Opening

One of the world's best players in the 1930s, Reuben Fine was also one of the great writers of chess as well. Before abruptly quitting chess for a professional career, he wrote several books on the game, however, two really stand above the rest: his classic Basic Chess Endings and the above title. Almost all serious chess players eventually read "Ideas" for one simple reason: Fine explains the concepts and ideas that underlie chess openings in a clear and concise manner. The eight chapters cover all the openings: e4 e5; e4 other; d4 d5; d4 other (Indian systems); English; Bird's/Nimzovich; and Irregular Openings. You won't find the latest lines in this book, rather, Fine presents variations that illustrate basic ideas, e.g., Black has two basic choices after 1. e4 e5: the strong point method or counter attack. The variations used illustrate typical methods of play. The original date of the book, 1943, makes a few of the general conclusions out of date--chess knowledge has progressed--but overall, there is no better introduction to chess opening theory. (A nice companion volume to this is Andy Soltis' Pawn Structure Chess.) The moves are given in figurine algebraic and there is a surprising number of typos, however, none that should cause real confusion. Every beginner should read this from cover to cover before selecting an opening system to play. Once you understand the ideas, tactics, and plans behind a particular system, the current "trendy" variations will make much more sense. This volume really should be in every chess players library.

Every player who aspires to have a systematic understanding of the openings must start with Fine's Ideas Behind the Chess Openings.

As a beginner before, I used to play grandmaster games on chessbooks, magazines and memorize the first ten to fifteen moves without knowing the underlying ideas behind the openings. I could thus play booklines, but I didn't really know what the opening was all about. When my oppponent deviated from my memorized lines, I didn't know how to continue.

Then I read this book and I realized that you don't need to memorize very long variations to play the opening sensibly. Rather, the openings must be understood as a system, which entails knowing what white's or black's aims are in in a given opening. I learned, for example, that in the Sicilian defense white strives for a kingside attack while black counters in the queenside. In the King's Indian, on the other hand, black goes for a kingside attack while white, for a queenside breakthrough. I drastically improved my performance, and I won games not by tediously memorizing opening lines, but by designing my play consistent with the peculirities and the patterns in the different openings. I knew the proper continuation when my opponent had deviated from my book, or when the variation I studied had ended.

Only after one has exhaustively studied this classic book must he explore more detailed and lengthy openings book like Modern Chess Openings and Nunn's Chess Openings. In fact, anyone can hardly get substantial information from those two books, or from any opening encyclopedia for that matter, without Fine's Ideas Behind the Chess Openings.

In the late 80's I purchased an electronic chess board from Radio Shack. It beat me over 100 times on the easiest level before I got fed up and decided to find out what I was doing wrong. I purchased "The Idea Behind The Chess Openings" at a mall book store in the hopes that I could understand why I could not beat the computer. Well, 2 years later, that electronic chess board couldn't beat me at it's highest level. I joined the US Chess Federation and began entering tournaments with a confidence level that is directly attributed to the knowledge I gained from this book. Although I am not a master chess player, this book has provided me the tools that will give me the best possible chance to win. And I do. I purchase it for friends and family members who ask me to teach them chess. This book will do more for them then I ever could.

This book is pretty brief in the lines it covers and it doesn't even cover many lines. McDonald makes the presented material clearly legible, but should have considered making an "Accepted" book and a "Declined" book. I bought this with book with the intentions of learning an opening that would stun my opponents right off the bat, but McDonald almost convinces one to try a different opening. The King's Gambit is meant to be an all out aggressive win or lose approach to chess and McDonald fails to emphasize this. At the end of most of his variations he gives unclear positions where it looks to me like black might even be better. If you are considering taking up the King's Gambit I suggest that you learn the Bishops Gambit (3.Bc4). This is an ultra aggressive variation that Neil reluctantly mentions in his book. If you don't mind sacrificing material for development then this opening is for you. I have used the King's Gambit successfully on several occasions and those wins remain as my most exciting. I suggest taking up the King's Gambit if you like exciting chess but do not recommend that you start here. This book is mostly for a player who is looking for a little more on a specific variation. This is not a good book to try to get an overall feel for the King's Gambit.

