127 of 132 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Opening Book for a Beginner, August 4, 2006
The author has selected openings where brief analysis is provided, some of the concepts that are important in the specific opening and then provided variations. Memorizing lines is not what a beginner should be doing. It is better to "understand" the ideas behind the openings - yes this book doesn't say "memorize openings" per say, but it that is what the actions of this book seem to call for.
Personally I feel that a beginner should be looking for "non" mechanical openings that contain a variety of both tactical and to a lesser degree positional concepts for learning purposes. The type of tactics that you will encounter at a beginning level in the openings you are using is important. I like the idea of getter a general survey type of opening book that has a good concentration of the ideas (like "Understanding the Chess Openings") along with a book that covers opening tactics (like one of a variety of Chess Trap books) is the way for a beginner to find the right openings and to gain an understanding of what they entail. You need a good variety of openings to be shown for you to get a fair grasp of what you might like - and this book falls short in this area.
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32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Tries to fill too many approaches to what other opening books cover, December 25, 2006
A Kid's Review
It is not so clear exactly what this book is trying to do. It tries to set itself up as an "Modern Chess Openings" or "Nunn's Chess Openings" when listing variations but fails by being far to sparse to be of any use. It tries to provide some ideas of what is happening in the opening like "Understanding the chess Openings", "Winning Chess Traps for Juniors" or "Ideas Behind the Openings" but yet it is far to sparse with the ideas. The mix and match, trying to do cover all of these in one book is off base. Not enough ideas for the beginner or intermediate level player, Not enough lines/variations to be of any use to an intermediate or advanced player. I think three stars is rather generous, as perhaps the just beyond beginner or just under intermediate range of player might find some small benefit to this book. Some of the "Winning Chess" series books are very well done. This is one of the few books in the series that is at the bottom end.
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29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not really a good book for beginners OR more advanced players, August 22, 2005
I hate to give anything by Yasser Seirawan a bad review. He is enthusiastic about chess, he seems to be a nice guy (he even exchanged emails with a patzer like me once!) and his enthusiasm and lack of pretension are just what the chess world needs. On the other hand, I can't really endorse this book, and it's an odd approach for teaching the beginner-intermediate student, which is where it seems aimed (somewhere between Pandolfini and Silman). It covers just limited lines of some of his favorite openings, often without really making clear why these lines are favored. We don't get any real insight: these are just Italian and Spanish and other openings with the standard annotations, available on the web for free, not taken very deeply (since this is for beginnerish players) and with no real indication why these are worth trying more than any others. Then, for the grand finale chapter, he reveals that he really doesn't think memorizing all that stuff is worthwhile anyway, because opening theory is always changing (true) and if you're a club player you're bound to run into people who don't play these openings just so anyway. So, he says in the last chapter, the solution is to play the Barcza, build a fortress for your king, batten down the hatches, and defend against the enemy attack. We then get into the KID!
Now, aside from the fact that playing Barcza-type lines and *winning* really isn't the piece of cake he makes it out to be (just try it against a good tactical program like Fritz and watch it make pulp out of your fortress), it severely limits the interesting types of games you can play. Some people may be satisfied playing the same type of opening system every game, but that would soon lead to boredom for me. But more importantly, although I am not a grandmaster and have no room to talk, I humbly suggest that his "opening solution" is probably even trickier to master than the standard Smith-Morras and Queen's Gambits that come before it. That's because while you can control the center with both pieces from the wings and pawns in the center, making a misstep with pieces is potentially more devastating than making a misstep with a pawn. While both ways can be theoretically equal, playing each type of position is not, and classical (direct) lines are far easier for the elementary student of chess to grasp. There are also many powerful moves against Barcza that Seirawan doesn't consider--his hypothetical opponent cooperates and plays very non-aggressive moves. Again, just try playing this opening against Fritz or Chessmaster and see your position get ripped full of holes. It strikes me as odd that YS would recommend such an opening system for a player who finds variants of Ruy Lopez too much to handle! So this isn't really a title I could recommend for a beginner-intermediate player. At the same time, a more advanced player will find he already knows this material. So I'm not really sure who this book is for.
Aside from that, the page layout is clumsy, with columns that are too wide (it's easy to get lost in the moves) and the ugliest chess diagrams I've ever seen in a chessbook. Why he didn't just use the standard diagrams we see in newspapers and magazines I don't know, but these look like cutouts by a kindergarten student. I wish I didn't have to be so negative, especially since I like Seirawan so much, but this is not one of my favorite chess books. Concise Chess Openings by Neil McDonald, also available through Amazon, is a better introductory book for the beginner-intermediate student.
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