Opening

This book is the worst of John Nunn. He can churn stuff out that is dry as sawdust. Perhaps the ultimate chess geeks can appreciate this. But I swear a computer could be writing this book. I have tried and tried again to read his books and they bore me into such a stupor that I contemplate giving up chess. On the other hand, this guy is a genius for getting GAMBIT up and running, and his Understanding Chess Move by Move is actually written by a human being! Having said all that, you should realize that I am not commenting at all on the substantive merits of this book--I am just saying, it is strictly technical stuff for hardcore chess geeks. There is NO personality here.

This book is probably most useful for players with ELO ratings above 1700.

When I was a Class C player I had a difficult time understanding the Sicilian defence. Black neglects development, and plays a move that immediately weakens d5. Nevertheless I found that a lot of my losses were indeed to Sicilians.

This book helped considerably to fill the void in my knowledge. Nunn gives an overview of each major variation (including some lesser played sidelines) and indicates the corresponding plans for White and Black. He backs up this discussion with game examples as well as some fairly deep analysis.

The book is not perfect. By trying to cover all major variations in one book, Nunn obviously sacrifices depth of analysis in some lines. For example the chapter on the Dragon variation could have used more depth. On the other hand, the Dragon variation alone has been the topic of entire books, so one can't fault Nunn entirely here.

Nunn's writing style is clear and concise and for the most part his analysis is objective. The book is easy to navigate and the binding is fairly sturdy.

The main benefit of studying this book is that one builds confidence in meeting the Sicilian defence. Although detailed analysis is given, inevitably the book will miss some lines that the player will encounter. Thus, the ideas behind the variations and the confidence to play the open sicilian are what I really gleaned from this book.

A good effort by Nunn. Not for beginners though. Additionally, the 3rd edition is out so I'm hoping that the third is as good as the 2nd.

Easley Blackwood is famous, and justifiably so. But his book on opening leads just doesn't cut it. It will teach you two major lessons about opening leads. First, when your world-class opponents use strange and often archaic bidding methods to arrive at difficult contracts that will make against poor defense, you should make the opening lead that will work the best. And second, classic methods (fourth best, top of a sequence, etc.) are good because they give information to your partner, while modern innovations are bad because they give information to the declarer.

There are some interesting tidbits, but only a true masochist would attempt to learn much about opening leads from this book. On the other hand, if you like reading about interesting hands that were played in world championships twenty to forty years ago, and if you're into name-dropping, I can wholeheratedly recommend Blackwood's effort.

Anyone who needs a recommendation on what to get instead, feel free to ask.

The most complete book ever written on opening leads.

ICO is a typical openings reference book in that it gives the main lines in all the major openings out to 10-12 moves, some even a few moves deeper in the footnotes. An assessment of each line is given in the familiar languageless plus/minus system. But, this is a awfully skimpy book for $20. I'm sure it was meant as a light-weight reference for the amateur player to carry with him to weekend Swiss tournaments, but I'm not sure the few ounces saved over BCO or MCO would be worth it.

The book is simple and good, giving the best lines and most important analysis of the major openings. There are almost no words in the entire book! A nice navigation tool for chess opening theory, useful to players from the level of intermediate to advanced.

We would never allow nondoctors to write medical treatises (one hopes, anyway); yet non-scholars who write on ancient Egypt in general, and Tutankhamun (or the El-Amarna epoch) in particular, are truly a dime a dozen in every respect. This book is on a par with Bob Brier's "thriller" on the putative murder of Tutankhamun. Ignorance of Egyptian language and history are outstanding here, the constant capitalization of epithets (real and imaginary--mostly imaginary)creates a hysterical tone, and the last chapter (fictional) is simply grotesque. One wonderful howler is that there are two references to "iced melon"--where would the Egyptians procure (and keep) ICE, of all things? Please, if you want delightfully readable AND absolutely accurate treatments of Tutankhamun, read "Akhenaten" and "The Complete Tutankhamun," both by Nicholas Reeves, and skip this overwrought mess. Oh, and one last thing--as genuinely interesting (if quite unprovable) as it may be to speculate that Tutankhamun had Marfan's syndrome, it is as silly to say that the many images of the King seated show that he was physically weak as to say (citing an old joke here)that Walter Cronkite had no legs because you never saw him standing.