This book already helped me win a crushing victory when my opponent played the Classical Declined variation- the ten minutes I had spent grazing over a few lines and strategies a few days earlier paid off the next time that variation popped up, and I slaughtered my opponent even though he seemed to know the variation well- he played standard book moves mighty fast, but McDonald's concise outlines (I admit all of the data is simply buried in these types of specialized opening books and must be dug out) were clear and were what helped me win that game fast and easy (besides my murderous tactical ability- hey Im a Candidate Master). Three cheers for McDonald and his killer chess book.

This provides an interesting update on the opening. Contains reasonably good descriptions of various lines as illustrated by latest games played by top players, but still cannot remove the general doubt that the King' Gambit is quite over-ambitious and risky in modern times.

Vinge's novella would have been worth reprinting on its own, but this package offers a bit more than just a good story. "Truenames", like several other stories mentioned in the introduction of this book (and in the other reviews here), presented an eerily insightful prediction of the cyber-world we have today. Perhaps due to Vinge's familiarity with the technology, however, he was able to pinpoint a number of important issues and sticky points quite specifically, and well ahead of his time. The essays included were well-selected and each serves to highlight these areas and their importance to us today- and these essays comprise the bulk of this volume. Because they cover such diverse topics, and because they are fairly approachable even for a novice, they can provide a beginner with a fairly well-rounded introduction to some of the fundamental issues and challenges of the information superhighway. Timothy May's essay, in particular, is outstanding.

Unfortunately this book stands on somewhat awkward ground. The readers it is going to attract are unlikely to be completely new to the subject - they're probably going to know a bit about one aspect or another. As a result, they're going to be bored by at least some (or many) of the essays in the book. Some of the essays are quite dated as well, though the editor made sure that none were actually irrelevant.

All in all it was quite satisfactory. It's worth rating at 4 stars for a reader who is interested in but unfamiliar with this material.

Try to remember back to the days when computers were giant things located inside even larger buildings, when access to them was jealously guarded by a high priesthood of computer scientists, and the results you got from them, after many days of painstaking labor, was as likely to be absolute rubbish as it was to be useful answers. This was the way the world was when Vinge wrote this remarkably prescient novella, a story of a world dominated by computer access to information, commonly available to everyone, where virtual reality and your avatar are more 'real' than your physical body. In fact, the story was so far ahead of its time that several of the ideas presented in it became the blueprint for how to continue to develop the way computers work and how people interface with them.

It's a fairly good story in pure fictional terms, also. Vinge does not stint on developing his characters while letting us wander in his (at the time he wrote it) fairyland. The conflicts and problems his protagonist faces are very real problems, and Vinge's resolution of the story rings as true as his title.

The title is significant: in today's world when many wander the net known only by a self-chosen moniker, and jealously guard access to any information about their real selves, but have, never-the-less, a large amount of information held in many databases about their real selves (driver's license, social security number, credit reports), obtaining their 'true names' would be equivalent to forcing them to stand naked on a stage. It is this aspect of today's information dominated society that is the subject of several of the essays that accompany this story, many of which advocate methods for maintaining absolute secrecy of communications on the web. This is a large subject rife with many opinions pro and con, especially after the events of 9/11 and the Patriot Act. Several of the essays are well written, although they do seem to come prepared with an axe already ground, and are well worth reading.

But like most collections of essays, the quality is very uneven. Safely skippable are 'Intelligent Software', 'True Magic', and 'A Time of Transition'. Those deserving of a close read are 'Eventful History: Version 1.0x', 'Cryptography and the Politics of True Names', and most especially the original afterword to True Names written by Marvin Minsky, which is not only an excellent essay about the role of computers in society, it is also a very insightful look at all the various things that are going on inside Vinge's story that may not be readily apparent to the casual reader.

