply. As a result, the White player must master a large number of pawn structures and associated plans, with plenty of examples of subtle play and hypermodern counterattacks against the Black center. To be frank, I have found this difficult to digest, despite some hard work looking for related games and multiple readings Kosten's book. I cannot recommend the English with g3 as a quick fix of your repertoire with White, as Black has many choices and White has to avoid many positional pitfalls to reach a good position. I learnt to play the Colle/Stonewall Attack much faster for example, and I sometimes miss all those rapid King side attacks against unprepared opponents. Here is where Marin's book reveals itself as a phenomenal contribution. There are two things that really shine in Marin's writing. First, he bothers to explain with words many moves that are difficult to understand for the average club player. Second, he often examines every legal (and sensible) reply by Black, which gives me great confidence in his choices and makes it very clear how to utilize the general ideas to obtain a concrete advantage. Given the subject matter, such a presentation is priceless. My heavy use in the last two weeks since I received this volume has lead me to many new insights in difficult variations that I could never understand from Kosten alone. To go over the contents more in detail, this volume focuses on 1...e5. It is divided in 8 main parts and 33 chapters. The first two parts explore the early Bishop developments Bc5 and Bb4. In the former, I was pleasantly surprised by the delay of e3 and a3, which I never found fully convincing in Kosten's. Marin's d3 favors faster development and it is probably easier to play. The next part focuses on the Botvinnik, and Marin does an excellent job explaining this system. The Botvinnik is the cornerstone of the repertoire, being the primary way to tackle King's Indian structures with e5, and it is far more difficult to play than most players think. Next comes the Reserve Sicilian, where Marin chooses 5. Nc3. My results with Kosten's Nf3 are so good that I haven't examined this part yet. The remaining material looks at the Keres, the accelerated Keres and some minor lines. I was eagerly waiting for Marin's take on the accelerated Keres, which featured as a refutation of the English with g3 in Palliser's Dangerous Weapons: Flank Openings: Dazzle Your Opponents! . Marin's logical and incredibly thorough analysis of these lines is well worth the price of the whole book. I also would like to mention the production qualities of this outstanding book. It is simply a pleasure to stare at the pages, which employ a very readable two-column layout in a pleasant serif font. Main lines and variations are always easy to distinguish, and no page feels crammed or underutilized. Almost every page has two or three diagrams, and the use of slightly smaller variation diagrams is a very nice touch. Overall, Quality Chess fully honors its own name with this edition.
Review: desertcart info and picture are deceptive ... but Marin is still a five star author (review updated April 2011) - This review is to provide the information that the desertcart description does not accurately describe the contents of the book. The book is on the English opening, but it is part I of a two part series on the English by the author. The first book is strictly on the response 1.c4 e5 and nothing else. The description does not include this very important information. In addition, the picture on the desertcart ommitted the words Part 1 under the title. Why is this important? First, I'm most interested in transpositions from openings starting with 1.Nf3. Basically, in this situation, the response e5 is no longer a consideration. Now, Marin in his foreward starts to make an argument that 1.Nf3 is flawed because of the response 1...d5 followed by a slav type of setup. He's not providing the hard evidence for that opinion until part 2 of the book. Second, I thought I was purchasing an entire volume and feel a bit cheated that now I need to buy a whole additional volume to get full coverage. At lease after reading this review, you (the potential buyer) can decide for yourself whether you want to do that. Few other notes .... I've really just begun reading the book, but I can already tell that the volume is written in Marin's same high quality, clear style with emphasis on education rather than what I'll call "variation regurgitation". I am a bit suspicious on how exhaustive the book is but I'll update my review when I complete the read. One thing that I'm sure of is that I'll understand the English Opening considerably better than I do now. Also, the book is presented variation based (instead of emphasis on illustrative games). I don't take a hard position like others on this topic because I have a tendency to understand openings better from complete games. This is true because you can actually see how opening ideas manifest themselves in middlegame plans and result in endgame consequences. The main drawback is that not all variations are exhaustively covered and very problematic if you're trying to play correspondence chess or prepare for a high caliber opponent. If you look at my other reviews, I rarely can enough good things about Marin as an author. This book is slightly different in that he does not provide as much critical and in-depth analysis on legitimate alternatives to mainstream responses. This in my opinion is the difference between a book targeted for the middle of the road club player and someone aiming for the master level skill level. UPDATE April2011: I now own all three of Marin's book and very much look forward to putting his analyses to the test. As noted by one of the comments to this review, there are in fact THREE volumes to this set devoted to the English Opening. The volumes in general do not overlap with responses to 1.c4 e5 in volume one as already noted in this review. The second volume handles most other responses but primarily addresses 1.c4 Nf6 leading to a variety of setups such as King's Indian, Queen's Indian, Reti/English setups (amongst others). It should be noted that the response to the Dutch is rather light with references to Volume 1 as a transposition. The third and final volume deals with the symmetrical English. In my opinion, this is the toughest material because it's so difficult to gain any appreciable advantage as white in the symmetrical English. Players that know what they're doing, understand the nuances well, but going over the material, it's safe to say that the finesses required a lot of work and probably an advanced understanding of chess. In general, Marin is not afraid of the exchange sacrifice leading to an advantage. Understanding the benefits and potential of the exchange sacrifice is highly advanced for two reasons: first, often the advantage is temporal and requires excellent skill in piece coordination (not basic by any means), second, for situations where the advantage is structural requires a great skill in technique. What this illustrates is that Marin is attempting to reach an audience from advanced club player to GM. Overall, the books are excellent and require a great deal of attention to understand the nuances of the opening. One observation that I've made is that Marin is so talented at providing narrative assessment of the positions that the sections are highly readable (mostly without the use of a chess set because Analysis diagrams are frequent). The one problem with the material (and not the author) is that the subtle difference between the play really requires expert/master understanding of the positional transitions. Finally, Marin definitely prefers the English (c4) over a Reti (Nf3) on the first move because Nf3 doesn't allow the Botvinnik setup against the King's Indian (type setups). I can appreciate this problem because the alternative if you play Nf3 is to either accept quick equality or play something like the Classical King's Indian as white. I can say that playing the classical KI as white against strong players is tough because the King side attack for black can be aggressive and difficult to defend.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #2,490,185 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #2,555 in Chess (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars (54) |
| Dimensions  | 6 x 1.2 x 9 inches |
| Edition  | First Edition |
| ISBN-10  | 1906552045 |
| ISBN-13  | 978-1906552046 |
| Item Weight  | 1.99 pounds |
| Language  | English |
| Print length  | 480 pages |
| Publication date  | September 1, 2009 |
| Publisher  | Quality Chess UK Ltd |

