Book review: The Sicilian Four Knights by David Willis

David Willis, The Sicilian Four Knights.
Russell Enterprises 2021, 240 pages

This book came as a surprise to me, as I was familiar neither with the name of the opening nor the author.

Subtitled 'a straightforward and solid way to meet 1 e4', this book examines the following line mainly from Black's perspective: 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 e6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 Nc6. An attractive feature of this approach is that White has only one really critical response, which is 6 Ndb5. What defines the 'four knights' is that rather than enter the theoretical jungle of the Sveshnikov at this point with 6...d6 7 Bf4 e5 8 Bg5, Willis recommends 6...Bb4. Unusually for the open Sicilian, Black is ready to give up the bishop pair straight away. In return, Black gains rapid development.

What about the author? The back cover blurb states: 'Correspondence senior master David Willis is one of the strongest American correspondence chessplayers. He is also a master in over-the-board play'. In view of that description it is curious that he has left little trace in databases. Discussion forums have picked up some information about him.

The important thing, of course, is the quality of the author's work rather than his fame in the chess world. This book is carefully written, enjoyable and useful. Although it is not a pure repertoire work, frequently offering multiple options for Black, it is compact. The prospect of playing a line of the Sicilian that requires so little memorization is attractive. Willis's strategic explanations are very clear. I particularly like the bullet-point list of aims and approaches for Black (pp. 19-20) once the main initial tabiya of the opening is reached: after 6...Bb4, 7 a3 Bxc3+ 8 Nxc3 d5 9 exd5 exd5 10 Bd3 0-0 11 0-0 d4 12 Ne2 Bg4. Advice includes: 'Waste no time... Don't play defensively...Don't be in a hurry to exchange heavy pieces', and so on.

Willis covers White's lesser tries very convincingly, and as GM Vassilios Kotronias writes in the Foreword, 'this is an opening that is definitely sound and this work proves it'.

To some extent the author's research is impressive. Engine-checking appears conscientious. More unusually, the bibliography features a number of historical works as well as recent New in Chess-type surveys. (There's a rare typo here: Tarrasch published in 'Deutsches Wochenschach'.) This enables Willis to enliven the text with views and ideas from the past, which is particularly welcome with an opening that has existed for a long time without ever gaining major popularity.

What the bibliography lacks is reference to White repertoire books. There are so many by now that no author could be blamed for failing to catch them all. But Willis appears not to have looked at any of them. Does it matter? Based on the one spot-check I've tried, I would suggest that it does.

That is probably not the critical line though. The line that would deter me from using the Four Knights too regularly is this one:

In conclusion, I can recommend this book. Neither the book nor the opening is the panacea that it might first appear. But it is reasonable enough that the reader should have to do some work, too.