Some of the impact of Vinge's story may have been lost in the intervening years since its writing, as many of his imagined items have become reality, but it would be very hard to find a science fiction story that has predicted the future as well as this one.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

When I was starting out as a PhD student in Artificial Intelligence at Carnegie Mellon, it was made known to us first-year students that an unofficial but necessary part of our education was to locate and read a copy of an obscure science-fiction novella called *True Names*. Since you couldn't find it in bookstores, older grad students and professors would directly mail order sets of ten and set up informal lending libraries -- you would go, for example, to Hans Moravec's office, and sign one out from a little cardboard box over in the corner of his office. This was 1983 -- the Internet was a toy reserved for American academics, "virtual reality" was not a popular topic, and the term "cyberpunk" had not been coined. One by one, we all tracked down copies, and all had the tops of our heads blown off by Vinge's incredible book.

*True Names* remains to this day one of the four or five most seminal science-fiction novels ever written, just in terms of the ideas it presents, and the world it paints. It laid out the ideas that have been subsequently worked over so successfully by William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. *And* it's well written. *And* it's fun.

In my grad student days, we loved to sit around and discuss the implications of Vernor's ideas. Sixteen years later, I do research at MIT, and it's still fun to sit around and talk about how Vernor's ideas are coming to be.

(Amazingly enough, Vinge has done this not once, but twice: *Marooned in Realtime* contains ideas even more interesting than *True Names* -- all in the setting of a murder mystery that takes place 50 million years in the future.)

Vinge has subsequently written other, very popular and enjoyable books, such as *A Fire Upon the Deep* and his just-published *A Deepness in the Sky*. However, it's always been very frustrating to me that *True Names* has been essentially impossible to find. It's always out of print, and you have to know one of the elect who snapped up copies back when it was marginally possible -- and these copies are now jealously guarded. I won't let people read mine outside of my home. (The same goes for *Marooned in Realtime* -- seminal work; out of print.)

So I am really, really delighted that *True Names* is now back in print. I note that it is now fashionable to write books "explaining" the Net and the near-term future of our society to the layman -- books such as Negroponte's *Being Digital,* Gate's *The Road Ahead*, or Dertouzos' *What Will Be*. These books are a waste of time. If you would like to explore the implications and likely future of the computer revolution, I would recommend three novels, instead: *True Names* (Vernor Vinge), *Snowcrash* (Neal Stephenson), and *Neuromancer* (William Gibson).

Vinge and Stephenson are not only excellent writers, they are trained, competent computer scientists. *Neuromancer* is the best-written of the three; *Snowcrash* is the funniest and hippest; *True Names* -- well, *True Names* is the source.

-Olin

This book contains flawed analysis (on the Möller Attack and others) which is really not acceptable. The book gives a glimpse of several major openings (to its credit) but stops its analysis arbitrarily and does not really emphasise the fundamental underlying principles which it claims to do. It is patchy and not good. I feel like Chris Ward must have written this book while he was bored one day, and it took him less than an hour...

I like this book a lot, it is a brief synopsis of the overall idea of each of the major openings. Like a previous reviewer noted, it is strictly for beginners and will not teach you an opening. It will, however, give you the basic plan behind the opening and can be the starting point for study (after which you will want to get a dedicated opening book, most likely).

If you look at it as The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings 'lite', you will not be far off. My only major complaint with this book is coverage of the Caro-Kann compared to some other openings. It's basically nonexistant, and you are left feeling a little short changed. The coverage of the Sicilian, on the other hand, is quite good (for a book of this type) mentioning both c3 and several forms of the open (the author is a dragon expert!).

After you read this book, I think the ideas behind the chess openings should be your next book, for a little more detail, then probably choose one or two opening specific books -- the new 'Starting out' series by everyman would probably be a good choice for a novice player. As always, MCO (or NCO -- don't want to start a holy war) will be useful as reference material.

In summary, this book is very good, but is only the first step; you will not find everything you need in this book, only a very broad overview.

