Secrets of Practical Chess

Rating:
Summary: Practical advice; not in-depth analysis
Review: This book is aimed at the competitive chess player. Over a third of the book is in the section titled "At the Board" and time considerations factor heavily into the presentation.

Only a dozen pages are devoted to the opening and they are mostly aimed at evaluating chess books on unusual openings. This section can be skipped entirely without much loss.

The middlegame has all of 20 pages dedicated to it, but they do manage to offer some "practical" advice once again. Most of it comes in "blurbs" - little nuggets of advice based on what has worked for a very successful GM.

The rest of the book is devoted to the endgame and although it recounts some well-known ending basics such as opposition, triangulation, and R+P vs R ending, it also contains some very good information that is not nearly so well known. Such includes: Black's ideal defensive pawn formation in a 4v3 pawn ending with all pawns on the same side; why the c pawn offers the best winning chances in a Q+P vs Q ending; and some handy rules for R vs N and R vs B pawnless endings.

On the whole, the book is quite "practical" and probably worth the price to a fair number of club players of lesser strength.

Rating:
Summary: Another very good Nunn book!
Review: This book is nearly as good as Tisdall's "Better chess now". The chapter on calculating variations actually advocates more or less the same procedure and even cites Tisdall. The book contains highly interesting tips on any phase of the game. I especially liked the chapters on opening preparation and on how to use computers to improve. As almost any book of John Nunn "Secrets of practical chess" is written in a clear and enjoyable style. This book is certainly of great value for players of all levels.

Rating:
Summary: Another very good Nunn book!
Review: This book is nearly as good as Tisdall's "Better chess now". The chapter on calculating variations actually advocates more or less the same procedure and even cites Tisdall. The book contains highly interesting tips on any phase of the game. I especially liked the chapters on opening preparation and on how to use computers to improve. As almost any book of John Nunn "Secrets of practical chess" is written in a clear and enjoyable style. This book is certainly of great value for players of all levels.

Rating:
Summary: Useful games
Review: This book is pretty ok. I found it at my local library. It has the usual themes, middle games, openings, endgames etc. But there are lots of good games deeply annotated by the author. The book also focusses on the psycology of the players on the board. I liked the games, and the section on rook pawn endings, in which Dr. Nunn gives a general ideas to employ in these endings. I found that useful. It is good for anyone but more as a tactical tool for improving calculation. I wouldn't recommend it for purchase.

Rating:
Summary: snapshots of chess
Review: This book was very frustrating to me, as I was expecting a cohesive instructional work. What I got was "snapshots" of practical chess--hints here and there, but with no cohesive theme. I am not sure whom this book is aimed at, or what niche it fills. I find Purdy's book, The Search for Chess Perfection, much more helpful as to "secrets" or practical chess.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent for the improving player
Review: This is a good book but not for the reason that it says it is. On the back cover it seems like another chess psychology book that just tells you how to think(BTW most of those really don't help) but I loved the annotations more than anything. He is a great annotator and if you really study it is easy to learn. I also found the endgame section to be especially helpful as it fill in knowledge gaps left by other endgame books. a great book.