Complete Defense to King Pawn Openings, 2nd Edition Paperback – July 1, 2003

The Complete Defense to King Pawn Openings is structured around the Caro-Kann defensive system and goes into great depth to show readers the primary ideas behind this defense. Schiller focuses on all the essentials; ranging from the early move orders to the fundamental pawn structures that ideally evolve from the Caro-Kann in the end game.With many great books on the Caro-Kann available, it is hard to go wrong with most as once you learn the main lines you will have a good opposition to e4. Understanding why some moves are better than others in this defense is paramount if you want to have a strong middle game with an eye toward the end game. This book covers the full scope and is more than adequate for any chess player up to the expert level.

Caro-Kann is a solid defense. Against a dangerous attacking player like Tal, Botvinnik used almost exclusively Caro-Kann as black to combat Tal's king pawn opening. Botvinnik almost resorted all to French defense before the two matches with Tal. On the very first game of the first match, Botvinnk lost with his French defense, for the rest of the match he used Caro-Kann against all king pawn opening. The result was not in his favor (1 win, 2 loses and 3 draws), but better than the French. For the second match, in the first half, with Caro-Kann, Botvinnik got the score: 1 win, 2 loses, and 2 draws. He switched to the French and lost at once. Caro-Kann it was for the rest of the match, 1 win and 3 drawns.I played the Caro-Kann (before learning the statistics above) to avoid the troubled QB in the French, while the Sicilian requires lots of risks and fighting spirit. I got a good record against one player, he then researched and prepared some special line for me. Before I played him again, I played two other opponents whom the first player shared this special line with, they both beat me! The line was: 1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 e5 Bf5 4 g4 Bg6 5 h4 h6 6 e6! To see the correct reply at moves 4 or 5, please use the chess database to look for games of Bronstein and Petrosian.When I saw "Complete Defense To King Pawn Openings" and on the very first page of chapter 1, it has the diagram of black reply to white's e4 with c6; I bought the book instantly. It "was" about Caro-Kann and "complete" (???). What else could I ask for more? I was disappointed, it has no mention of 3 ... Bf5. It's not worth the price. The book is just a collection of Caro-Kann games, with some well-thought and some not so well-thought ideas of the author. And your job is to sort them out. 7 USD for the book is reasonable price.Besides the Cardoza book's content is not high in quality, the format is not so good either. The two column format like Gambit book is much better. The font used in Cardoza book is hard too read, too large. I hope Cardoza will improve the book content and adjust some page format soon.As a departing gift, my shortest (lost) game in Caro-Kann was 6 moves. I give the first 5 moves, you will find the 6th. ;-)1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 dxe4 4 Nxe4 Nd7 5 Qe2 Ngf6 (?).I recalled I saw this trap before, and after the game I checked again and there it was in a beginner textbook! ;-)

J'ai acheté ce livre car il traite très bien pour les Noirs de la variante avec un petit roque noir de la défense Caro-Kann avec 4...Ff5 au jeu d'échecs: 11. Ff4 et 11. Fd2 suivi de 13. Ce4 ou 13. De2 notamment. La partie sur la variante d'avance (1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5) ne traite pas de 3...Ff5 (mais de 3...Ca6 et 3...c5), et pour contrer l'attaque Panov-Botvinnik (1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Cf6 5. Cc3), l'auteur ne traite que de 5...Cc6 (il étudie notamment en détails la ligne 6. Fg5 suivi de 6...Fe6, avec pour ligne principale 7. c5 Ce4, ou bien suivi de 6...dxc4, et la ligne 6. Cf3 Fg4 7. cxd5 Cxd5 8. Db3 Fxf3 9. gxf3 Cb6).Si ces lignes de jeu vous conviennent avec les Noirs, ce livre est pour vous et il mérite alors 5 étoiles. Si vous n'aimez pas les positions qui résultent de ces lignes, alors ôtez les 3 étoiles données au livre pour être dans un juste milieu, et passez votre chemin.Ceci dit, ce livre présente aussi une multitude de déviations par les Blancs qu'on ne rencontre presque jamais dans la pratique, et qui peuvent surprendre le joueur des Noirs, ce qui fait qu'il peut aussi servir à donner des idées à un joueur de club motivé par l'idée de mettre à bas avec les Blancs ce véritable "mur" que représente la défense caro-kann.