I am writing this review of Improve Your Opening Play because the other reviews leave a gap or two in explanation. In sum, this book is perfect for the absolute OPENING beginner -- and I don't mean CHESS beginner.

If you're an opening beginner, when you go to the bookstore and see the various titles on openings, you may wonder, "What's the use of learning the Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian when my father's never gonna let me get more than 2 moves into it?"

This book is for you. There are way too few books like Improve Your Opening Play, which accomodates the multitude of players who need to know the opening fundamentals before proceeding on to the much more detailed books on the market.

Reuben Fine's book on the ideas behind the openings, of course, is also a good place to start, but this book is more up-to-date, a little "shorter and sweeter," very well organized, and presents its lessons in a visually simple and effective manner. The IDEAS underlying each move of every opening you are likely to see (an average of 6 to 8 moves out) are thoughtfully presented. The discussion also includes analysis of common variants to many of the more classic moves.

In my opinion, GM Chris Ward, gives just the right amount of information to the new student of the openings, making opening study fun rather than overwhelming, and providing a solid foundation for more advanced study of any opening you may want to pursue. If you thoroughly study this book, when you see a particular opening in play, you will have a grasp of what you should be striving for as well as what your opponent is trying to do, and I, for one, have always felt that the THINKING in chess is what makes this great game fun -- not the memorization.

World Champion Openings by Eric Shiller has its good points and its bad.

Good points:
It is easy to read. It gives a nice simple overview of the major openings so you can learn the basic response to many openings. If you have no concept about any openings and are a beginner, this is a decent book to buy.

Bad points:
It lacks detail or options. For many the variations to each opening, he only gives one line. Then it wastes too much time and space going over a whole example game. You're not buying a book to learn the middlegame though.

For example, the Caro-Kann defense Advance variation. After "1.e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5..." The next move he gives is "c5." Well what if you opponent plays something else? He admits, that "c5" isn't even the best move, but this is the only move he talks about. What about "Bf5"? What should you do then? Then he plays out whole annotated game between Tal-Botvinnik. Why it's a book about openings?

He should spend more time talking about different variations of openings and/or potential traps and less time analyzing entire games. If you are buying for a beginner, it is good. Otherwise, get Modern Chess Openings.

I have been going through this book recently while looking for some new openings to try out. Schiller does a good job of showing the openings that World Champions like to play, and shows some nice sample games from each of the openings.

One thing that I like about the book is that you can go through each of the games, and get a point of how the openings work, and what the main purpose is without having to look at a ton of variations, which (for me at least) often leads to to forget what was going on in the main game. I was able to go through the games rather quickly and painlessly.

This is a good gentle introduction to the most common openings. I also enjoyed that some non common openings were shown, such as when Tony Miles played 1. ..h6 against 1. e4 against World Champion Anatoly Karpov - and won! This was probably my favorite game in the book.

Schiller writes for Joe Chessplayer the average guy, who is looking to learn more about chess, but not neccessarily be obsessive about it. I think he is very readable. After finishing this book I ordered Standard Chess Openings and Unorthodox Chess Openings from Amazon. I look forward to them.

...

This book is not a must own, like Logical chess move by move, but it is not a waste of money if you are looking to explore some new openings in a painless manner.

This is a "must-have" for those who are striving to get into the 1000~1500 rating (USCF rating) range. This serves as a good reference and many variations are reviewed and discussed. After he gives the moves for several variations, he gives us an analysis which is benefitial to your game in chess. Many of the openings in this book may not be used commonly - that's why it is helpful surprising your opponent in which moves you play in the opening. It is worth your expense.

This is not a very good repertoire book. For example, the Cochrane Gambit against the Petroff is a joke. The lines recommended after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 are mostly favorable to Black (the book is a repertoire book for White). The analysis is full of holes. The author could have tested some of his material against computer programs; obviously he did not. The player who tries out some of these dubious lines against strong opposition will be startled at how fast he winds up in hot water.