I have read and much enjoyed P.C. Doherty's books of Ancient Egytptian historical fiction, so I thought I'd read this "scholarly" volume.

Doherty makes some excellent points in his explanation of Tut's death. I especially liked his opinion on whether or not Tut was murdered, which is much different from the view presented in Bob Brier's "Murder of Tutankhamun." I recommend reading both books as it is interesting to see the different conclusions drawn using the same physical evidence.

What I did not like was that this book was not edited very well. There are several typos and some awkward sentences (clauses piled upon clauses.) Also, the 4th chapter is extremely repetitive of points made earlier in the book.

And finally, the 5th chapter is a complete work of fiction built around historical events. Though I like historical fiction, it doesn't belong in a book where Doherty has previously discussed historical fact. Were I not aware of Doherty's previous works of fiction, I would wonder where this chapter came from.

This book is worth reading, but does have some minor flaws.

If you're looking for some humorous political commentary, you won't find it here. The audio book consists of a series of one minute monologues in which Maher lays out the topics to be discussed on the show, followed by the guest introductions. There aren't any clips of the guests or Maher actually discussing those topics. Frankly there is nothing humorous or entertaining about listening to a series of topics and guest introductions. It's a waste of time and money.

This tape is a collection of monologues from the show when it was on Comedy Central. While the monologues are funny, space is wasted by the shows music and the introduction of the guests for each show. The space saved could have been used for more jokes, but it still worth a listen.

This book, as a blend of the contemporary subdivisions of anthropology, psychology, and religion, suffers greatly from an all too common error for such trans-disciplinary writings. Simply put, the author may know his anthropology (and I'm not even sure about that, not being an anthropologist myself), but has only a rudimentary grasp of psychology and certain Eastern religions. The end result is something like what might happen if an electronics expert with only a basic knowledge of metallurgy and ship-building attempted to build a modern battleship. The ship simply won't float. His frequent use of Jungian concepts to support his thesis ignores the fact that Jungian psychology is all but dead and buried (it may make for interesting reading, but has been experimentally and pragmatically supplanted by many other, more viable, theoretical approaches in psychology). His understanding of Eastern practices like Zen Buddhism and yoga is sadly misinformed--He may have studied yoga for a few years, and dabbled in Zen, but his descriptions of the goal of these approaches, the nature of enlightenment, and their supposed dangers clearly indicate that he didn't progress much in his practice (and his equation of Zen consciousness with the rational formulations and pseudo-objective detachments of the scientist is laughable). No historical account of the shaman is presented in the book either. I was originally attracted to this book by Joseph Campbell's praise of it as an excellent introductory text for shamansism. Unfortunately, its abuses of credible psychology and the nature of Eastern religions like Zen Buddhism make it a harmful exercise in fantasy.

Having read it some time ago, it is with extreme pleasure that I make use of this oportunity to review such a broad-spanning, extensively researched book. I recommend it to all of those which have interests in the subject of Shamanism or as an, extremely enticing and didactic, first book on the matter. I have to thank Stephen Larsen for enabling me to write that, if properly undertaken, "The Shaman's Doorway: Opening Imagination to Power and Myth" may become a traveled personal path, bringing its' reader to the gateway of a spiritual tomorrow.

---------------------------------------------- It's a tricky proposition to do an openings book with dated analysis, and while the publisher takes a shot at pulling it off by providing some contemporary commentary, the two cooks don't really improve on the soup. IM Purdy was a strong player (four times champion of Australia, and the first World Correspondence Chess Champion) and writer (publisher of Australasian Chess Review, Check, and Chess World). Bobby Fischer has spoken highly of Purdy's analytical talents, and Thinker's Press has published several books of his analysis and insight. Those are mostly excellent books that concentrate on his writings and teachings, and aspiring players would do well to check them out.

