Customer Reviews

Understanding the Chess Openings

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Note: This review first published in the Irish Chess Journal, August 2005

Following the success of his first book, An Attacking Repertoire for White, an extract of which was published in the last issue of the ICJ, former Irish Champion IM Sam Collins has written his second book, titled Understanding the Chess Openings.

I have to admit that I didn't quite know what to expect from this before I read it. It's not the kind of chess book that gets written any more, having been squeezed out of favour first by databases on dead trees - the likes of MCO and BCO, and later by their software counterparts. The proliferation of modern opening theory seemed to have killed the opening primer off. The thing is, even now, a database is not a friendly tool for the weak to average club player. A high success rate in a particular line against the Grünfeld in my million-move monster doesn't really tell me much. Even if the line hasn't been found wanting after some super-GM decided he'd really like his knight on h8 and won a game or two, statistics, and to some extent, raw game scores don't explain how the strategic complexities of the line work. As such, I'm rather pleased to see this book appear.

Sam has really tried to be comprehensive - he's got pages on such off-beat openings as the Grob (1 g4?! - the Basman in Sam's terminology), the Black Knight's tango (1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 Nc6!?) and even a little sideline called the Sicilian. That's come at a price. There's only so much room, and devoting pages to the sidelines means that the well-trod paths get less attention than they might have. The Sicilian Dragon, for example, which Sam rightly describes as, "A truly critical test to the viability of 1 e4," receives a mere three pages, which seems almost criminal when compared with the half page of white paper under his assessment of Bird's Opening (1 f4).

That said, Sam seems to have mostly done his homework. The main line he gives for each line seems to be the critical test, especially for the slightly offbeat ones. Or, at least that's true for those parts of the book where my own theory goes as far as the book's (no, not just the copyright notice!). Particularly notable to me was the line he gave against the Blackmar-Diemar Gambit, which he seems to have a personal hatred for, 1 d4 d5 2 e4 de 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 f3 ef 5 Nxf3 Bg4 6 Bc4 e6 7 0-0 c6 "And, after ...Be7, ...Nbd7 and ...0-0, where did the pawn go?" This seems spot on and it illustrates the usefulness of the book for its target readership (I guess 1200 - 1900 at least, probably a little wider). Having played against the BDG just once so far in my competitive career (for lack of a better word!), I hadn't a clue what to play against it, but here is a line which will, should I meet it again, let me avoid all of the complicated mire that opening often drags the unwary into.

Judging his choices for the mainstream openings is a bit harder for me, as my own repertoire choices tend to be a little offbeat. However, I do note a couple of places where Sam has ignored (or been unaware of) a significant main line. For instance, in the French Advance, he mentions 6 ...c4 in passing, but doesn't elaborate. By way of contrast, Gary Lane, in his book on that opening, devotes 40 pages - the longest chapter, to that line. In the Modern Benoni too, Sam gives the Taimanov as the critical line, which is fair enough, but then totally ignores John Watson's entirely critical 9...Qh4+.

Those criticisms are perhaps a little harsh and are certainly nowhere near as important as they might sound, as the intention of the coverage of each opening is more to give a flavour of how it works, combined with pointers in the right direction if you want to explore one further. Certainly, you'd be mad to try playing something like the Modern Benoni having read just two and a half pages on it. That said, the coverage of some openings is really excellent. The four and a bit pages on the Guioco Piano encapsulate the opening like nothing else I've read, including a page and a half on the Evan's Gambit (including a key novelty from Grischuck which I hadn't seen before), an odd but lively and useful possibility in a very normal opening which many readers mightn't otherwise have known existed.

Before I wrap up, a note on the structure of the book. Sam organises the openings into Open, Semi-Open, Queen's Gambit, Indian Defences and Flank Openings. At the start of some sections, and several openings, he discusses some themes common in the positions arising from the opening(s) in question. While I would have liked to see more of this sort of thing, what of it is present is well-written and useful, while his notes to the lines as they arrive expand very well on the themes and plans in the positions. The next time I'm looking for something different, I'll open Understanding the Chess Openings, because it is a source of information unlike anything else I have. I've read people criticising books of this sort on the grounds that any strong club player can explain most of this stuff to you, but that argument doesn't hold any weight with me. I don't have a tame IM at home waiting to explain what on earth is going on in the Semi-Slav! I have no reservations recommending it for average to above-average club players as a reference book you'll keep dipping into, and to weaker players as a good general opening guide.

I'm so delighted with this purchase that I've decided to write my first ever Amazon review. This book has exceeded my expectations, and has promptly become the most useful book in my chess collection. What this book does is impressive - somehow every major chess opening has been explained in a single volume of 224 pages. I can't quite explain the wizardry used to achieve this, but I checked - all the openings are there. I'm guessing the author has found precisely the right balance between giving main variations, sidelines and general explanation.
Each opening has been condensed down, so as not to overburden the reader, and yet a remarkable amount of pertinent explanation is presented.
Unlike other one volume encyclopedic works on the opening, which give primarily pages of variations (and assessments in symbols), there are plenty of words here introducing the key ideas. This means the book is able to signal the tricky move order issues that clubplayers have to watch out for. I can see this book helping a lot in my future games. There are around 400 diagrams, and the main lines of most of the variations run about 14 to 17 moves deep. This is exactly what a player rated 1600 to 2100 is looking for. Great book!