This book has a few weak spots, but is still a fine opening repetoire as white for an attacking player. Mr Baker makes many fine suggestions for generating attacking play and dynamic positions that are in most cases reasonably sound, and that often take your opponent "out of book" and throw them onto their own resources. This is especially helpful when playing a complex opening like the sicilian defense against a "booked up" opponent (someone who has memorized reams of opening theory). The book shows the majority of reasonable responses from your opponent, as well as responses likely to be seen by non masters / grandmasters (that would be the rest of us).

Where the book falls a little short is in it's ability to give a player the "bigger picture". To play an opening well you need to understand the ideas behind it, and not just memorize lines of play. Mr. Baker provides little to none of this, nor does he consistently elaborate on a position once it has been reached. He may say "and white stands better" but it is up to the reader to discern the how and why they stand better... which is necessary to derive an advantage from the position. With this in mind, having a reasonable knowledge of positional play and tactics will allow the reader to get more enjoyment from this book.

As a last thought, while I am not thrilled with every line the author presents, and explanations and ideas could be fleshed out a little more, I still recomend this book as a good read for the 1400-2100 crowd. A book must be judged on it's own terms. Mr. Baker has provided a reasonably complete repetoire for white that often generates attacking chances and gets black out of his prepared opening variations quickly. To have produced this book with all that, along with comprehensive positional analysis of all possible lines, and comprehensive strategic goal analysis of all the various opening systems at black's disposal would create a book that was both unweildy in size and price. There are a ton of books available that read like encyclopedias, or that talk forever about the goals of an opening without actually providing reasonable coverage of potential lines of play. So when all is said and done, even good books rarely have the chance to be all things to all readers. But if you have some positional knowledge, and want to have some fun dynamic chances as white then this is a fine book for your repetoire.

I have bought many chess books (about 100) especially on openings, and I have found this book is my best one - well analyzed, easy to understand, concised, etc.

I bought this book along with the companion "An opening repertoire for the attacking player" and I have to say that I was thoroughly disappointed. The lines given are not particularly popular. Not only that, I crossed referenced some of the lines with other books and a database, and the results were depressing: hardly ever did white get and advantage and black's choices were rather limited. There are very few explanations. If you are searching for a complete repertoire, this is not it. You will not understand why you are playing certain moves.

This is an excellent book by a voice of experience. Some will argue with the idea of a book of "positional" openings all beginning with 1. e4, but really, there is no reason why you cannot play in a more positional manner with e4, and with a more attacking manner with d4. I think Gufeld's idea is that you are going to be able to control your repertoire better with e4. 1. d4 has so many things to be prepared against, but with e4 you are much more likely to know what you will face. To wit, you will generally face 1...e5 and 1...c5. The Scotch Four Knights is a fine opening, and if you study it, you will know it better than black. Frequently it will reduce to a scenario where you have the two bishops and doubled isolated c-pawns. The resultant scenario is rich with "positional" ideas, but in an open setting. Against the Sicilian, 2. c3 may or may not appeal to you, but clearly, it is a good move, and one that does allow you to determine the contours of the game. Personally, I prefer the Closed Sicilian, and Emms' Attacking with 1. e4 has an excellent chapter on the Closed Sicilian. The Gufeld book is very well put together, withe variations clearly distinguished with well-placed boldfaced fonts. Also, with each new line, all the moves to that point are re-written, which is very helpful. Finally, each chapter has a couple of illustrated games. I think this is an outstanding book. I could go on about his recommendations as black too, with the Classical Sicilian and King's Indian being great suggestions. Excellent book!

