Starting Out: The Queen's Gambit [Paperback]

John Shaw (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2002

The Queen¿s Gambit is one of the most popular and fundamental chess openings of all time and it has been the battleground for countless world-class encounters throughout the history of chess. Adherents include a long list of World champions, including Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, and Vladimir Kramnik. With his first two moves, Black creates a super-strong foothold in the center, one that is incredibly difficult to break down. In this book, John Shaw revisits the basic principles behind the Queen's Gambit and its many variations. Throughout this easy-to-read guide readers are aided by a wealth of notes, tips, and warnings from the author, while key strategies, ideas, and tactics for both sides are clearly illustrated. This book is ideal for the improving player.

*Written by a seasoned Queen¿s Gambit expert
*All the important lines are covered
*A back-to-basics look at one of the most important openings

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The Queen's Gambit Declined is one of the most popular and fundamental chess openings of all time and it has been the battleground for countless world-class encounters throughout the history of chess. Adherents include a long list of World champions, including Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov and Vladimir Kramnik. With his first two moves, Black creates a super-strong foothold in the center, one that is incredibly difficult to break down. In this easy-to-read book, International Master John Shaw revisits the basic principles behind the Queen's Gambit and its many variations. Throughout this easy-to-read guide the reader is aided by a wealth of notes, tips and warnings from the author, while key strategies, ideas and tactics for both sides are clearly illustrated. This book is ideal for the improving player.
Written by a seasoned Queen's Gambit Declined expert
All the important lines are covered
A back-to-basics look at one of the most important openings

About the Author

International Master John Shaw is a three-time Scottish Champion, who has represented his country at many European Championships and Olympiads. This is his first book for Everyman.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Everyman Chess; 1st edition (November 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857443047
• ISBN-13: 978-1857443042
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,038,576 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good overview, but more is necessary to play this opening, August 13, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Starting Out: The Queen's Gambit (Paperback)

If you are interested in playing the queen's gambit, or in discovering how to play against it, then this general introduction book is right up your alley. It covers all the options for both white and black in a neutral way, meaning that good and bad moves for both sides are explored.

The only possible problem I can see with this book is, due to its scope, it can not pay too much attention to any one variation. So if you decide you like the Slav Defense, or the Cambridge Springs Variation, then you'll probably have to purchase another book to delve deeper into that particular variation. Why? Because you'll find at most 2-3 games covering each variation in the book, which is no where near enough to allow you to master the opening.

This isn't meant to be that much of a criticism of the book however. As the title suggests, this is a "starting out" book, designed to whet your appetite for a particular variation and allow you (with or without help from another book) to explore that variation.

So why only four stars when the book does all that it claims to do? Because the book probably should have been about 75-100 pages longer to really give a nice introduction to the openings covered. With all the openings covered, that would mean adding about 5-10 pages per section, which isn't too much to ask. The book feels rushed. However, it is still an excellent introduction to the queen's gambit and is usable by people playing from either side of the board.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars No focus, August 12, 2003

By 

Josh Copenhaver (Yorba Linda, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Starting Out: The Queen's Gambit (Paperback)

I was looking forward to this book coming out as the other books in the series are great. However, this book covers too many openings and as a result lacks focus. Covered in this book is the Queens gambit declined and all resulting variations (orthodox, tartakower, cambridge springs, exchange, etc.), Tarasch defence, Queens Gambit Accepted, Slav and Semi-Slav. The end product provides little coverage of any lines in these families. This is unlike the other books in teh series (Caro-Kann and KID) which provide a great introduction to an opening system and provides a great starting point for an opening repetoire. The writing is good, but the book is not helpful. A better approach would have been a starting out book covering QGD or Slav individually.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not as useful as others, July 29, 2007

By 

Rodrigo O. Gutierrez Bravo "Ranting Rigo" (Mexico City, Mexico) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Starting Out: The Queen's Gambit (Paperback)

This book deals with the various lines of the Queen's Gambit(QG), and covers all the major variations: the Tartakower, the exchange variation, the Slav and the Semi-Slav, the Tarrasch and the Queen's gambit accepted. The writing is clear and the presentation of the different lines is well organized. On the plus side, it needs to be acknowledged that it provides a neat and tight summary of an opening with an enormous ammount of theory behind it. However, as a fan of the QG, this book was a bit diappointing to me. In contrast with other volumes of the excellent "Starting Out" series, this book does not ever present the basic ideas behind each line and the verbal analysis of most lines is simply too shallow. As such, it is deffinitely not useful for begginers, which is really a shame. Even intermediate players will probably have a hard time figuring out what the basic ideas behind each line are. And for advanced players, this book is probably too basic. Also, one can't help getting the impression that the book is written mostly from white's point of view. If you play the QG with black, you'll probably be disappointed by this. Summarizing, this book unfortunately is not as good other opening books in the "Starting out" series, and, if anything, will be useful for intermediate rather than beggining players.