World Champion Openings (Cardoza Chess Books) [Paperback]

Eric Schiller (Author)

Book Description

Series: Cardoza Chess Books | Publication Date: March 1, 1997

The long-awaited revision is updated to include the latest world champions. This major revision lowers the price under the $20 price point, and at the same time, concentrates on a much simpler presentation, more targeted to the average chess player. The book is divided into key opening groups where the readers learn the key points of the opening and how the world champions would play them. Reading as much like an encyclopedia of the must-know openings crucial to every chess player’s knowledge as a powerful tool showing the insights, concepts and secrets as used by the greatest players of all time, WCO covers an astounding 100 variations of crucial openings in full conceptual detail with many actual games from the champs themselves.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Eric Schiller is the world’s leading writer on chess openings and the author of 100 books including Standard Chess Openings and the Encyclopedia of Chess Wisdom. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Cardoza; 1st edition (March 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0940685698
• ISBN-13: 978-0940685697
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,578,153 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great addition for beginners and tournament players alike!, August 4, 2000

By 

John-Michael Stern (Ashland, Oregon United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: World Champion Openings (Cardoza Chess Books) (Paperback)

A thorough, exemplary work, Schiller expounds on the essential openings requisite to any blossoming chessplayer's repertoire.

There are many great features I find appealing about it.

One, the book is very clear. The book pictorially presents the moves in each of the openings providing the reader with far more than just a tedious list of annotated moves.

In addition, the book is very direct. Instead of trying to explain myriad openings, it qualifies its efforts to concentrate strictly on those openings which are considered the most essential so you don't overwork yourself like a mad man. And moreover, the openings are explained not just move-by-move but also by means of an explanation of the motives and skill factors needed of the chessplayer to successfully execute each opening.

Each opening is presented with de facto games played by leading grandmasters including Fischer, Kasparov, Karpov, etc. The book explicitly identifies where moves by such grandmasters are now obsolete and provides the new theory for each move. Thus, I cannot agree with other reviewers who claim that this book is just a book of games and thereby has no qualifications to instruct. The games were simply implemented to better explain the concept of each opening.

Finally, the book contains graphs of the moves world grandmasters preferred to begin games. For example, about 60% of world chess champions prefer the open game in response to the King's Pawn Opening, 30% the Sicilian Defense, and only 5% each for the Caro-Kahn or French Defense! This statistic as well as many others make this book a fine source for up-and-coming chessplayers. I would highly recommend this book for any chess player at any level of competition as a mentor for general chess opening schemes and strategy.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very worthwhile opening book with lots of neat analysis!, November 24, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: World Champion Openings, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

This is one of Mr. Schiller's best books! If you really want to get some new ideas in the openings then this book is worth considering. It has a lot of different type of analysis. Don't just get a standard opening text like MCO without getting "World Champion Openings" to go along with it!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Shape your Repertoire., August 15, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: World Champion Openings (Cardoza Chess Books) (Paperback)

This book is an excellent introduction to the most solid openings in chess. All the openings used by World Champions are covered, and indexed by percentage of use. I found this book to be a great tool in shaping my opening repertoire.