Rating: 
Summary: Horowitz Redux
Review: This book is as old as I am; we both apeared in 1951, but it has stood the test of time substantially better. It's still a very good first book for the player who knows how the pieces move and who understands the objective of the game, but who is still struggling to get his or her game organized. The reader who is willing to put the time into it will come away with a good understanding of a few very basic openings, an understanding that then makes it easier to begin to work on basic tactics. I bought it back in the seventies, and it quickly gave me the edge I needed to beat the little band of cut-purses and ne'er-do-wells with whom I periodically got liquored up and played chess. Then I put the chess set up and didn't play for a lot of years. A few weeks ago, when my young sons expressed an interest in learning to play the game, I pulled the dusty, weighted Stauntons down out of the closet, but I couldn't find the old copy of Horowitz. I was glad to see that it was still in print, and now I'm working my way through it a second time. Don't be put off by the fact that it uses descriptive rather than algebraic notation; It's still well written with copious diagrams and easy to grasp.
Rating:
Summary: Goes beyond the openings...
Review: This book shows how to think about chess, and not just in the openings. Very valuable for tactics and strategy in general, especially appropriate for beginners, but useful also for more experienced players. It is entertaining as well.
Rating:
Summary: Goes beyond the openings...
Review: This book shows how to think about chess, and not just in the openings. Very valuable for tactics and strategy in general, especially appropriate for beginners, but useful also for more experienced players. It is entertaining as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Think of it as a prolegomenon to Fine
Review: This might be a good choice for the beginner, the person who knows how to play chess but hasn't read anything on the opening. Compared to Fine, whose _Ideas_Behind_the_Chess_Openings_ is often recommended to newcomers, Horowitz covers fewer openings but in greater detail. He explains the strategic and tactical principles behind almost every single move. To acquire the ability to see the game in this manner is far more important than memorizing pages of book lines.As Horowitz acknowledges with misgivings, the title is not quite accurate. This book will not teach you how to "win" in the opening (which never happens unless your opponent really trips hard). Rather, it will show you how to play the opening solidly so you can begin accumulating the small advantages out of which spring winning chances. As other reviewers have noted, this book is written in the obsolete descriptive notation. Although you may as well learn how to read it, Horowitz does not explain how to use it in this book--a glaring omission in a book intended for beginners! Enough illustrations are included that you could probably deduce it from the text. I'd encourage people new to chess to translate the moves (the boldfaced ones, at least) into algebraic. Doing so will facilitate your recognition of opening lines in other chess literature. After you've studied this, then go to Fine for expanded treatment of the major openings and coverage of the others left out of Horowitz.
Rating:
Summary: This book shows the basic princeples of the chess opening.
Review: While this book teaches the basic princeples of the chess opening, it has two basic disadvantages. The first is that it only covers a couple of the openings and the most basic variations of these openings. The second is that it is quite out of date. However if you aren't familiar with the basic princeples of the opening , it does a good job of teaching them.
| 
