Customer Reviews

Encyclopedia Of Chess Wisdom (Cardoza Chess Books)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Eric Schiller frustrates me. He has great breadth as a chess writer (I am not yet good enough to be able to critique whether he has "depth" too, but that's besides the point) and writes books about every aspect of the game. He also has what should be one of the best books on standard openings out there. There seems to be no aspect of chess he hasn't covered. Yet maybe that's the problem: his books are chock full of typos, diagram errors, misstatements, misattributions, and just plain poorly-written material. Perhaps he cranks these books out a little TOO fast. When I opened this book three times to random pages in the bookstore and found huge mistakes on each page (mistakes that can be found without even playing the games through on a chess set), what's the point of buying the book? He even has position diagrams where he builds up to the fact that white is about to make this oh-so-amazing move that all students should study carefully...and then he gives it, and either it's an impossible move, or in the diagram white's piece is ALREADY there, so we don't know where said piece is coming from, and thus why this move was so unexpected. That's just one error...it would take forever to catalog them all and you get the idea anyway. What's most frustrating is, as I said, his books COULD be great. Clearly I and many others could learn a lot from Schiller, but he needs a proof-reader or two. (Incidentally this review applies to all Schiller's books I have seen so far, and not just EOCW.)

Eric Schiller has produced yet another book which is unbelievably sloppy. Some examples are given here, although they barely scratch the surface:

Incorrect notation: Page 279 has Qa1 checkmate instead of Qh1.

Wrong history: page 69 attributes a quote to Tarrasch in 1935, by which time he was already dead. Page 167 claims that in 1895 Lasker was `on his way to the World Championship', but he had won it in 1894. Page 313 is in the wrong century for a Legall game. Page 335: the date of the Congdon v Delmar position (page 335) is a full century out.

Ignorance of grammar: `it's still you're turn to move' (page 142). Another example: `A passed pawn increases it's strength...' (page 250).

Bizarre typo: `it can also crate threats' (page 145).

Misspelling of names: `Lake Hopatong' (page 160). `Wywill' (page 297).

Wrong diagram: page 198, for example.

Wrong moves: Page 301 has the illegal move Qh4+ instead of Qh6+. The same page claims that in a simple queen ending 3 Qc1 is mate, but it is not.

Inconsistent spelling: Brinkmate/Brinckmate (page 262). Malteses Cross/Maltese cross (page 280). Wolf's/Wolff's (page 331).

Nonsensical game-score: Pages 321-322 have a game `Pillsbury v Lee, London 1889'. The two did not even meet that year. Ten years later they played a game which opened similarly, but the continuation given by Schiller was in fact what occurred, up to a point, in a different game, Pillsbury v Newman, Philadelphia, 1900. In short, yet another shambles.

Awful writing style: A specimen from page 343: `What on earth is going on here. White is giving away the store! Let's see, Black has an extra rook, worth five clams or whatever, and can eat another one at a1. Must be winning, right?'

And so it goes on... How could Cardoza have even considered publishing such `work'?

Above review by Edward Winter

A review by Billy Patteson

Eric Schiller has another book out, and it is called Encyclopedia of Chess Wisdom. Schiller is a prolific writer of chess books. Some of his work is pretty good. He is a strong master and has some good ideas. But it really is a shame that he has let quantity rather than quality rule his output. Either he or his publisher, Cardoza Publishing, should slow down and actually look at each page before rushing into print another chess book. Typos in this latest work in many cases exceed anything I have ever seen. I am using the word "typo" here to also include any other goofy type of careless error which demonstrates the sloppy work that is my complaint here. Apparently pride for good work and shame for poor work does not exist with the Schiller/Cardoza team. The actual chess content of this book is decent, certainly no worse than other books of this genre. But I want to now show a few examples of what really has my dander up.

p. 59: The italics quote from a 19th century chess book gives 2...Be5 as a defense to the King's Gambit. Of course ...Bc5 was intended. But why repeat the same error in regular type in the very next sentence?

p. 63: First sentence uses `your' instead of `you are'. I quit making this error in about the fifth grade.

p. 82: This sentence makes no sense: "White offered the initial gambit, but it is Black who holds the extra pawn." Say what?

p. 131: This page contains perhaps the most incredible goof that I have ever seen in print. Ever! In describing how to attack a Nf6 and a castled king, Schiller says: "There are of course slow ways of chasing denied away including the advance of the g-pawn but sacrificial means are also often employed." Apparently he used the word "denied" because it sounds like "the knight." Unbelievable.

p. 211: The Lucena Position. This page is really an insult to all of our beginners. Schiller describes the process as "building a bridge." But his example leaves off before the "bridge" idea is completely revealed, and the line ends with an unplayable typo of 5.Rb6. If someone does not know the Lucena method, I promise you, reading this page will not teach them how to do it.

p. 332: Englisch Stalemate. Schiller explains that the name is German, thus the odd spelling. But he immediately spells it ENGLISH instead.

p. 395: Schiller attempts to tell the famous anecdote about Korchnoi in his 1974 match with Karpov. Korchnoi's KR was attacked, and not knowing the castling rule he asked the arbiter if it was legal to castle in the position. Schiller says: "You can guess who almost fell victim to the castling rule - our friend Korchnoi! It cost him, perhaps, the World Championship title." But Korchnoi played the winning castling move. He won the game, but lost the match. The incident cost Korchnoi nothing (except, of course, a little embarrassment about the rule.) Again, Schiller makes no sense.

p. 408: The rating scale shown has two glaring typos. Editing this page only one time would have caught it easily.

