Botvinnik Semi-Slav, The (Pedersen)

Foreword
There has been an explosion of interest in the Semi-Slav during the last ten years
and there is no sign yet that this intends to stop, although the focus has changed
somewhat.
This is the first of two books on the Semi-Slav. It covers the Botvinnik System
and the Moscow Variation, i.e. 1 d4 d5 2 c4 c6 3 liJf3 liJf6 4 liJc3 e6 S .i.gS and
then either S ... dxc4 or S ... h6. While the Botvinnik System is in my opinion one of
the most fascinating of all openings, I must admit that the Moscow Variation appeared
a little dull to me when it became hugely popular in the mid-1990s as a
safe and extremely solid option to avoid the complexity arising from the
Botvinnik. But just when it seemed that White was constantly hitting his head
against a brick wall, the 'unsound' 6 .i.h4 was livened up and now produces some
of the most spectacular games in the whole Semi-Slav.
Writing this book has been a real challenge. It has required lengthy analyses,
which have had to be checked very carefully. In these 'Fritzy' times, it is fairly
easy to check analysis to a reasonable degree of accuracy, but with the highly
complicated positions which make up most of this book, chess engines are often
not that trustworthy, or to be more exact need far more time and have to be 'taken
down the road' all the way. Naturally, various chess engines have been of great
help during my work, but when analysing such complicated positions as arise in
the Botvinnik System or the Anti-Moscow Variation, intuition counts for a lot.
For example, I wonder whether a computer will ever be able to find Sergei
Ivanov's amazing 22 .. J~hS!! to be found in the introduction to Chapter 2.
This book has been written during one of the happiest times of my life; our
second daughter was born and I managed my first GM norm (actually it is the
second but the first has now expired).
Last but not least I would like to thank all the people who have helped out but
in particular Mona for all her support during the project and Graham Burgess
for his patience during the writing process, and for numerous suggestions and
improvements.
Steffen Pedersen, Odense
November 1999