Customer Reviews

101 Chess Opening Surprises (Gambit Chess)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I really found this to be a FUN book to read. Like after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a5! OPPS! I meant to move the Pawn to "a6". Your opponent will look at you and say, ah "touch move!". Then he thinks your are a real FISH and will relax thinking he has "gotcha!". Then you play your best and play well. This isn't really sound chess, but it is fun chess, and I wouldn't really do that. But what about 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.0-0 Bg4 6.h3 h5! - OPPS! I meant to put my Bishop on "h5" not the "Pawn", can I take it back? Your opponent will say "touch move!" and then falls for the trap by greed, 6 hxg4? hxg4 7 Nxe5? (he just cannot stop feeding his army!) Qh4 8 g3 and checkmate cannot be stopped. I like this book, but give it four stars intead of 5 because it might give a beginner some bad ideas to play weak moves to try to trick your opponent instead of playing sound moves. I would also therefore suggest getting a book on "sound" opening traps like "Winning Chess Traps, Tactics in the Opening". Also, "Winning Chess Traps" is old but still good. Do I recommend "101 Chess Opening Surprises" - I do if you are getting it for fun first and understand that you shouldn't really use some of the ideas in it, but get some fun reading them.

This book is a collection of unusual opening ideas. Most of them are pretty sound, but the funniest is the Bulgarian Defense to the Ruy Lopez (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a5! ), which makes it look as if Black intended ...a6, but accidentally pushed the pawn two squares. Also amusing is Bucker's idea in the Sicilian: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 h6. The idea is that if White plays the normal 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5, Black gets a Sveshnikov/Pelikan set-up without allowing White to play Bg5. There are a lot of interesting and unusual ideas in this book. The author is very careful with his analysis and rarely makes a serious analytical error in any of his books.

This book is intended for light entertainment, not for instruction. I cannot see how anyone could benefit from more than 20% of the lines in here, because they are from various openings and sometimes require very cooperative play from the opponent.

Basically I saw this book as a collection of more or less amusing opening traps. If I play an opening, I usually buy a specialized book on it, and those books usually include all the lines that you find in this book, and tons more.

I read this book through in half an hour, and found little reason to return to it later. But it is not badly written. If your local library has it, why not borrow it for a train trip.

I remember back to when I first began playing chess, and the excitment that came from springing a big opening surprise on an (equally) inexperienced opponent. To me this book recaptures the experience, and boy does it deliver the promised bombshells!
Each surprise is graded for soundness and surprise value. An example at the extreme end of the Soundness scale would be surprise 16, the Spanish Bulgarian Defense. The shock move 3...a5 is assigned a Soundness ranking of 1, but can you imagine the effect on your opponent? As Burgess says, the move has never been clearly refuted.
An example of a more main-stream idea is Surprise 71 in the Queen's Gambit, 7 e4. Burgess reminds us that this old pawn sacrifice has been resurrected with some dangerous new ideas. The Soundness ranking is 4, a tribute to the quality of players adopting it with white, including Sokolov and Gelfand.
As with the other 101 titles, it is pleasant to be able to browse at random. Great book.

Not enough variety to make it a general opening book (Winning Chess Openings by Yasser Seirawan), nor a book specifically focused on one repertoire (The King's Indian Attack by Eric Schilling). The Openings discussed are somewhat in random order and therefore there is no real focus. Though a good book, very instructive and well written, I would not consider it a necessity for players. If you want to cram on a few popular themes then this book will fit your needs. All levels can read this book, but intermediate players (1200-1600) may utilize this book best.

He's (or she's) playing chess by the book' is very often a disdainfull remark. But every chessplayer, sooner or later, wants to increase his knowledge of chess. He won't be able to do it on his own: he will need help. Help from '101 Chess Opening Surprises', say. This book is very userfriendly. It has only 128 pages but the most important openings are discussed. The notation uses co-ordinates (the easiest way it seems to me).Moreover, on every page are three diagrams to illustrate the moves that are discussed. A must!