While Purdy is an insightful author, this book is more about opening lines than concepts, and I think its age shows. The publisher would seem to agree with this concern, because he enlists NM Ronald Wieck to provide running commentary throughout the book, mostly to discuss changes in the theory of the lines since Purdy's day. While this is an interesting choice for a revision method, I don't think the book pulls it off.

The primary problem as I see it is that too often Purdy's conclusions, upon which his opening ideas have been based and discussed in the main text, are shown to be different than modern theory would suggest. While this is understandable, given the age of the analysis, I think it is going to confuse the reader and lead him to doubt the concepts that the author seeks to discuss.

Purdy's book is based on providing an all-purpose repertoire for the black player, and he mostly concentrates on the structure with black having pawns on e6,d5,c5, and b6. This is a sold structure that can arise from the French Defense against 1.e4 and from the Queen's Gambit Declined against 1.d4. There are also a variety of methods for achieving it against many other first moves for white. It is a viable and decent choice for a black player seeking a defensive structure.

Indeed, if the publisher had chosen to include much of Purdy's explanatory text, such as the introductory chapter on Opening Problems and Principles, and the chapter sections that discuss opening play in general, and had gotten another author to interweave his analysis with that of Purdy's that stands the test of time, this might have been an outstanding book. As published, it has too many confusing parts, where players have followed along with Purdy's moves and prose, only to find at the end that the author may have mis-spoken.

My second major concern with the book is the inclusion of a section on the Accelerated Dragon Sicilian (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6). While the book mostly covers a solid multi-purpose black repertoire, it veers off to include 31 pages on an extremely sharp line that isn't exactly in keeping with the rest of the suggested repertoire. Further, here a lot of the analysis is dated, and the forcing nature of the lines suggests to me that the black player relying on it for opening preparation will run into many headaches. I've played this variation many times, and I would not recommend it to anybody based on the analysis contained in this book.

My final concern is that the lay-out of the book leaves way too much unused space within the book's listed 192 pages. The book is 6" by 9" but the main column spans slightly less than 3 inches across. There is a second column, of slightly more than 1.5" on each page, but it only contains the footnote sized commentary by NM Wieck. This is a curious and wasteful lay-out. The book could have been compressed by running footnotes at the bottom of the page, as is standard practice.

Indeed, of the 176 pages of the book that use this format (the title pages, table of contents, editor's forward and commentator's preface span the first 12 pages of the book), 52 have no substantive comments in the footnote column, and another 68 have no more than one substantive comment (often little more than one or two lines). Thus fully two-thirds of the book consists of pages with a second column that is entirely or mostly blank (analysis-wise; we do get pictures of the Purdy's, other chess players, and other books published by Thinker's Press). Indeed, I found only 10 pages where I felt the material justified a separate column. As a player who must often rely on the stated number of pages in a catalogue to gauge content, I find that type of lay-out to be at best wasteful and at worst something worse than that.

In conclusion, this book, both because of the age of the material, the manner in which it was updated, and the way that it is presented, doesn't really provide value to most players. If you're a Purdy fanatic or believe that the repertoire presented will be a useful complement to other books, you might want to check it out. Otherwise, I'd shop elsewhere for a "24 hour" repertoire.

I bought this book primarily because I have another Thinker's Press title "The Search For Chess Perfection" and it is one of my favorite chess books. Action Chess is a total disapointment however. The openings it talks about are primarily for black, though it is touted as a complete opening system. The openings themselves are not mainstream and based on old, outdated, flawed logic. The back of the book even admits as much! Don't waste your money. The ultimate "opening system" book has yet to be written.

The reason I first loved Purdy's The Search for Chess Perfection was simple: it brought chess to life for me like other books had not. By comparison, for instance, My 60 Memorable Games by Fischer does nothing for me--the annotations are dry and two-dimensional. As an average player but avid consumer of chess books, I am attracted to books that bring chess to three-dimensional life. Silman's books come to mind as classic examples of this. My System by Nimzo. is perhaps the greatest example of this (with quotes such as "the passed pawn is a criminal which must be kept under lock and key"). I need chess brought to life, because I get bogged down and bored by books that emphasize variations at the expense of explanatory text. Now, to the text at hand. I repeatedly find myself turning back to this book Action Chess. It is pure Purdy, talking to you the reader about opening principles, and about his search to find manageable systems. Whether the lines he selects hold up perfectly to modern analysis or not, the point is that we can follow this journey through opening ideas in a manner that is rich with imagery, enthusiasm, and Purdy's infectious chess excitement. And I enjoy the margin comments as well, by Ron Wieck; they are very instructive. The production is excellent and the book feels very good to leaf through. This is a very fun book, that in the scheme of things deserves far more than one star. The fact for me is that I have over 250 chess books, and for better or worse, this is one I find myself studying quite a bit, while other supposed "classics" go un-opened.

