Modernized Italian Game for White

Grandmaster Alexander Kalinin, Moscow-born and based, is a respected trainer. His former students include such names as the Russian Olympic champions V.Gunina and O.Girya, grandmasters A.Kharitonov, I.Vasilevich, D.Naroditsky. He has authored ‘Walking with the French Defence’ (together with V.Kortschnoj), 'Sergey Karjakin: Best Games of the Minister of Defence’, ‘Fabiano Caruana: His Amazing Story and His Most Instructive Chess Games’, ‘Chess Training for Candidate Masters’ and other books published in Russia and Europe. Nikolai Kalinichenko, now an International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster, has been living in Moscow his entire life. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was the science editor for chess literature issued by the famous ‘Fizkultura i sport’ publisher. He has published over 50 books on the theory of chess in Russia, Germany, France, Spain, the U.K., the USA and other countries. One of his most notable works is the multivolume encyclopaedia ‘Modern Chess Openings’, published by Thinker’s Press at the turn of the centuries.

This Guioco Piano for the 20th century is the subject of The Modernized Italian Game. Authored by grandmaster Alexander Kalinin and Correspondence grandmaster Nikolai Kalinchenko, this thick tome is part instructional manual and part theoretical work. Unlike The Modernized Ruy Lopez, the material here is organized around model games, 128 of them in all. Like Swiercz’s book, there is a fair amount of prose to instruct and orient the reader.The Modernized Italian Game ends with short chapters on the Guioco setup (Bc4, Nf3 and pawns on e4, d3 and c3) and examines how it can also crop up in the Two Knights Defense, Philidor Defense and Bishop’s Opening. Examples of the latter two are 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bc4 (played by a young Gary Kasparov) and 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.d3, which aims for the Guioco Piano while sidestepping the Petroff Defense.IM John Donaldson - April 2021.