Chess Explained: The Queen's Gambit Declined

By James Rizzitano

Published by GAMBIT

James Rizzitano is a strong international master who dominated chess in the New England region during a 14-year period from 1976 to 1989 - he won 157 out of 336 events in which he competed. His career highlights include victories over Alburt, Benjamin, Benko, Christiansen, Dlugy, I.Gurevich, and Wolff. Rizzitano has recently made a return to competitive chess, and has already written three successful books for Gambit.

Chess Explained books are not theoretical works in the traditional sense, but more a series of lessons from a chess expert with extensive over-the-board experience with an opening. You will gain an understanding of the opening and the middlegames to which it leads, enabling you to find the right moves and plans in your own games. It is as if you were sitting at the board with a chess coach answering your questions about the plans for both sides, the ideas behind particular moves, and what specific knowledge you need to have.

The Queen's Gambit Declined is one of the most important and popular of chess openings. While an immensely solid and classical choice for Black, it has remained highly topical for more than a century. Both sides have ways to create imbalance and test their opponent's skills and knowledge in a full-blooded struggle. Most of the World Champions have taken both sides of the QGD, with Spassky and Karpov especially notable defenders of Black's cause. In addition to the traditional main lines with Bg5, White has at his disposal the Exchange Variation, and the Bf4 system, both of which can be handled in highly aggressive style if he wishes. Rizzitano covers all these lines and a plethora of other important lines, focusing on the fundamental ideas on which they are based.

According to tradition in the Chess Explained series, the book starts off with Rizzitano's introduction to the opening. He tells some of the notable players who have defended the opening through the years, a bit about the opening's style, and what style of player it would be most beneficial for.

The core material is put together as follows...

1. Alatortsev Variation
2. Tarrasch Defence
3. Exchange and Blackburne Variations
4. Ragozin Defence and Vienna Variation
5. Semi-Tarrasch Defence
6. Cambridge Springs and Lasker Defences
7. Tartakower Defence
8. Classical Defence

As normal in the series, the sections each have their own introductions with a bit about the stuctures and different characteristics of the line followed up with short notes about each game that will be featured in that section. Through the book Rizzitano provides many variations and side lines. He does not always put as much emphasis on annotations as other works but still accurately gives the reader a clear picture of the position's character.

After reading Rizzitano's earlier book for the Chess Explained series on the Taimanov Sicilian, I was eager to see what he had to offer on the Queen's Gambit Declined. I must say it was well worth the wait. His new work provides an excellently up to date and reliable source of information on this popular opening. I was impressed with how well it was researched and organized. The information included in this book could easily serve the reader as a partial repertoire or simply new ideas and techniques to use in the Queen's Gambit Declined. A wonderful book!

NSG Rating = 9.4 of 10