Okay, if you're a non-major and you want to know something about theatre, wouldn't you want to know correct information? I unwittingly used this book full of errors to teach an Intro to theatre course, recently, and found myself constantly correcting or clarifying concepts in the book to my students. This shouldn't have been necessary. While I think it's fine to simplify concepts for beginning students, it's not okay to get things simply wrong. The design section has big problems in this regard. For instance they say "Although imprecise names like puce, chartreuse, and peach are still used to market products in the fashion and automobile industries, serious artists have abandoned such vague descriptions and use only the precise name that defines a particular hue . . ." I don't know who the "serious artists" are that the authors write about but no professionals I've ever worked with, in New York City and other places "use only the precise name." Usually we don't even use a name and grab something that is pretty much the color we want and say--dye the cloth this blue but a little lighter or we use names like peach and chartreuse. I have problems with some of their defintions and use of terms like 'intensity' when I've always heard the term 'saturation' used for the same concept, which is more descriptive and help students distinguish color from how bright or dim a light.
The way Markus and Sarver cover multi-cultural/diversity issues like color blind casting and plays by people of color is embarrassingly patronizing or just weird. If watching a place by Luis Valdez helps us "learn respect for people of different ethnic backgrounds" why doesn't watching a play by Henrik Ibsen, since I'm not, nor were any of my students, Norwegian or European?
The section on acting implys that Stanislavski's method acting is the only kind of actor training available in the United States. While they don't have to deliniate the Suzuki or other methods at least they could add that while method acting is the most popular actor training there are other actor training schools.
While the section on producing theatre is New York is pretty good I would not purchase the book for that.
The text seemed geared toward an elementary student not high school or college. And while it is not all bad, it has too many faults to be adopted for classroom use.

About two years ago I decided that the level at which I was playing, Class A USCF, demanded a systematized opening repertoire if I wanted to keep climbing in rating. I set out to do this and started playing with black the Sicilian Accelerated Dragon against 1.e4, the King's Indian against 1.d4 and the Symmetrical English (which can transpose into some variations of the Accelerated Dragon) against 1.c4. At this point I needed some help with my variations against 1.b4, 1.b3, 1.g3, 1.g4 and 1.f4, although it is fair to say that some of this can transpose into the previous mentioned openings. For example, 1.g3 a lot of times transpose into the King's Indian fianchetto variation.

I started looking for a book that could help by giving a comprehensive repertoire against the flank openings. I was delighted when I found "Beating the Flank Openings", since by reading the description of the book, it conveys the idea that it gives black the tools to win against ALL flank openings. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when I received the book and found out it covered only the English (variation 1.c4 e5) and the Catalan openings! This meant that the book was completely useless to me, since against 1.c4 I play 1...c5, and since I play the King's Indian, the Catalan is of no use to me.

I hope this advice helps future buyers in avoiding this book if you are looking for a solution similar to the one I was seeking. If on the contrary you are looking for help with the Catalan or English then this book may prove helpful. I browsed through the explanations the author gives and the games selected to depict these two opening and have to admit that Kotronias makes a good job in conveying his ideas and concepts. This is the only reason why I give the book 2 stars instead of 1.

This quite slim book provides a far from complete coverage of 1... g6. It's not quite clear to which audience this book is attributed. For advanced chess players the coverage of the various variations is certainly not thorough enough, while for beginners and intermediates the ideas and strategies behind this difficult opening are not outlined sufficiently. The book may be of use as a starting point for building a repertoire based on 1... g6, but a lot of own work will have to be done.