Raymond Keene

Cyrus the Great

issue 21 May 2016

I think I hold the world record for the greatest number of chess books written (or co-written) and published. At the last count I managed to identify 199, with several of them translated into a total of 13 different languages. Last week, a new book by the prolific Cyrus Lakdawala dropped through my letterbox. Lakdawala seems to be producing a book every month and I fear he is threatening to overtake me.

His latest tome is an exposition of various methods of combating the Sicilian Defence. These include an early c3, in order to build up a formidable pawn centre for White, a quick Bb5 and the feared Morra Gambit where White immediately plays 2 d4 and then continues in sacrificial style with 2 … cxd4 3 c3, rather than trying to recapture the pawn. This is not a book for theory hounds who wish to follow the main lines based on 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 followed by 3 d4; it is for free spirits.

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