U Cannot Be Serious!: Avant-Garde Strategy in Chess

Co-author Michael Basman has been reputed to be an original and independent chess player and thinker for the whole of his chess career.

However, around 1978 he mobilized his creativity to develop new ways in chess strategy, based on a personal set of avant-garde opening systems such as the St.George (early b4.. of ..b5) and Grob (early g4.. or ..g5). Consistently employing his new ideas, a whole new system of chess playing gained recognition among his colleagues, and generated a cult following among chess amateurs. Around 1990 Mike took the next step by creating the Global opening and it’s pincer movements from the flanks. This constituted the final stage in the ultra-hyper-modern school of flank-strategy that he started 12 years earlier.

Pressed by popular demand, Mike Basman has written several popular works on his ideas such as ‘St. George’s opening’, ‘The Killer Grob’ and ‘The Global opening’ but these bestsellers have gone out of print a long time ago. So both authors felt it was about time to revive interest in the Basmanic school of chess. Mike has supplied most of the material, and co-author Gerard has accepted the task (as a former cult-follower in his younger days) to do a critical selection and examination of everything available. We hope that 2021, the year that Mike Basman turns 75, will see a revival of Basman’s avant-garde ideas in chess among players of the new generations.