This book is great! With white the authors suggest e4 and against the Sicilian, the Alapin (I love this opening because it's simple to play and tends to really annoy Sicilian players); against e5, the four knights Scotch game; against the French, the Tarrasch variation (Nd2); against the Caro Cann, the Short variation; against the modern/pirc, the Pirc-Ufimtsev defence; against the Alekhine, a system with Nf3. All these openings are relatively slow and positional in nature but ultra solid and with dynamic potential. What's more, they are played regularly by the leading GMs of today. For black against e5 they suggest a classical sicilian with Qb6 in the Sozin variation and the interesting Bd7 in the Rauzer variation. The main ommission is that they don't deal with the closed sicilian with Bg2 nor the grand prix attack but instead refer you to another book that they wrote. Against d4, they recommend the King's Indian Defense and the chapters on this opening alone are worth the price of the book. GM Gufeld, the co-author of the book, is one of the leading experts on the King's Indian. There are also chapters on how to deal with the annoying Trompowsky and Torre attacks. Lastly, the authors suggest ideas on how to react against 1. c4 and 1. f4. Overall the book is well-written and well presented. Any player who likes positional play and is not not a strong master or above will greatly benefit from this book. Highly recommended.

Miles' two-word review in Kingpin magazine of this typical Schiller book: "utter crap." (Miles was noted for unorthodox play himself, btw. For example, he famously won a game against Anatoly Karpov by responding to 1. e4 with 1... a6.)

Schiller is noted for sloppy database-dump books with lots and lots of errors. Use your chess funds for books that will teach you something valuable and are written by real players. Try authors like Silman, Nunn, Gallagher, Gligoric, Seirawan, Euwe, and Emms. All of these authors are MUCH better players and also use time and care in writing their books.

When I got this book I thought it would be like another of his books I've got: Who's Afraid of the King's Gambit. It turns out that I was wrong. I like that there's so many openings and variations, but I noticed SEVERAL mistakes that sometimes made it hard to understand. I couldn't decide to rate it 3 or 4 stars, but I picked 3 because I was hoping for more diagrams. If I could I'd rate it 3 1/2 stars, but...

I really enjoy this book a lot. It is definetly my favorite Eric Schiller chess book. Eric has a love of the unusual in chess. He is a member of the yahoo unorthodox chess openings group, and posts there frequently. In this book he goes into territory most Masters would rather stay clear of.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I would consider it chess "light reading" rather than something that will help you gain 400 points to your rating. I literally was laughing outloud at some of the absurd openings that are featured, and what Eric Schiller had to say about them.

I personally like to play unorthodox openings such as the grob (1. g4), even in tournament play. Most of the openings in this book are REALLY unorthodox, not just slightly off the path of main opening theroy. You could play 10 years of tournament chess and never see most of the openings that are in here.

I liked Schiller's comments on what constitues an unorthodox opening, specifically how two opening principles must be broken. For example just bringing the queen out early is not enough to be unorthodox, like the Center Counter defense. The names of some of the openings are quite fun too!

So I would recommend reading this book if you want to take a walk on the wild side, and not as something that needs to be seriously studied so that you can be prepared for the next tournament. One of Schiller's best and most original efforts!

A large book thoroughly full of errors. Lots of pages, I have to give him that. There are tons of great opening lines, with very little focus on any of them. Beginners might find some use for this book not so much to study, but to see the different opening structures, however I don't see any other purpose for this book other than to roll it up in a log and make fire. It seemed the author didn't write this book with much care, which defeat the purpose of writing a book. For beginners I recommend Winning Chess Openings by Yasser Seirawan. For stronger players, I suggest Nunn's Chess Opening and Modern Chess Opening-14 which cost about the same but are very thorough and written with care. It is much more accurate, though without moves explain in detail, it does give an accurate analysis of the position after each opening line.

