Wojo's Weapons: Winning With White

The "Wojo's Weapons" series provides an offbeat and solid repertoire for White based on the Catalan and other kingside fianchetto variations. Volume 1 of the series covers the ensuing battle after 1.Nf3 d5 2.d4. This includes the Catalan with and without ...dxc4 (open and closed variations, respectively), the Slav with 4.Qc2, and other openings like the Queen's Gambit Accepted, the Tarrasch, and the Chigorin Defense. Volumes 2 and 3 of the series cover Black's other responses to 1.Nf3. The authors explain the basic concept behind 'Wojo's Weapons' in the Introduction... "In order for an opening line to be incorporated into Wojo's 'system,' it had to meet certain criteria: - It must have 'surprise value,' - It must be relatively sound, - It must be disconcerting to play against, - It must fit in with the rest of the repertoire." To be sure, avoiding the main lines like this is an utterly lazy way to build an opening repertoire (a fact readily acknowledged by Ippolito and Hilton), and it also happens to be what most club and tournament players are looking for (myself included)! Contrast this with "Grandmaster Repertoire: 1.d4" by Avrukh or the "Opening for White According to Kramnik" series by Khalifman, both of which also cover a repertoire based on the Catalan and kingside fianchetto variations. Learning those repertoires, you'd be prepared to play openings like the best players in the world, but it's also a lot of work! With "Wojo's Weapons," you're steering the game into solid positional lines where you'll have the home-court advantage with minimal need for opening preparation (which is still plenty, but less than usual). Of course, there are some down sides to this approach. This is most apparent in Wojo's line for the Slav, 1.Nf3 d5 2.d4 Nf6 3.c4 c6 4.Qc2. The natural-looking move 4.Qc2 allows black easy development with 4...dxc4 5. Qxc4 Bf5 (and e6, Nbd7, c5, etc.). This line is certainly not "disconcerting to play against" as advertised in the Introduction, but it definitely "fits in with the rest of the repertoire." That is, if Black opts for the Semi-Slav with 4...e6, then we can play 5.g3 transposing back into the Catalan chapters. Are you willing to play a non-threatening Slav line in order to avoid learning opening theory for the Semi-Slav? I don't know about you, but I am, at least for now. That brings me to my main point about this book and "Wojo's Weapons" in general. It's a great way to hit the ground running, playing high quality openings without too much learning curve. Later, if you feel the urge to learn more mainstream lines, you can do that secure in the knowledge that you've already developed an otherwise solid repertoire. In my opinion, that's when to start taking bits and pieces from something like Avrukh's or Khalifman's volumes. The "full games" format definitely helps to make the repertoire more accessible. Instead of memorizing a series of "if this, then that" ideas, you really get to understand the flow of the game. If you're looking for precise move-orders and possible side lines, you can find those too in the game annotations. I get the impression that this book could double as "Best Games of Aleksander Wojtkiewicz" because the games are annotated so well. Consider it two books for the price of one! -- A quick note on the Kindle edition: it's almost impossible to find what you're looking for. There's no table of contents. The 'Index of Variations' would serve the same purpose, but it's unreadable. The tab-spacing that organizes the Index of Variations in the paper book is missing in the Kindle edition, so it looks like a jumble of random moves in no particular order. That said, the book's content was so good that I decided to buy it again in paper form.

