Customer Reviews

Concise Chess Openings (Everyman Chess)

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

 

 

This is a book well suited for a beginner who just wants a general idea of what the major chess openings are. It is certainly not "concise". If you are a beginner and want to look into the various openings and want some very general ideas and not a lot of tedious variations, then this is a good book. Though I like the more detailed book of this same nature, "Understanding The Chess Openings" by Collins, and would recommend to gain a grasp of opening tactcis getting a book on opening traps - a book on opening traps will give you a good idea of the strong points and pitfalls within the openings.

This is an excellent book, suitable for people that need an introduction to the major openings, but don't want as yet to invest the amount of time necessary to learn any opening thoroughly.
This book is going to take the place of Znosko-Borovsky's "How to Play the Chess Openings" (which was written in the '30s), and Fine's "The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings" (from the '40s) as a summary overview to all the major chess openings. The advantage of McDonald's book is that it is really up to date (it includes moves from games played up to 2001). Unlike the two older books, Concise Chess Openings does not include a section on the principles behind the chess openings (e.g. develop light pieces before heavy ones, don't move a piece twice in the opening without good reason, etc.); however, since such "principles" are to be found in most beginners' chess books, one does not miss them in McDonald's book. (An excellent feature of the book is that it indicates very clearly what White's and Black's plan are for each opening or major variation.)
The only reason I did not give the book five stars is the price, which is really high for such a small book (smaller than a mass-market paperback).

This is an interesting book. It gives you the ideas of the openings, much more so than theory-laden books, and it is also quite small. The detail here is not great, but it's certainly an interesting book.

My problem is what is it useful for. I can only guess based on its physical size that you are intended to take it with you to tournaments to help review your games when they are over, but yet the detail of the game is not really sufficient, and nco or mco seem like they would be better suited for this task.

I'm not a great chess player, but I'm a pretty good one and own about 50 books on the game. I have reveiwed a number of chess books on Amazon and I still enjoy playing the game very much.

Although I am not a beginner, I think this is a useful book for beginners and intermediates because it will provide you with the framework you need to build on as you learn. How high you can build a building depends upon the strength of the foundation. What this book provides is a broad intellectual framework to build your openings strategies on. It will help you learn about traps, different lines of development and tactics more quickly by providing a strong foundation in the most common openings.

While there are some people that can digest a lot of this material quickly, I am not one of them. Although I've been playing chess for years having an easily digestible collection of openings and an understanding of the logic behind them makes learning more advanced aspects of play easier. It can be very overwhelming to a beginner or anyone to navigate this territory without a good high level map. This is the way I think of this book and I wouldn't think of NOT owning it although I have many other books on this topic.

This is almost a cheat sheet more than a book. Truly a "pocket guide"...you can actually fit this easily in your pocket, this book has all the biggie openings, clearly explained, with lots of diagrams. Obviously it's for beginner-intermediate players and doesn't go into great depth, but like Fine's Ideas Behind The Chess Openings, it tells you why each side is making the moves they are and how the attacks will proceed after the opening is played. Great to have at your elbow if you're playing a computer with its preprgrammed book and you need a hint. Or, if you're trying to learn the nuts and bolts of basic openings, the author has a helpful technique: after giving the basic moves, he asks "What is White trying to accomplish?" and "What is Black trying to accomplish?" Before getting into long variations, he gives you *verbal* discussions of what you can expect, i.e.: "White will attack the kingside with his king's bishop, king's knight and queen; on the queenside he'll advance his pawns and try to prevent Black's knight from establishing a post on c5." That sort of verbal overview makes the ensuing moves a lot clearer, and certainly make more sense than the typical "d4, Nc6, Bd3, a6, o-o, o-o, Bb5, Pxe5, Pxe5, and White is superior," that you see in so many books that profess to "teach" chess.

My only slight complaint is the book could be even a little longer. Some more modern openings could have been dealt with a little more thoroughly and the English--not a "modern" opening, is rather slighted. Another 30-40 pages wouldn't have made the book much less manageable and would have been very useful. My other reservation is the price: a bit high. Look for it used or overstock; by now there should be plenty of copies floating around.

Este libro a pesar de su tamaño, contiene valiosa información para quien desee saber mas acerca de aperturas de ajedrez. Por supuesto, deja muchas líneas sin cubrir, pero ello debido a su objetivo de ser una guía rápida, fantástica para el principiante. Sugiero que si quedan dudas acerca de alguna línea, se consulten otras fuentes (libros, programas de ajedrez, bases de datos), y se pregunte a personas con mayor conociemiento de estas líneas. Es interesante que este libro sea valioso por ello, pues provoca curiosidad por saber más de cierta línea y motiva la investigación.