Play the Queen's Gambit

It has been a week since I posted, but that is probably due to the fact that I missed my tournament game last week. (I have a child on the way so I had to attend some baby classes to keep my wife happy).

Okay, but I did just finish playing a good game against a good opponent that I will annotate and then post online. It takes me a few days to do that because, well, I have to review the entire game and look up the openings to see what works best. So stay tuned for that.

But, I have a new book from the library called "play the queen's gambit" It is an Everyman Chess book (a series that I like a lot) and this one was written by Chris Ward. I have only gotten about 20 pages into this book but I wanted to point out my goal for this one. I'm a big fan of having an idea of what I want from a book before I read it so that I can gain something. I just find that if I pull a book and just read it to see what happens I don't really get as much from it. So, my goal with this book so to learn the Queen's Gambit Declined. As I mentioned in a prevous blog post, this defense was suggested to me as an option against 1. d4. I was told that this might fit my play style.

Now, I want look look at the QGD, however the first part of the book is the Queens Gambit Accepted. I have worked through the theory part of the opening for about 15 different lines and I'm starting to like it a lot. I have traditionally been an 1. e4 player, but this book is starting to suggest to me the idea of changing. Now, I should add that this is just the Queen's Gambit and there is more than two different ways to play against 1. d4 but it will keep me from having to play the Sicilian that I hate so much.

So, this book has already been a good thing for me and I have yet to get to the part that I really hoped to learn the most. Hopefully, in a week or so I will be able to add this book to my list of really good chess books.