The Stonewall Dutch is a traditional favourite amongst club players, as it offers Black ready-made attacking plans on the kingside.

As Grandmaster Bent Larsen has noted, the Dutch also has the tendency to 'bring out the coward' in opponents, giving it an added practical sting.

However, up until the late 1980s, the Stonewall wasn't fully trusted at grandmaster level, despite its earlier use by Alekhine and Botvinnik. Black's attacking plans were too one-sided, and White's methods too well worked out.

The change came when a new generation of players:

Nigel Short and Simen Agdestein, showed that Black could handle his position in many other ways, including play on the queenside and in the centre, with the 'Stonewall' structure stifling White's attempts to generate play of his own.

Agdestein in particular has continued to experiment with many new set-ups and move-orders for Black, and this book contains a wealth of new recommendations and suggestions based on this work.

The authors are all from Norway.

Sverre Johnsen is an enthusiastic chess analyst, researcher, organizer and writer, and co-author of:"Win with the London System", one of the most popular openings books of recent years. Sverre Johnsen also wrote, with GM Leif Johannessen:
"The Ruy Lopez: a Guide for Black".

Ivar Bern is a Correspondence World Champion (2002) and an International Master over-the-board.

Grandmaster Simen Agdestein author of: "Wonderboy"  was for many years Norway's leading player, and also achieved fame for combining his chess activities with a career as a top-level professional footballer.

Index of variations:

Lesson   1 7.b3: Introduction
Lesson   2 The Critical 7.b3 Qe7 8.Ne5!
Lesson   3 7.Qc2, 7.Nc3 and Rare 7th Moves
Lesson   4 7.Bf4
Lesson   5 Lines with a Delayed Bf4
Lesson   6 Early Deviations
Lesson   7 4.c4 with Nh3
Lesson   8 2.c4: Non-Fianchetto Lines
Lesson   9 2.Nf3: Non-Fianchetto Lines
Lesson 10 2.Nc3 and 2 Bg5
Lesson 11 The Staunton Gambit and Rare 2nd Moves
Lesson 12 1.c4, 1.Nf3 and 1.g3