## Images

![Grandmaster Repertoire 3 - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41qGptSwckL.jpg)
![Grandmaster Repertoire 3 - Image 2](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Ja1liONlL.jpg)
![Grandmaster Repertoire 3 - Image 3](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81ijBinkzUL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ English with g3 vs 1...e5
*by F***3 on November 15, 2009*

Despite Marin's formidable reputation as a chess writer, this is my first book by this author. I can now say that his fame is well-deserved. Marin writes with great clarity and thoroughness, and his understanding of the subject is terrific. I give this book my highest recommendation, but read on to see if this masterpiece is appropriate for you. Let me start with some notes about the opening system that is the focus of Marin's book. I play the English with g3 regularly, and I am quite satisfied with this opening. This approach to the English is rather positional, with most lines achieving small but long-term pressure on the Black position. In general, there is a lack of early contact, which avoids simplification and results in rich middlegames where both sides have a wide range of possible plans. Given the lack of tactical melee in the opening, the play normally relies on understanding typical structures, avoiding the memorization of variations to a large degree. This same claim is often made by the authors of opening manuals to lure club players, but I can guarantee that it is true in this case. My main source for this opening so far has been Kosten's The Dynamic English : The aggresive player's guide to a traditional chess opening , which has aged remarkably well. It is also critical to point out that the English with g3 as interpreted by Kosten and Marin is a strategically ambitious system, that strives to achieve a significant positional advantage against every Black reply. As a result, the White player must master a large number of pawn structures and associated plans, with plenty of examples of subtle play and hypermodern counterattacks against the Black center. To be frank, I have found this difficult to digest, despite some hard work looking for related games and multiple readings Kosten's book. I cannot recommend the English with g3 as a quick fix of your repertoire with White, as Black has many choices and White has to avoid many positional pitfalls to reach a good position. I learnt to play the Colle/Stonewall Attack much faster for example, and I sometimes miss all those rapid King side attacks against unprepared opponents. Here is where Marin's book reveals itself as a phenomenal contribution. There are two things that really shine in Marin's writing. First, he bothers to explain with words many moves that are difficult to understand for the average club player. Second, he often examines every legal (and sensible) reply by Black, which gives me great confidence in his choices and makes it very clear how to utilize the general ideas to obtain a concrete advantage. Given the subject matter, such a presentation is priceless. My heavy use in the last two weeks since I received this volume has lead me to many new insights in difficult variations that I could never understand from Kosten alone. To go over the contents more in detail, this volume focuses on 1...e5. It is divided in 8 main parts and 33 chapters. The first two parts explore the early Bishop developments Bc5 and Bb4. In the former, I was pleasantly surprised by the delay of e3 and a3, which I never found fully convincing in Kosten's. Marin's d3 favors faster development and it is probably easier to play. The next part focuses on the Botvinnik, and Marin does an excellent job explaining this system. The Botvinnik is the cornerstone of the repertoire, being the primary way to tackle King's Indian structures with e5, and it is far more difficult to play than most players think. Next comes the Reserve Sicilian, where Marin chooses 5. Nc3. My results with Kosten's Nf3 are so good that I haven't examined this part yet. The remaining material looks at the Keres, the accelerated Keres and some minor lines. I was eagerly waiting for Marin's take on the accelerated Keres, which featured as a refutation of the English with g3 in Palliser's Dangerous Weapons: Flank Openings: Dazzle Your Opponents! . Marin's logical and incredibly thorough analysis of these lines is well worth the price of the whole book. I also would like to mention the production qualities of this outstanding book. It is simply a pleasure to stare at the pages, which employ a very readable two-column layout in a pleasant serif font. Main lines and variations are always easy to distinguish, and no page feels crammed or underutilized. Almost every page has two or three diagrams, and the use of slightly smaller variation diagrams is a very nice touch. Overall, Quality Chess fully honors its own name with this edition.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Amazon info and picture are deceptive ... but Marin is still a five star author (review updated April 2011)
*by I***D on November 4, 2009*

