Opening

The game references in BCO2 are from the late 1980's. In an age when opening theory seems to change weekly, one cannot afford to rely on old news to prepare for an opening repertoire. Keep your old BCOs -- they contain interesting ideas that will be deleted from future editions, but if you must buy it, don't pay too much for it.

Published in 1989. Authored by Garry Kasparov and Raymond Keene. Certainly not the most up to date material on the wide variety of openings it covers, but it does explain each opening rather well. Over 400 pages with a good Index at the back. I have referenced this book dozens of times and have found it very helpful. Contains several variations for all the main openings.

An openings book is always a gamble because the moment you buy it, it is already out-dated. So why even bother buying this old book? Because it contains knowledge that is still current. However, as with ANY other openings book: Use a database to check your analyses, why not?, a chess engine.

Nowadays I still go back to this book to check variations in my pet lines or obscure things I face from time to time and the BCO's still serves me well. What I like the most is its impecable format. Any variation you wish to find can be found efficiently and the evaluations are fair.

Is it a good book to learn openings? No, it is not... This is an outdated encyclopedic manual about openings.

Is it worth buying the book? Yes, if you don't mind it being outadated... See, some lines that are no longer fashionable are not included in the so up-to-date manuals and what if those are your bread and butter? This happens with BCO's in my case... And, since I check it with databases I don't see a problem with BCO's...

This book will be a disappointment even for those who share the author's professional world view. The book reads like Cliff Notes for a book about the first session of psychotherapy; the author introduces one topic, skims another, then introduces another, without elucidating any of them. The redundancy is also annoying; the author seems to assume that the reader begins each chapter without having read anything which came before.

Substantively the book offers a disturbing revelation of one psychoanalyst's disrespectful and patronizing view of those who seek his counsel. Examples abound; "Not all patients know they are supposed to let me have my words before they begin to speak," or "If the therapist is listening for evidence of transference in all that the patient presents, there is a lessened danger of taking patient's reports as truth," and "Gender, sexual orientation, and religious preference are only surface indications of one's underlying conflicts or personality structure."

It alarms me greatly that this book has any potential to influence devel oping psychotherapists.

This book, Opening Gambits is a comprehensive and practical discussion of a therapist's first contact with their client. Peter Armstrong is a good communicator, explaining the complexities of beginning a psychotherapeutic relationship in an easily readable manner. He begins with a summery of analytic authors who have addressed the initial sessions, and then describes the language of establishing fees, providing legal structure, plus eight other tasks to be accomplished in the first session. I've never found another book like Opening Gambits. It is a practical guide for getting psychotherapy off to a good start. Both experienced and novice therapists/analysts will benefit from this book. Whatever one's orientation Dr. Armstrong's book will improve your effectiveness with clients, and you find his honesty and personal reflections refreshing.

This is a fascinating book that explores the realms of psychotherapy. It thoroghly examines the first step in psychotherapy. This is a must read book for any psychotherapist. It teaches through examples and quotes. This book is organized very well and is easy to read and understand. This has taught me many techniqes to manage my life without seeing a psychotherapist. This book helped me deal better with other people and understand them better.

The book as a whole-seen it done before, nothing to write home about.

My real issue with this book was how he "solved" the "mystery" of Richard III and the Princes. *Especially* since he singled out Richard in the introduction of the book. Like about 90% of all authors who discuss Richard and either don't bother to do research or don't give about whether they're accurate or not, he uses the bones found in the Tower as proof positive that Richard had the boys murdered. If the author had bothered to do *real* research or even cared to look into the subject some more, he would have noticed the last forensic tests conducted on the bones were in the *1930s*, when the science of forensics was *nowhere* near what it is today. Those tests couldn't say with any certainty what *age* the bones are, what *year* they came from or even what *sex* the bones are. Those bones are also not the first ones found at the Tower. (it was in use for centuries before Richard's time)

So, tell me again how those bones indicate Richard's guilt, for when all we know, they could be female.

He backs up the bones, if I remember correctly, with the dubious authority of Sir Thomas More's "History of Richard the III", which is riddled with obvious errors. (like saying Edward VI was 53 when he died, when he was just days short of his 41st birthday) These errors have pretty much destroyed the work's reputation among serious historians, some who now believe the work was a huge parody or a disguised attack on Henry VII. This lack of care pretty much killed the book for me-I threw it down in disgust after that chapter. It also makes me wonder just how much research he did into the other "mysteries" he covered.

What a fun way to learn history!

As in his earlier book on American history, Aron presents both sides of subjects that have puzzled historians for centuries. The chapters are concise, informative and clear. Especially interesting are the bibliographies which are also fun and show how historians have struggled to solve these mysteries.

