Customer Reviews

Modern Chess Openings, 15th Edition

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

 

 

Regrettably, MCO 15 is not what it should be. First, like MCO 14, there are countless typographical errors. Experienced players will no doubt suffer through this, but the editors are the ones who should have suffered so that readers do not have to. Secondly, most of the material is in lifted from MCO 14. Mr. De Firmian has his favorite openings and updates those better, but for non-topical lines developments go unmentioned. Thirdly, in spite of the claim that variations have been checked by computers, I have found serval cases where computer evaluations refute those given. So while computers must have been involved in the production of the volume, it would be interesting to know what percentage of the lines were actually checked. For an author who is sensitive enough to never fail to use the he/she convention, perhaps more thought could have been given to the environmental impact that this book would have given its limited use. More could be said, but I think that this suffices for those who are looking to spend thier money wisely.

The review by Gina Kruml is right on. I had waited for years for the new edition....what a disappointment. The number of typographical errors is staggering. It's hard to find an opening free of typos. In a chessbook, this is particularly bad and I tend to fault De Firmian, the author. Doesn't he have any responsibility to read his own work? Kruml blames the editors, but I think Kruml is too kind.

The book also does a poor job on providing the names of the more obscure openings. Although they may be covered, no names are attached and they are not indexed. How does this help the chess student? Blame the editors, but it seems as if De Firmian detached himself from any supervision. As for the number of he/she's puffing up the text (and slowing down the reader), well Kruml did nicely mention the environmental impact. This must be the fault of the knee-jerk editors.

Of course any decent chessplayer has to buy this book...it's a classic. But it's so sad to see chess computers getting better and MCO editions getting worse.

As advertised, this book is for the serious chess player at intermediate level and above. It contains extensive tables for all the main and most commonly played lines in openings played at higher level competition.

The introductions for each opening are informative and interesting. It is easy (for advanced players) to then follow the tables to learn the main lines and the major variations of the openings. I'm sure that MCO will continue to be a great resource for intermediate and higher level players who need to have a reference book handy to look up an opening that is new to them, or to study a variation.

A word of caution: This book may have very limited value for low level players, and virtually none for beginners. I think the back cover is very misleading, saying "Whether you are a beginner interested in learning the fundamentals, an intermediate player ready to elevate your game, or an International Grandmaster who wants to stay on top of all recent chess innovations..." That is completely dishonest. This book has NO instruction on rules of the game for beginners, zero information on basic strategy and tactics for novices, and very little analysis on why certain moves are better or worse than others. Do NOT buy this book for novices.

And this book does not address openings commonly encountered at lower levels of competition. For example, there is no section on the Smith-Morra Gambit (I recommend Bob Ciaffone's bookSmith-Morra Gambit Finegold Defense), and nothing that I can find on the many-named opening 1.e4,e5 2.qh5!? which can terrorize less experienced players on the black side of the board. I'm sure there are many other openings common at lower levels of play that are not included here.

There are also very few diagrams to go with the tables detailing the openings covered. Low to mid-level players must have a chess board set up and work through physically moving pieces on the board. It is just going to be tough slogging for anyone not very familiar with algebraic notation, or without the knowledge and experience that comes with playing
many thousands of games.

Finally, how can a book published every eight or ten years "reflect all the latest changes in the game, including recent tournament matches and important works on theory" as advertised. I doubt top level players will trust this book to have the latest theory, when they have access to information on line that is cutting edge.

So for you 1300-2000 rated folks who need a handy reference book to look up opening lines, this is probably a great book for you. But for the beginners and lower-rated, player/buyer beware!

I very much support the review by Gina Kruml that this edition is under-revised.
I have used the 14th edition of MCO to play through Grandmaster Games for the last 9 years and have penciled in those lines and novelties played by my favorite players like Kasparov, Anand, Kramnik, Topalov, Ivanchuk, Aronian and recently Carlsen as well. When I got the new 15th edition I checked if these lines were incorporated into the book, but to my disappointment even these novelties by the best players weren't to find in the book. I rather found out that the 15th and 14 edition don't differ very much in their contents and very minor contributions have been made to the new edition.
If you open up the book the first thing that will strike you is, that the appearance of the pages are very 'white'; that is to say, there is not too much printed on the pages and the free space between the printed lines is quite big. Maybe that's intentionally made so the reader can write updates with pencil in between...
That said, MCO doesn't give a lot of variations, but rather always one single sideline, that's it. But this will not suffice to play the openings with confidence yourself...
My advice: if you really want to have a single volume reference book on chess openings, get the old 1999 Nunn's Chess Openings NCO book, it's still the best of it's kind.
But if you prefer to write updates with pencil into the book yourself, then maybe buy MCO 15th edition, simply because it has lots of free white space on the pages to write on...

I use to have Nuuns book on openings but I misplaced it. Anyway I needed a book on opeings ASAP so I ran to Borders and found MCO. I wanted to study an unusual opening to throw off my opponent. Anyway as I am studying the lines on my database I find some unsual things and typos. eg on page 730 of the Larsen's opening if you play out the moves to follow subscript E you will notice that the book on the 8th moved sacrifices the queen for no reason or advantage Fritz and chessmaster in the analysis mode call this an major error.

