Chess Explained: The Modern Benoni

by Zenón Franco Ocampos, Manuel Perez Carballo (Translator)

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.

* 25 recent and highly instructive games discussed in detail
* Chapter introductions and conclusions emphasize the key points
* Full indexes of games and variations
* Extensive verbal explanations of plans and manoeuvres

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.

Genres: Chess

112 pages, Paperback

First published August 25, 2007

About the author

Zenón Franco Ocampos was a chess grandmaster (GM) from Paraguay. In the 1982 Chess Olympiad at Lucerne, he won the gold medal at board one by scoring 11 of 13. In the 1990 Chess Olympiad at Novi Sad, he shared first place at board one with 9 points in 12 games. As of 2007, Franco was the top-ranked player and only GM in Paraguay (now, there are two GMs: Axel Bachmann and José Cubas). He wrote several books on chess for Gambit Publications under the name Zenón Franco.