Customer Reviews

200 Open Games (Chess)

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the main feature about this book is not the fact that it is written about open games; it must be said that it is not a treatise on openings; the author reviews his old open games set according to opening and gives some advice about those openings but without any deep analysis; he just points to the main turning points of every game and adds recollections of the said games; let say that he played some of these games before 1950 and he wrote the book in the seventies; one game sticks up in my memory: the one with Keres holding the black pieces in Amsterdam (1956) during the candidate tournament: Bronstein says that going over that particuliar game 15 years later, he could not understand why he had let the game go the way it had (leadind to his ultimate defeat and eviction from the world championship cycle yet again...), and then after lengthy thougth he had the joy and pain to remember his train of thought during the game. Today, your computer may feed you with incredible lines of analysis but this cannot help you about your game; Bronstein shows how things went in his games; some went well and some did not because one cannot win every encounter even against weaker opposition because somehow weird things may happen on the chessboard...; he played a incredible amount of different openings but one can feel his love for e4-e5 in this book together with his unique attitude towards chess; a great book indeed written by a great mind.

David Bronstein is one of the most colorful chess writers. This book is written in an odd style but is informative and fun! He covers almost every opening that contains (1. e4 e5): "The Open Game". The book is not burdened with analysis instead Bronstein gives a more subjective view of the players objectives. This is a "must have" for a king pawn player!

A hundred and ninety-nine games from Grandmaster David Bronstein, all starting with P-K4 P-K4 (or, in algebraic notation: e4 e5). These then are all "open" games, and well over half are Ruy Lopez.

The appeal of "200 Open Games" (the last one in the book is effectively a joke) is not the range of openings, nor even the significance of most of the included games, but rather the insight into the mind of probably one of the best (and certainly one of the most creative) chess players to come out of the former Soviet Union. GM Bronstein provides honest, often funny, comments about what was going through his head when he played critical moves in each of these games. He also shares nice reminiscences of opponents through the 40s, 50s, and 60s.

My favorite? Probably his comments in 1961 USSR Chamionship win against Alexander Cherepkov:

"How many delightful combinations I have ruined in my many years of tournament practice only because of the fact that I noticed a counter-combination for my opponent, a combination which my opponent was not even thinking about and (which was more often the case) which just was not there at all, either on the board, or in his thoughts."

Admirably translated by Philip J. Booth, who succeeds at retaining Bronstein's, dare I say, naughty wit. This was originally a Batsford title (London, 1973) and is now published here by Dover, who offer many excellent chess books, reasonably priced and well made.


If, after enjoying this book, you find yourself wanting more of this opening (especially for Black), check out Play 1e4 e5
Play 1e4 e5: A Complete Repertoire for Black in the Open Games (Everyman Chess)

Bronstein gives the scores of 200 of his open games - pretty much his entire practice, win, loss, and draw, including gm draws. With each, he gives a paragraph or two of what he finds of interest - a maneuver, a combination, a tournement situation, personalities, or whatever. there's not a lot of analysis, but there are a lot of ideas to be picked up. More than anything else, the book seems to be about personal attitude. I don't play open games any more, but I haven't been able to give up my copy.

Boring and awful. Worst chess book I have ever bought.