Adrien Demuth, currently rated 2543, is a grandmaster belonging to the youngest French chess generation. He was born and raised in La Reunion and learned chess when he was seven in Tahiti. He is now 27 years old. Once back in France, he was frequently selected for the French Youth Team. He received his two titles (IM in 2011, and GM in 2015) during his studies and when achieving his degree of Master in Mathematics. He is now a chess professional, trainer, player and author. In 2016 he was one of the seconds of the Olympic French team in Baku and during the World Youth Championships as well. His most famous results we noted his win of the Paris Championships in 2013 and last year by beating the former World Champion V. Anand in Gibraltar in 2016. This is his third book for Thinkers Publishing and is proud to that his first 'The Modernized Reti' became an opening classic! He just started as the new Editorial Director of Thinkers Publishing.
French Grandmaster Adrien Demuth has filled a gap in the literature with his The Modernized Sicilian Kan. The system 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6, sometimes called the Paulsen after the German-American master who played it successfully on many occasions in the 1880s, has few books devoted to it - the most recent by Johan Hellstein was almost 15 years ago. The repertoire Demuth proposes is centered around 5...Bc5 ( after1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxf4 a6 5.Bd3) with the critical line running 6.Nb3 Ba7 7. 0-0 Ne7 8.Qe2 Nbc6 9.Be3 0-0 10.Bxa7 Rxa7. Against 5.c4 he advocates for central oriented play with 5...Nf6 6.Nc3 Bb4 as opposed to a Hedgehog setup. Besides a complete repertoire against the Open Sicilian, the author also covers 3.c3, 3.b3 and various sidelines. This book will prove quite useful for players over 2000 who wish to take up the Kan/Paulsen variation of the Sicilian. Those who play the O'Kelly (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 a6) will also find it useful as they can answer 3.Nc3 with 3...e6. IM John Donaldson, March 2022.