For those hoping that this new book will fill the void left by the conspicuous delay of BCO3 and MCO14, expect disappointment. For those fans of venerable opening primers like I.A. Horowitz' How to Win in the Chess Openings, Reuben Fine's Ideas Behind the Chess Openings and Ludek Pachman's The Opening Game in Chess, you have found an up-to-date successor. SCO is a huge compendium of benchmark games illustrating typical ("standard"!) themes for Black and White in each of the conventional openings. This is a good single-volume reference for players that are trying to find out what is supposed to happen after the first 10-15 moves have been played. This is not a reference work for postal players or studious over-the-board players looking for the latest theory in multiple lines of an opening. Consider SCO an adjunct to books like BCO2/MCO13 that are long on variations but short on explanations. Amazon's discounted price represents an excellent value -- 800 pages for $20 comes out to 2 1/2 cents per page, an uncommon value in chess books today. My only major criticism is that the text gets pretty crowded and a little difficult to follow at times. After a series of (,{;[,]:}>) etc., it is easy to lose one's place. Though I have not always been a fan of Schiller's books, this one is a good value and one of his stronger efforts.

I am thoroughly enjoying this book. It has lots of good analysis and illustrative games, but I especially enjoy his commentary on openings. He constantly says whether an opening is used by conservative players, aggeressive players, world champions, etc. He adds helpful editoril comments that are greatly helpful in determining whether I wish to further explore a certain opening. FInally, the book is well-made on excellent papaer and a great binding.

Many people are impressed by the fact that IM Michael Basman win by playing stuff like sct. georges defense, the global opening (1. a3 2. h3) and finally, the GROB (1.g4). HOWEVER, I am personally of the opinion, that if you as a mediocre 12-1400 player look at these openings and think that they're all that, and play 'em, you will learn your lesson ! The Grob Opening is probably the WORST opening on the board, except for the EVANS BLASTOFF (1. h4), seeing they both severely weaken the kingside. IM Michael Basman may play these openings - and win!- but it is not thanks to some strange opening that he wins, he is a strong middlegame and endgame player, and that pays off. Finally there's the so called "psychological effect" which one might aim at, like one might aim at catching a meteor with one's tongue. My advice is play solid and safe ! If you are going to play agressive play 1. e4, but of course 1. d4 can also be very aggressive. Do this, seeing they are just as aggressive, instead of playing silly, weird and unsound openings. And remember, you see so many games with Basman winning with these crazy attempts of openings, but you never see the one's where he loses... Wonder why?? Well let me just tell you, he does not go down in style...

Basman's Grob book is a fun read, with real-life wins so bizarre they seem to come from a fantasy chess game. One leaves this book convinced that one should add the Grob to one's blitz repertoire. Although Basman spends a fair bit of time trying to explain the theory, the "ideas behind the opening" sections of the book just don't hold up as well--but is this Basman's fault, the reader's lack of subtlety (I'm only a B player), or the simple that fact that the Grob, while immense fun, does not really line up as a good old fashioned linear opening? I'm not sure.

I love unorthodox openings, and I cannot deny the fun this book injects into chess with the Grob. But I think I'll stick to the Lengfellner System, and leave the Grobmaniacs to their party!

Published in 1991, this 170 page book has more entertainment value than actual solid positional play. IM Michael Basman has won a number of Master games with it, so regardless of Raymond Keene's opinion on this being a horrible opening, The Grob is not without logic. If you're looking for something different, this is definately it, as 1.g4 or as Black 1.e4 g5 (1.d4 h6, 2.e4 g5) can be a great 'shock value' opening for the intermediate and club player. I have won with this opening many times, but i will admit, i can't see it being a major part of my opening repertoire. It would be nice if Basman wrote a follow-up to this book for more current treaments, as well as the Gambit line of 1.g4 d5, 2.Bg7 Bxg4 which is not addressed here. This book will not appeal to all, but i am the type of player that loves to throw 'odd' lines at my opponent. There's also a small section of 3 games touching on the 'Global Opening' which deals with 1.h3 and 1.a3 or 1.h6 and 1.a6 for Black. I would like to see Basman write a book with more detailed analysis of this as well. In closing, i have to give this book 5 stars, partially because it's not as bad (at least at the intermediate level) as most people think, and it's extremely entertaining. Many people i have faced comment on how much they hate facing the Grob quite simply because they are unsure how to play against it. Most people are not 'serious' chess players, so why not go for a little gusto now and then?