I really enjoyed this book. Each chapter reads like a mini-mystery. Fun plus I learned a lot...would recommend it without hesitation. Bravo!

This book is a reasonable attempt to piece together an opening repertoire that on the one hand is aggressive, but on the other hand does not require 100's of hours of preparation time.

I actually used the variations suggested in this book for a period of about 2.5 years in actual tournament play. I had very decent results (I am currently rated around 1800 USCF).

The lines selected are fairly forcing and unbalanced. There are a few places where the book is somewhat weak. I noted the same problems as one of the other reveiwers in the section on the pirc/modern defense. (There is a game that leaves you hanging in a terrible position, but seems to imply that you winning - it makes no sense at all. In fact, the side they are trying to convince you to play ends up losing very badly in the actual game.)

Other than that, I must say that the authors really have done a decent job of trying to "fit" a repertoire within the parameters ascribed.

I would estimate that it only took me around 5-10 hours to play over all of the games and footnotes in the book. I remembered them fairly easily, and went on to win a very respectable number of games.

I would recommend the book to players rated between around 1400 to around 1800. I don't feel that there are enough notes for players below around 1400 to really understand why certain moves are made. For players over 1800, much deeper preparation than this book provides would be required.

In particular, I have had incredible results with the openings chosen from the black side. They are openings that I would not have even considered playing had I not read this book. (Scandinavian and Chigoran).

There are better, there are much worse. This is not a bad addition to your library.

This book is an attempt to create an opening repetoire for the developing player which does not require hours and hours of study, yet provides the aggressive player with reasonable attacking chances.

In my opinion, the author succeeds for the most part. It is very difficult for a book this size to provide a complete discussion of the nuances in each of the opening systems presented. The approach in the book is to open each chapter with some "light talk" about the variation chosen, followed by a few representative master level games.

Players rated below 1300-1400 may not have developed the requisite skills to understand the material presented, while players rated above 1800-1900 will find that the book doesen't cover the variations in enough detail to fully prepare them face opponents rated 2000+.

Like most chess books, there are a few typos, but in general I feel that this book is a good value for a player fitting the attacking profile rated 1400-1800.

This book taught me how to prepare an opening repertoire. First I adopted all the suggested opening lines for black and white, and then I improved and accommodated them to my own playing style. It is a book I consult regularly. Although I bought this book in 1997, I still keep on reading it. It is a very good book.

I agree with the first posting. This is just page after page of stats. Genesis played here, Genesis played there, here are the dates etc. And then all the solo projects. Steve Hacket played here, Steve Hacket played there and here are the dates. And now we move on to Phil Collins, and "Mike and the Mechanics" dates and locations, dates and locations, dates and locations, and so on and so on. And then all the TV appearences for the band and solo appearences etc. Perhaps it's "new" in that no author ever provided these comprehensive lists before but it's really boring stuff!!! I AM A HUGE GENESIS FAN but listing every venue played on a given tour is not very interesting to me. I love their music far too much to be obsessed with their stats. As far as Armando Gallo's book is concerned all I can say is stopping it at 1980 is a good thing not a bad thing. Long live the Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man!!!!!

I've read everything on Genesis that I've been able to find since 1984 and I am thoroughly enjoying this book. It contains many little tidbits (quotes from the members themselves) that are delightful and that I haven't seen anywhere else. The discologies and gigologies are detailed to a fault (I tend to skip over these) but I'm sure they're helpful to the hard core followers. (I do peek at them once in a while) The book has rekindled my wish to have been around at the band's early stages. I would have enjoyed standing in the mud at one of their outdoor gigs in the 70's. The only thing I don't like is that sentences that begin with...."Sadly, (whatever) has never been published or made available to the public....(so on)" This of course is no fault of the author....if anything it shows the author's thorough research. I can't believe it's out of print already.

This book accomplishes a rare feat. It is difficult to find anything new these days about Genesis. The popularity of the band in the last 15 years has inspired numerous books, none of which truly provide anything new or newsworthy to the dedicated Genesis fan. The definitive book on Genesis was written by Armando Gallo. Gallo's "I Know What I Like" is acknowledged by all Genesis fans as THE Book on Genesis. Gallo's book, however, stops at 1980, just before the band was about to breakthrough to their highest levels of popularity. Others have attempted to write about this popular era of Genesis but have missed the boat, simply covering the obvious elements of their success. The real story of Genesis lies in the details, and in their history. Hewitt's "Opening the Musical Box" does something that no book on Genesis has attempted to do....it covers the smaller details of the band's history that are left untouched by other authors. It offers a comprehensive gigography, something never attempted in print before, and a monumental undertaking for a band that has been playing live shows for four decades. And as if that wasn't enough, Hewitt also manages to provide complete gig listings for all solo tours of Genesis members, past and present. The author covers the history of the band in a way that gives the reader a good overview of their past, but without getting bogged down in the obvious. And every era of the band's history is given equal treatment - a rarity among most books on Genesis which inevitably concentrate on the 1980s and 1990s. Plus within the text of each era, tidbits of new information can be found, and this exercise is carried into the chapters that focus on each of the individual members of the group. Even the most knowledgeable Genesis fan will learn something by reading "Opening the Musical Box". A must have for anyone serious about learning about Genesis.

