Chess Explained: The Modern Benoni

By Zenon Franco

Published by GAMBIT

Zenon Franco is a grandmaster from Paraguay who now lives in Spain. For more than a quarter of a century, he has written a popular column for Spanish-language chess magazines. He is an experienced chess trainer, his most notable pupil being Paco Vallejo, now one of the world's top grandmasters, whom he taught from 1995 to 1999.

Chess Explained is a new series of books about chess openings. They 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 Modern Benoni is a perennial favourite among players looking to create winning chances with Black. It is one of the few openings where White has no easy way to force drawish simplifications or deny Black any dynamic counterplay. Both players need to understand the imbalances in the position and pursue their plans with great vigour. In this book Franco shows how Black can seek to create the kind of mayhem that has attracted champions such as Tal, Kasparov and Topalov to the Benoni, and also demonstrates how White can seek either to put a positional clamp on the game, or else to storm Black's position before his development is complete. A special section deals with the vital question of move-orders.

Franco starts off the book with the introduction to the opening. There he gives some brief information about the general ideas, followers of the opening, and the organization of the book.

Franco splits the book up as...

1. Classical Variation
2. Modern Variation
3. Fianchetto Variation
4. Mikenas, Taimanov and Four Pawns Attack
5. Knaak and Kapengut Variations
6. Systems with Bf4 and Bg5
7. Knight's Tour Variation
8. Transpositions and Move-Orders

Each chapter has an introduction giving a bit more in depth look at ideas in the line of discussion and short descriptions telling about games to follow. After the annotated games of each section Franco nicely summarizes the ideas and key positions into a few paragraphs. Also included at the end of the book is the section on move orders. He tells about the several different ways to get to the Benoni positions and how each affects which lines can or can not be played.

For anyone learning the Benoni this work is a wonderful resource. Not only will one learn the lines of the opening, but he will also gain a firm understanding in the typical ideas and plans he must employ. The annotations are clear and the examples recent and complete. A great work for anyone rated 1800-2300 who is interested in this dynamic opening.

NSG Rating = 9.4 of 10