There are many different openings books which focus on different aspects of opening play. This book is like a survey of the territory and covers the most likely openings to come up and the many variations of each. What I most like about it is that it is logically organized, well-written and easy to follow. It includes commentary, but the commentary is not comprehensive. This good or bad depending upon what you are looking for in a book on openings. In short, the text gets to the point with respect to the major tactical advantages and disadvantages of particular openings. However, it doesn't cover any of them in great depth.

I like this book because it doesn't repeat a lot of the ground covered in other books. It is a small volume at less than 225 pages of many different openings and the MOST important points about each. This makes it a great reference book to get one started with a particular opening. However, you need something with more depth to go along with it.

I am sometimes "turned off" by chess books which are 1,000 pages with very little text or diagrams. This is a bias that I have and learning anything sometimes seems overwhelming. This book strikes a nice balance between text, diagrams and presenting a series of moves. It makes the content more digestible and because of how its organized, easy to learn.

As far as I am concerned, this is a MUST own book for a serious chess player and particulary for someone transitioning from the beginner to advanced beginner or early stages of intermediate play. It uses modern notation and it is extremely well thought out with respect to layout. Both the author and the editor did an excellent job!

This book WILL help you to improve your opening play. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to any player and if you are turned off by poorly organized or cumbersome large volumes, you will like it even more.

If you have already read a comprehensive book to get your started on the basics of chess, you may well be interested in a variety of openings. You need to prepare an opening system to get get you going.
I have looked at all of the opening books out there (own over 500 chess books) and in my humble opinion (well maybe I am somewhat experienced as a chess teacher and tournament player) feel that there is no better book that covers the ideas behind the different openings. Certainly, this is not a reference book to look up all of the critical variations. But, if you are anyone ages 8 to 108 and want a "general assessment" of what you will get into with each opening this book is perfect.
[...]
A neat aspect of this book is that is does an excellent job of explaining the ideas and has enough lines to make it a more than worthwhile purchase!

This book should have been entitled "Learning the Major Chess Openings". It organizes the main opening lines and many sub-lines well, and it's a good reference if you want to learn the difference between say, a Scheveningen Sicilian and a Najdorf Sicilian, but it does little to help you "understand" these openings.

As is typical with most worthwhile chess books, the text contains a lot of strings (and stub-strings [and sub-sub strings] of moves, and it can get confusing. My objection is not to that, but rather to the fact that the explanations as to why one move is correct and another is incorrect are often so perfunctory as to be completely unhelpful. Over and over again, I found myself asking "why?" Clearly, this book wasn't helping me "understand."

As an alternative I'd suggest John Nunn's "Understanding Chess Move by Move." His book takes the approach of examining specific games to explore various themes in chess, not just the opening, but it will give you much better insight into the "why" of the opening moves than Collins's book. My one quibble with Nunn's book is that the Table of Contents does not specify the opening for each game (I've taken to handwriting them in myself).

So, alas, I guess we'll have to wait a little longer for the definitive replacement for Reuben Fine's classic, "Ideas Behind the Chess Opening," still arguably the best book on opening theory but now a little out of date.

Well-covered by other reviewers, I feel compelled to add my vote for this rare, well-written chess book. I've played chess for years but just recently started getting serious about getting a decent rating. While Reuben Fine's book is often referenced as great for understanding openings, I found it to be impenetrable. Meanwhile Sam Collin's book has become my first go-to book for getting a basic understanding of what an opening is all about. His writing is crystal clear, and he gets you straight to what the opening is trying to accomplish. Other books, like Modern Chess Openings or Standard Chess Openings, can then be used to examine alternative variations, but speaking for myself, I really need to start from Collins to get the strategy behind the opening first. I find this book to be an essential reference for a beginning or intermediate player.

As someone who took up chess late, I faced the challenge of trying to find out a bit on different openings and what would be best suited to me. There are huge resources in any specialised opening but this overall guide to the types of openings has a clear help. Instead of trying to guess 2-3 moves of a reply, you get a clear explanation of white or blacks plan to move into the middle game. I've met Sam Collins at tournaments and duely said "Thank you !" on behalf of the adult learner.
Without doubt in my mind, this book has helped provide a straight forward, uncomplicated structured approach to finding your way out of the beginners to a competent club player...and even beyond.

There is always work to be done in improving but this is an excellent book to put you smack in the centre of making the best informed choice of what opening or reply you can take on.

Excellent work Sam, Get to the Cork congres soon so we can get you autgraphing books !

This book is very well organized. I am very pleased with it. By playing several of the openings in the book I have found myself (finally) able to defeat the computer at chess at levels where I couldn't do so before. I have also learned which openings are to be avoided as well, that way I don't have to spend time memorizing all of them. But it is still important to understand why some openings aren't good.

I really like this book as it is a real smorgasbord of openings' themes. I found it a useful guide in deciding which variations to study for tournaments; it also helped me avoid some simple opening blunders.
It is a book you will continually be picking up for a quick browse.

I love this book! I second all the favorable reviews and recommend it enthusiastically.
Here's the caveat: it does not have an index of opening names. This can be confusing and frustrating if someone recommends an opening by name and you don't know the move order, but it's not too hard to look up the opening by name somewhere else. (This book does have a very good index of opening moves).
Here's the advice: this book does not cover opening principles, like "Control of the center", etc. For that you need a good general book on chess, like "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess", which I recommend.