I have one huge problem with this book and it isnt the typos or the cover its pages 41-166 (over a third of the book) titled the "Summary of the Theory". I don't know if Nunn is a close friend and Gufeld is trying to help sales of NCO, but I cannot count how many times he refers to this opening manual. When encountering certain moves (some very important) he merely recites NCO to about move 18 and says "white is better---NCO", then goes to the next move gives an alternative cites NCO 10 moves deep and says "is even--NCO". That is basically the explanation you get to critical lines, not even a why they are better, he doesnt even bother explaining the main lines, he just gives alternatives based on NCO! To be fair occasionally he recites from BCO and MCO or from lines played in previous games (of course without any explanation). And occasionally he will throw in a game which helps take up some of the space during these sloppy 120 pages, which isnt bad but he usually skips the opening thoughts. The rest of the book is OK and might be worthwhile if you have money to waste but if you get this book just skip pages 41-166. I got plenty of chess books, and hands down this is the worse.

This book is well structured. A part for the history and evolution of the opening (that is seldom seen), another part for the variations, well classified but few comments on the characteristics of the systems. A third part made of specific themes related for Black and White, and a part for important games.

The only real unpleasant thing with this book is the quantity of typing errors. Surely the authors didn't revised it neither the responsible for typing was a chess player.

As my co-reviewer correctly points out, this book, Secrets of the King's Indian, is quite similar to another book of GM Gufeld, Secrets of the Sicilian Dragon, with respect to its cover design. Like most great Grandmasters, Mr. Gufeld is more interested in chess than such materialistic matters as cover designs, etc. The text itself is quite enlightening, and should be taken as authoritative, especially given GM Gufeld's renowned successes with the KI.
It strikes me as rather strange that my co-reviewer would admit to enjoying the text and deriving benefit from it, but seeks to warn potential buyers about deficiencies in the cover design, lest they be "as dissapointed as he was." I will take the liberty of speaking for all serious chess players in saying that content is what counts, and furthermore, "you can't judge a book by its cover."

The Dragon is a excellent counterattacking opening for Black to include in his/her repertoire. However, by focusing EXCLUSIVELY on thematic elements of the Dragon and not including any theory, this book will leave Black players at a disadvantage against opponents who know their opening theory. I strongly recommend Winning with the Sicilian Dragon 2 by Chris Ward because it includes a nice mix of thematic elements along with the theory that is necessary to know when one is playing the Dragon. All in all, a good general overview, but a waste of money.

This book show you positions, ideas and some games. No lines, no variants. If you want to study lines get another book.

The Sicilian in general (and the Dragon in particular), is known as a sharp tactical opening. So along comes a book which attempts to teach you the general ideas that seem to occur again and again. Instead of endless waves of mind-numbing brilliant tactical moves, the authors present a list of ten concepts that Black should keep in mind throughout the game. I still remember how my eyes lit up during an OTB game when I realized I could sacrifice the exchange on c3 (idea #3).

The authors are clearly pro-Dragon, but they do make the effort to present the themes that White should pursue. There is a second list of nine themes for White, one of which (attacking the King along the h-file) has changed the way I approach going after the castled King.

Be sure to note that this book, in keeping with its "idea" approach, does not attempt to analyze lots of lines. It presents the concepts and expects you to try them out over the board.

The Reti lines are well covered but against the KI the lines recomended doesn't seem right. Black seems to be better.

Besides the book does not cover lines where black replies 1.~c5. `1.~d6 and 1.~g6.

But if you really want to learn the reti opening it is a good source, and an adequate guide. it is well written in many aspects. but it can leave one with more questions then answers. it delves deeply into some concepts and leaves others often the featured game concepts almost completly alone. I do think Dunnington could have done better. with an opening as sharp and complex as the reti I feel that 128 pages of material just isn't enough. but don't get me wrong here the 128 pages that are presented are packed with plenty of good examples of good reti play. course that really just boils down to more stuff I get to figure out myself. all in all I feel that a good openings book should provide a good foundation. Dunningtons easy guide to the reti opening provides about 3\4 of a good foundation. but looking at the introduction think this exactly what Dunnington had in mind. mabey I should give it a four star rating.