I could go on with other errors in the book, but these are the most obvious, and in some cases they really insult the reader's intelligence. Mr. Schiller and Cardoza Publishing can do better, and in the future I hope that they do.

You can read some of the other reviews to get an idea of some of the specific errors... The book is loaded with them from wrong moves to other typos... How can this book help anyone if half the battle is trying to figure out whats going on... He has quotes from people in years that they already were dead... Games with wrong year and people listed... Sad that they still publish books from this author... I do not understand why they let books out with so many errors... When I buy a chess book I expect it to have almost no errors... This book has more errors than actual things that help players... If you give this to someone and tell them to find all the errors... They woudl probably have grandkids and still not find them all... I dunno what he means by Golden Nuggets... I think more work went into thinking of name of book than content... Books like this give chess books a bad name to say very least... If you want a book on chess strategy try Watson's Advances since Nimzo... Even The Mammoth Book of Chess will help you more than this item... Perhaps even consider Silman's Strategy Grandmaster Techniques from A to Z book. Hopefully one of those books might help you in your game and give you value for your dollar...

First I would like to say that the idea for this book i.e. to give a bunch of mate patterns, stalemate patterns and such is a great idea to teach. I myself teach players and have adopted this way of teaching my pupils. I picked up this book cause quickly browsing through it I saw a list of patterns I could add to my teaching arsenal.

I was fully aware of Mr. Schillers reputation as a somewhat bad writer who publishes sloppy books. So I bought this book also kind of to see for myself because the only other Schiller book I have is very old, despite the fact that my chessbook library is well over 300 books probably.

I must say that the one star I give out is probably too much. He gets it only for the idea I must say. The wealth of errors is so much that at times I was close to disgusted. Lets run over some:

Incorrect notation - The examples are too many to bother with. One expects the notation to be correct in chessbooks but too many times it says Qh1 instead of Qa1 errors like that and at one time a white queen was supposed to fly from e2 to d7 magically giving a check. Such erros are totally unacceptable and should be caught while proofreading the book.

Poor games - Too many examples from say Gingelkirchen vs Mandalsuurian, Bad Schwartzenville 1998. Basically Nobody vs Nobody, Nowhere at some point.

Bad examples - On page 325 he gives the general diagram for a suffocation mate (not smothered which is the example before). When giving and example of that "mate" in action it isn't even a mate only the same knight check except black has to give up the queen.

Just plain stupid errors - The example that had me absolutely disgusted is on page 313. There he gives an example of Legall's mate in action. He gives 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bc4 Nc6 4.Nc3 Bg4? (his question mark) 5.Nxe5!!(His exclamation marks) and now "The queen is sacrificed for a quick checkmate" and gives 5.Bxd1 6.Bxf7+ Ke7 7.Nd5# which is indeed Legall mate but please try that wonderful "trick" against me Mr.Schiller and lets play on after 5...Nxe5 -+ when black is a piece up for nothing. Of course this tricks only works if there is no knight on c6 either it has moved to d4 or black played a meaningless pawn move say ...a6.

So with the wealth of errors I cannot possibly recommend this book. Also I would like to add that some chapters are downright useless and especially in the opening chapters there is nothing in way of good tips on how to play any opening just the moves and the name of the opening more or less.

So this is my take on this book, a Fide Master from Iceland with 2 IM norms and teaching experience.

Sorry for the brevity of this review, but I have no better way to sum up this book. As with most of Eric Schiller's work, this book makes your chess worse. It is loaded with filler "wisdom," such as how to win in 4 or less moves in six different ways, two of them involving the losing side's king marching to e2(e7) unprovoked. This completely useless material is a good example of what a waste of trees this book is.

This book can be useful in 2 ways. First, it can expose beginners to a whole host of topics that they will eventually have to delve into in order to be decent at chess. These beginners can learn most of the broad rules of thumb that decent players take for granted. Second, once you become a weak intermediate - intermediate player, it might be useful to review the concepts once in a while, just to keep them fresh in your mind. It's funny how after studying a particular opening for a long period of time, you often forget one or two basic broad opening principles...

This book is the epitome of a three star book. It's decent, simple (necessary for its target audience) and does what it sets out to do with no frills or great "bonuses". In other words, it's fine. Unlike the atrocity that Schiller's "Standard Chess Openings" is, but that's another story...

This book atracted me at first, since it looked good, and seemed to convey the essential knowledge any player who wants to improve his game needs. It dosent. after buying this books, i realise it was made for complete beginers, and was filled with extremly useless knowledge. The best example was a section about "mates in the opening", where Schiller presented how to mate in the scandinavian: 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 and if Ke2 then Qe4 mate. what does this useless examples, which will never occeur in a game (who plays 2.Ke2?) help me?
Schiller is a 2200 player, who has published over 80 books, some of which he writes in days, and ive seen many of his books, all of low quality. I urge you not to buy this or any other Schiller book. No matter what your level is, this book just will not help you.

The book is really good and was delivered in excellent condition and everyone in my chess club picks it up and uses it

This book could only help a beginner. It is like everyone mentions sloppy and poorly edited. There is a bit of everything in here but not much of actual value that you can't find anywhere else.

Don't buy this book...you can have mine ; )