What is the difference between this dvd and older dvd’s of mr. Collins?

Mr. Collins has covered the 2.c3 Sicilain in two books, one of these was dedicated soley to the Alapin, and he has one 1.e4 repertoire DVD which also advocates the Alapin.

In none of the above formats to date has Mr.Collins covered the following important line in any detail for White:

1.e4 c5 2.c3 Nf6 3.e5 Nd5 4.d4 cxd4 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.cd4 d6 7.Bc4 dxe5!?

This line has become increasingly popular ever since Peter Wells reccommended it for Black in the Dangerous Weapons series by Everyman. My question is does Collins cover this line more thouroughly in his new DVD.

Next Question – Does Collins cover how to handle the following attempted move order trick: 1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.Be3 cxd4 7.cxd4 Bg4!? intending 8.Nc3 Qa5 aiming for a position that has been shown to be harmless for Black in recent years, while also avoiding the pawn sac seen in Williams, Simon K vs White, Michael J R .

Last but not least, and its closely related to the above line in spirit: 1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.d4 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.Be2 cxd4 7.cd4 Nf6!? 8.Nc3 Qa5 again aiming for a similiar position as the one given above. Here I like Williams radical 9.b4!? approach as played in Williams vs Griffths British Championship 2011, but objectively is this ingenious pawn sac good for more than equality?

Please Simon, will you annotate that game for us.

Best Regards,

Toppy

Thanks Simon,

Looking forward to hearing from you.

By the way for interested readers, in the Williams – Griffiths game cited in my previous post I mistakenly left out the important moves 9.h3 Bh5 and only now 10.b4.

This interesting game was annotated by Richard Palliser for chesspublishing.com, and interestingly enough he opined that he suspected that Griffiths simply got his move order mixed up. I however do not believe that, as the possible benefits of this move order wrinkle was discussed at length on the chesspublishing.com forum in a thread started by yours truly long before the Williams – Griffiths game, and its plausible that Griffiths intentionally headed for that position having stumbled across the thread or perhaps he came up with the idea independently or a bit of both. Either way it could well be that 10.b4 represents White’s best chance to try for an edge in this line.

Kindest regards,

Toppy

Toppy – he covers it nicely and his solution is, after 7….dxe5 8.Bxd5!. The black queen is awkwardly placed on d5 after the recapture. I just watched this part yesterday. I didnt get a chance to compare it to the dangerous weapons line yet, or even to assess the line with engine assistance yet, but the subsequent play seemed to put a lot of pressure on black.

Also, to answer the previous question about comparing this to previous works by Collins –
I think it has much more thorough c3 sicilian coverage (naturally) than his e4 repertoire dvd. I did not compare directly with his c3 sicilian book, but I noticed he has a large number of games in that 2…Nf6 line where black’s set up is …d6 and ….Nb6 and white sacrifices a pawn. In that particular line – it appears the DVD has even way more detail than his book on the c3 sicilian (which also covers that line).

In summary, I personally think it is worthwhile to get the DVD even if you already have the e4 repertoire dvd and the c3 sicilian book. Besides – it seems you cannot go wrong with Collins books or DVD’s so just go for it