This review is to provide the information that the Amazon description does not accurately describe the contents of the book. The book is on the English opening, but it is part I of a two part series on the English by the author. The first book is strictly on the response 1.c4 e5 and nothing else. The description does not include this very important information. In addition, the picture on the Amazon ommitted the words Part 1 under the title. Why is this important? First, I'm most interested in transpositions from openings starting with 1.Nf3. Basically, in this situation, the response e5 is no longer a consideration. Now, Marin in his foreward starts to make an argument that 1.Nf3 is flawed because of the response 1...d5 followed by a slav type of setup. He's not providing the hard evidence for that opinion until part 2 of the book. Second, I thought I was purchasing an entire volume and feel a bit cheated that now I need to buy a whole additional volume to get full coverage. At lease after reading this review, you (the potential buyer) can decide for yourself whether you want to do that. Few other notes .... I've really just begun reading the book, but I can already tell that the volume is written in Marin's same high quality, clear style with emphasis on education rather than what I'll call "variation regurgitation". I am a bit suspicious on how exhaustive the book is but I'll update my review when I complete the read. One thing that I'm sure of is that I'll understand the English Opening considerably better than I do now. Also, the book is presented variation based (instead of emphasis on illustrative games). I don't take a hard position like others on this topic because I have a tendency to understand openings better from complete games. This is true because you can actually see how opening ideas manifest themselves in middlegame plans and result in endgame consequences. The main drawback is that not all variations are exhaustively covered and very problematic if you're trying to play correspondence chess or prepare for a high caliber opponent. If you look at my other reviews, I rarely can enough good things about Marin as an author. This book is slightly different in that he does not provide as much critical and in-depth analysis on legitimate alternatives to mainstream responses. This in my opinion is the difference between a book targeted for the middle of the road club player and someone aiming for the master level skill level. UPDATE April2011: I now own all three of Marin's book and very much look forward to putting his analyses to the test. As noted by one of the comments to this review, there are in fact THREE volumes to this set devoted to the English Opening. The volumes in general do not overlap with responses to 1.c4 e5 in volume one as already noted in this review. The second volume handles most other responses but primarily addresses 1.c4 Nf6 leading to a variety of setups such as King's Indian, Queen's Indian, Reti/English setups (amongst others). It should be noted that the response to the Dutch is rather light with references to Volume 1 as a transposition. The third and final volume deals with the symmetrical English. In my opinion, this is the toughest material because it's so difficult to gain any appreciable advantage as white in the symmetrical English. Players that know what they're doing, understand the nuances well, but going over the material, it's safe to say that the finesses required a lot of work and probably an advanced understanding of chess. In general, Marin is not afraid of the exchange sacrifice leading to an advantage. Understanding the benefits and potential of the exchange sacrifice is highly advanced for two reasons: first, often the advantage is temporal and requires excellent skill in piece coordination (not basic by any means), second, for situations where the advantage is structural requires a great skill in technique. What this illustrates is that Marin is attempting to reach an audience from advanced club player to GM. Overall, the books are excellent and require a great deal of attention to understand the nuances of the opening. One observation that I've made is that Marin is so talented at providing narrative assessment of the positions that the sections are highly readable (mostly without the use of a chess set because Analysis diagrams are frequent). The one problem with the material (and not the author) is that the subtle difference between the play really requires expert/master understanding of the positional transitions. Finally, Marin definitely prefers the English (c4) over a Reti (Nf3) on the first move because Nf3 doesn't allow the Botvinnik setup against the King's Indian (type setups). I can appreciate this problem because the alternative if you play Nf3 is to either accept quick equality or play something like the Classical King's Indian as white. I can say that playing the classical KI as white against strong players is tough because the King side attack for black can be aggressive and difficult to defend.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Along the road, I met a teacher
*by M***I on April 1, 2014*

GM Mihail Marin is perhaps the finest chess author and instructor whom I have ever had the pleasure of discovering. This initial volume on The English is the very best that I have studied. The gentleman and his analysis is to be trusted. Of course, one must commit effort, but if you love The English as I do, your time will be well rewarded with an understanding of the nuances of the opening and maybe even with a full point in your games as white, and an understanding of what may be the best lines for black. I would also highly recommend Mr. Marin's "Beating the Open Games" and "A Spanish Repetoire for Black." They have served me well.

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