Trade Paperback. Very Good. 6" X 8 1/2. 145 Pages Indexed. This book covers one of the most aggressive variations for white in the English opening. Black most natural response on move three, Bb4, is an error. Most of your opponents, however will play this move. Towards the middle of the nineteenth century the move l.c4 first saw the light of tournament practice. It was introduced by a group of British chessplayers captained by Howard Staunton. This may be regarded as the origin of the English Game: one of the most interesting modem openings. In recent times the theory of the English Game has been greatly developed. Particular systems have been scrupulously studied and many new strategies and variations have been created. For this reason it is obvious that a serious study of the entire English Game in one volume is almost impossible. Thus the author has devoted this work entirely to one particular variation, that arising after I.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e6 3.e4. White's last move was probably first used in tournament practice towards the end of the 1920's. The major contribution towards the popularisation of the entire variation, through the creation of ideas and analysis, was given by the two famous players from the former Soviet Union Salo Flohr and Vladas Mikenas who gave the variation its name. In the last few years tournament practice has seen the use of the Flohr-Mikenas system by many notable grandmasters such as Kasparov, Karpov, Spassky, Timman, Yusupov, Hiibner, Seirawan, Miles and many others. 3.e4 represents the beginning of the struggle for the crucial strategical square (d5). Occasionally White threatens to increase (with e4-e5) his spatial advantage. Black needs to take care in his reaction in order to deny his opponent the possibility of achieving a great positional advantage right from the start of the game, e.g. after 3 ... ..Bb4?! or 3 ... d6?! Black finds himself in a negative situation (see Chapter 1). In effect only two plans may be considered practical: the first being 3 ... d5 and with this active move Black attempts to crush his opponent's centre immediately (see Chapters 2-3: A18) and the second being 3 ... c5: Nimzowitsch's idea. Black tries to exploit a temporary weakness of the d4 square and is not afraid of an eventual loss of tempo after 4.eS (see Chapters 4-9: A I 9). In order to create a complete picture of the opening struggle the author has included 180 demonstrative games to be found in the relative chapters. This book is not currently available nor has it recently been available on eBay. Lowest price on the Book search engine addall dot com is $16.50 as of early November 2024.FIDE master Konikowski is known to be a thorough and detailed annotator.