I bought this book after I decided to drop e4, but I couldn't get my hands on Kosten's repertoire book for the English.

I liked this book and it is one that can improve your chess if it is studied properly, and not just your opening play either. I did have a few quibbles with the book.

The author remained true to his favored double fianchetto piece set up in as many lines as he could. Since I like to compare the similarity of plans emanating out of pawn structures, I really enjoyed seeing the subtle differences in the plans in those pawn structures. The author did a great job in making the themes from game to game really consistent - you see why in this line, he recommends this move - it aims for a type of position he has explained earlier. He discusses the alternatives, but explains that the move he presents/prefers is more in line with the rest of the repertoire he is teaching. The quality of the material in the book itself is in my opinion deserving of a 5 star rating if one is over 1600 USCF and this goes as high as GM. There are variations here as well as lots of words. There are also improvements on assessments on evaluations offered.

You could play this opening comfortably if you studied the relevant line in this book. OFten, move order is not a problem and the critical play begins after a variety of typical set ups have been established. THe pawn structure play that characterises this opening suits players who are not fond of sharp opening complications. The danger of course is that you learn to play formations and not thinking chess, but I think the author presetns so many plans in this book that if you play lazy chess, he is not to be blamed. He definitely does not espouse a cookbook approach. However, he does produce positions with recurring themes.

What do I think could be better about the book? Well, skipping defences like 1.. c5 and 1 ... g6 really hurt. Those moves are commonly played vs Nf3. While a good study of the book might still allow you to transpose into a line given in the book, I would still have liked to see Dunnington present plans which he liked.

I think this is a great book. But the c5 omission weighs heavily against it becos it invites a Siclian transposition and is the choice of most players. As a game collection to be studied, it would improve your chess greatly - just comparing the lines and games in similar pawn structures would greatly increase your chess knowledge. If I Reviewed it solely on that criteria, it is a 5 star book.

For the general King and Queen Pawn players, this book may have something to offer. However, the approach is far too dogmatic for today's styles. 10 basic rules are given and Rule #1 is: Open with either the e or d pawn. Rule #5 states: Make one or two pawn moves in the opening, not more. Rule #7: Castle as soon as possible, preferably on the king's side. The other rules make more sense, but these 3 examples are quite barbaric unless you are going to play mainline variations of the Ruy Lopez for example. The last chapter (ONE WHOLE PAGE) addresses irregular openings, giving one example of 1.g6 for Black as the irregular opening. I never realized the Modern defence was 'irregular'. This 1989 release is a republish of the 1943 book Fine put out with the more updated algebraic notation. Please don't waste your hard earned money on this.

Fine wrote this book essentially as a companion to his opening manual back in the forties. It has a great deal to recommend it but cannot stand alone in the modern arena. Despite Fine's claim in his preface to the eighties edition, that nothing needed revision at that time, the work on the King's Indian defense and the Sicilian (two of the most important defenses) are essentially useless. For a more contemporary appreciation of the ideas behind opening theory, Suetin's Modern Chess Opening Theory (written in the fifties) stands up much better and Bronstein's book of the 1953 Zurich candidates tournament better still. One or both ought to be read as companion works.

Looking at standard opening books killed my enthusiasm for chess. It is absurd to know all of them. My little head is not capable of crunching all those lines. But Fine's book on chess openings is more beginner friendly. It taught me the ideas behind the chess openings and how to play them. The book puts more emphasis on originality and artistry which I believe is pretty much lacking with most opening chess books I've seen.

I hadn't felt such a fool until I bought and read this booklet.
Don't waste your time and money.
And don't let Mr. Weber make you feel like a fool for buying such a nonsense thing.

I agree whole-heartedly with Mr. Russell. This is a terrific book that supplies lines for every possible situation(or almost every possible situation). Okay, some of them aren't that great, but the trick is to take what Mr. Weber knows(he's a master) and apply it to your own life. And the lines range from one end of the spectrum to the other, that is, you can be serious, polite, stupid(to show that you are really a man after all) or downright off-the-wall. It sure helped me develop a quicker, sharper, wittier mind around the ladies, and I too would recommend it in an instant.

I first bought one of Eric's books several years ago and have recommended his writings to several other single guys. I strongly recommend this book as a source for opening lines. Although many of the lines you will not use, the book helps you to think of GREAT lines in an instant...