Also on same opening if you play out the move on column 5 and finally get to subscript L, you will notice it does not follow. It calls for the knight to take on D4 but there is no piece on d4.

If you are a serious player this book make throw off your game. I recommend nunns book over this one. I have

If you do not own MCO 14th ed. then buy this book. I now own the 11th, 13th, 14th, and 15th editions. As other reviews pointed out, there wasn't many changes from the 14th to 15th editions. Most openings can be found on almost the same page number with identical text, down to sub variations (a)-(x), in both editions. This includes the slav and semi-slav, I would like to have seen more than just 1 mention of Kramnik-Topalov World Championship 2006 which saw 12 slav or semi-slav games with some new opening theory. As for the typos, I don't believe they are as bad as some people say. There are some typos, but there were in previous editions also, and most of the time the move is easily figured out. In all, MCO is still a very valuable book for chess players to learn about openings and a quick reference whenever needed. When I began playing tournament chess this was one of my most valued books, and I'm sure it will still be for others.

I feel really strongly about this and am moved to writing a review after what I've seen others saying in their reviews. Other reviewers are saying NCO has more variations and so is better. To be honest with you I think these people have no idea what they're talking about and have no clue of the vast majority of variations here or MCO. In MCO-14 which is the edition I have, there are practically no typos in the entire book and for the three or four there are it's really obvious when you see them. The MCO variations are extremely comprehensive, enough for a GM most of the time. If a GM is using an opening consistently, then they will refer to a database or to an opening book specifically designed for it. That's what a database is for... tons of variations. In this day and age putting a database in a book is just a bit silly. MCO is really careful to put only the most interesting/popular variations and gives excellent annotations/commentaries.

Another reviewer talks about how he has managed to find computers "refuting" the evaluation given and yet GIVES US NO EXAMPLES OF THIS. Maybe if he had let the computer on for a lot longer he would have found that it was not the case at all. Maybe it is a highly strategic position that the computer doesn't understand and differs by 0.2 of a pawn from the given analysis. It's completely worthless to make that claim without giving an example.

Also some of the reviews here are simply comparing MCO-15 to MCO-14, which I think is quite unfair for someone who doesn't have any of them. Maybe MCO-15 is "not what it should be", however that's no excuse for giving it a poor review since it should be compared to all opening books, not to its potential or anything else.

Take a look at the reviews for the 14th edition of it if you must. If you like you can probably get the 14th edition of it for cheaper and 99%+ of it is the same. The days when main variations would be turned on their head overnight are long gone, but I think you do need a good book that contains all of the openings, lots of lines and lots of explanations for them.

MCO also has brilliant and informative introductions to every major opening. It tells you about the opening, a bit of the history, what GMs play it, what you should be doing and what type of game to expect. It has tables of variations with tons of extra footnotes, far more than anyone could memorize. A huge amount of footnotes have extra annotations to them explaining things about it. Talking about transpositions, talking about alternatives, talking about prospects or maybe pawn structures occasionally. NCO has nothing like that.

NCO is nothing but pages and pages of fritz-like variations, it's ridiculous. There are no helpful annotations at the end of many of the footnotes. There is no importance placed on the various lines. The main and popular lines aren't marked clearly like they are in MCO-15. NCO is computer checked? Yeah and how much of it is simply computer-generated? I wouldn't trust it for a second. How can you trust something like NCO when it's obvious that it would take many years of constant analysis to come up with the sheer amount of variations in it with even an idea of whether they're accurately done or not?

Unlike a few pages introduction for every main opening variation like MCO, in NCO there's an introduction for like "the Sicilian", with like a paragraph on for example the Dragon variation, a paragraph on the Najdorf. There are ZERO annotations to ANY footnotes in NCO, in fact I just had to laugh out loud when I first looked at the pages and pages of varations in that volume.

Fundamental Chess Openings is another single-volume opening book, but it doesn't have tables of variations like this one does. Maybe you could get both.

I own all the MCO editions from the 5th through the 14th. Unfortunately, this edition has too many typos, and does not sufficiently vary from the prior edition. MCO is also considered a KEY reference book of very high quality dating back over many years. As a key reference source, and one that you would typically use frequently, it was always available in hardcover, and necessarily so. This one is not. In terms of quality this book has been outdone by other reference sources that are unfortunately dated. At this point I think it likely that I won't be purchasing MCO in the future. That's sad because it was particularly useful as that quick reference source at tournaments to check lines. But now I may be doing that only electronically. In the past I've been a fan of Fed, but I find this work disappointing.

One of the best opening guides available. There are a few typos and notation errors, but very few. I would like to see the introductions contain more description of the normal plans of each player in each of the main lines. I think, however, that this is the best of the MCO series.

I purchased a soft copy of Modern Chess Openings in August 2011. 5 months later it is falling apart, the adhesive attaching the pages to the spine of the book isn't doing its job. Returning the book is not an option, its in use regularly and as I'm in Australia its going to take a long while for it to be replaced. It does put me off purchasing other products