What I like about this book most is its conception. From the perspective of instruction, I have always sought out game scores from GMs playing opponents rated two or three hundred ELO points below their own. Such opponents are hardly patzers - they are, after all, NMs, FMs, or IMs - but I nevertheless find these competitively imbalanced games more instructive than the games among the world elite that class players spend so much time pouring over. To my mind, what makes the difference between a win and a loss in a game against two players in the world top ten will almost never make the critical difference in a game between class players. For better or worse, Wojtkiewicz's career features more such rating imbalances than perhaps that of any other GM, and an examination of his approach thus is of significant interest. Focusing on Wojo has other benefits. By his own admission, he was lazy, and his opening systems reflected that. The authors' thesis, therefore, is that this inherent laziness forms a good basis for a practical class player's opening repertoire. But things are not so simple. The explanations of Wojo's opening approach by Dean Ippolito and Jonathan Hilton are quite well done, but it quickly becomes clear that Wojo's white opening system, the Catalan, isn't so easily digested. Indeed, those interested should be warned that this 400 page book solely addresses 1...d4 as the response to Wojo's habitual 1.Nf3 as white, and there essentially are no lines where black employs a kingside fianchetto. So if you want to learn an opening repertoire, this "volume 1" alone is a very far cry from that. (The authors are strangely silent about their plans for any future volume.) The authors also cannot resist getting sucked into to some yawning black holes of theory. One may have hoped, for example, that, rather than assuming all the reader's opponents will know and follow theory for 15 - 20+ moves, the book would feature more deviations from deep theory to include representative tactical themes that arise from Wojo's approach against weaker opponents. Although there are some helpful parts of the book in this regard that address a few "computer moves" and other "annoying" deviations from theory, really knowing an opening for practical purposes means knowing why theory is what it is and how to punish suboptimal early deviations by your adversary. Alternative early moves by your opponent that "takes you out of "book" shouldn't be an effective neutralizing tact, as it almost always is among class players. Rather than stressing this by drawing on the wealth of Wojo's exemplar games, the authors focus more on developing deep theory based on a few of Wojo's pet lines and attempt to give those lines greater theoretical credibility. This task may be an attempt to offer a more lasting homage to Wojo, and the authors' theoretical explanations in this regard are well above average (although I'm not in a position to compare their work to the other Catalan based repertoire books available), but it also represents somewhat of a lost opportunity. Wojo was inaccurately known as a master tactician. In reality, he had great positional knowledge and as white played opening systems that emphasized that. His career path, however, exposed him to many lower rated players who he was able to demolish quickly notwithstanding his use of closed openings. Sifting through this carnage to a far greater extent would have afforded a unique opportunity to present an atypical, entertaining, practical, and potentially highly effective method to teach an opening system. The authors come close to delivering this but were rather too tempted by the siren song of contributing to chess theory to give us all that I would have hoped from a project with such a unique and promising conception.

I have just about every book written concerning the catalan and this book has become my got to source when I want to refresh my memory on playing different variations. I do not play all the variations recommended in the catalan here, but the games which the authors have chosen are excellent and the ideas which they clearly explain are 1st class. The other variations other than the catalan in the book are worth the cost of the book even if all the work on the catalan were taken out!!! I have always played the early Qc2 against the slav, but now I have a book which offers me a clear explanation of what is going on....BRILLIANT!!! The book has its share of variation "data dumps" but for the first time in a long time, they are used in a very instructive manner. This book has become a priceless reference and instructive work for me. I have just relocated and all my chess books are in a box...except for one....this one!!!! I hope the authors read this review and are working diligently toward volume 2 as, IMO, this book may be one of the best opening works for non masters which may have ever been written and I personally cannot wait to get my hands on volume 2. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED anyone looking for solid opening repetoire with white which includes the catalan.

Highly recommend it, my favorite Catalan book that I've read. The information is broken down really well, it covers important info but its not overwhelming, 300+ pages of gold

I like the concept of the book very much, and the explanations of the various choices are really well done. The "slight disappointing" part is that at times it's just difficult to slog through. The author was extremely thorough, which is a good thing, but it just felt a bit too much like work at times.

I had never heard of this guy but reading these books about his games is fascinating. Highly recommended especially if you are interested in the Catalan as this may be the best book on that opening (sorry UIf).

Wow, this is the best explanation of the Catalan that I have ever read. The illustrative games go through everything in so much depth, and it is all strategy focused. Everything is broken down around particular themes (which side of the board White wants to attack, etc.), so while you are learning the opening theory, you are also learning middlegame strategy. Even if you didn’t play the Catalan, this book would teach you so much about chess. Hilton is great at explaining things (he is a well-respected journalist, after all), and it really shows in his writing. There is of course a lot of theory in this book, but it’s all really well organized, and there are plenty of diagrams, so I never felt lost. Also, I really appreciate how this book explains and breaks down how GM Wojtkiewicz used his strategies. I am a club player (around 1600) and aspiring to become a master one day, and after spending a few weeks with NM Hilton’s book, I feel like I can really understand how someone like Aleks Wojtkiewicz must have thought. This book functions as a great “GM vs. Amateur” type instruction book—it reminds me of something like Chernev’s “best games” collections books for beginners, but of course it is a good deal more advanced (and the games are more modern). Overall, a great opening strategy book and an excellent tribute to Aleks Wojtkiewicz.

Well written book, great collection of games by Wojo, classified by openings, with very useful comments.

The idea is simple: pick a very active Grandmaster repertoire and make a book of it. It works for the most part, except that in a few lines the GM has an unjustified passion for a move order or sideline and the author is left writing about subpar alternatives or blatanly deceiving the readers about the objective value of a given, for example, when discussing the "merits" of 4.Qc2 over 4Qb3 against the Slav.