Fighting the Ruy Lopez

by Milos Pavlovic

The Ruy Lopez is incredibly common at all levels of chess, and everyone who plays 1 e4 e5 as Black needs to have a reliable antidote to this powerful opening. In this book, Milos Pavlovic provides the answer, devising a sound and yet ambitious repertoire for Black, the basis of which is provided by the legendary and ever-popular Marshall Attack. The Marshall is a perfect weapon for Black, as it avoids passive positions and the so-called ‘Spanish torture’ of many other variations. In contrast, with the Marshall Black’s objectives are clear-cut and often involve a direct mating attack against the white king!

Genres: Chess

192 pages, Paperback

First published June 16, 2009

Reviews

[Corey Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice overview of the Marshall Attack, including the main lines of the gambit accepted and also ways to decline or avoid the Marshall. The book's brevity is either an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on what you are looking for, but I really liked the focus on "ideas" in the opening rather than "variations" (which are also included). I do wish the author had provided a few more complete games to study.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really mis-titled because this book is basically just the Marshall Attack and the anti-Marshall's, so it is NOT fighting the Ruy Lopez, it is fighting one variation of the Ruy, and there are a lot of variations to worry about before you even get to move 8, where this book takes up the analysis. So a good contribution to Marshall and anti-Marshall theory, but not a good repertoire book for the Ruy Lopez in general.