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Rating: 
Summary: Good for chess teachers
Review: A good book for chess teachers. Why? Well, this book is full of players making horrible opening blunders, and getting quickly demolished for their mistakes! Each game in this book is suitable for a 10-25 minute lesson, and that's what I use it for.
To learn how to improve chess by learning what not to do, and then avoiding what not to do, is a surprisingly underrated way of improving your skill. This book fits squarely in that mode.
Rating: 
Summary: ...What he said!
Review: I don't want to plagiarize, so I'll just say the review below from "Reader in Silicon Valley" is spot-on. I agree with every word of why he recommends this book. The breadth is remarkable, the number of games and depth of analysis are both superb, and the book is well-laid out, with lots of clear, helpful diagrams. The author's own advice of how to use it is best: find the openings you most like to play and play over the games that use these openings (which are easy to locate in the book). Then play some games just for fun. As others have stated, these aren't blitz or coffeehouse or street games, they're all from tournaments played under tournament conditions (or what were cloeset to tournament conditions in 1650...a few of the games are old, but well worth replaying). This is the sort of book that makes one wonder "Why didn't someone do this before?" (The answer, of course, is that modern computer data bases make this concept more feasible than it would have been ten years ago. This book was clearly compiled from computer data bases, and the trees and many game comments came directly from not human analysis, but computer analysis, probably using some Chessbase product. No matter, the end results are superb.)Buy this book!
Rating:
Summary: ...What he said!
Review: I don't want to plagiarize, so I'll just say the review below from "Reader in Silicon Valley" is spot-on. I agree with every word of why he recommends this book. The breadth is remarkable, the number of games and depth of analysis are both superb, and the book is well-laid out, with lots of clear, helpful diagrams. The author's own advice of how to use it is best: find the openings you most like to play and play over the games that use these openings (which are easy to locate in the book). Then play some games just for fun. As others have stated, these aren't blitz or coffeehouse or street games, they're all from tournaments played under tournament conditions (or what were cloeset to tournament conditions in 1650...a few of the games are old, but well worth replaying). This is the sort of book that makes one wonder "Why didn't someone do this before?" (The answer, of course, is that modern computer data bases make this concept more feasible than it would have been ten years ago. This book was clearly compiled from computer data bases, and the trees and many game comments came directly from not human analysis, but computer analysis, probably using some Chessbase product. No matter, the end results are superb.) Buy this book!
Rating:
Summary: I am the man from Silicon Valley with the review below.
Review: Just a cross-reference, so that more people will be exposed to this great book.
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Original review: OK. If I had to pick one chess reference book, it would be an opening encyclopedia (probably Nunn's) but this is the best in a different way. It's a book to refer to while you're trying to learn openings. Many authors have suggested that the way to study an opening is first to walk through the main lines, then to play out some sample games to understand the themes and goals, then to learn the traps, and finally (if ever) to study the variations. This book is the best reference for traps. In fact, it is the only satisfactory one, and for its uniqueness it deserves the MVB award. There are a few other useful books of traps (Chernev's especially) but this one has advantages that set it apart: * Volume -- Over 2000 short games are included, not one over 13 moves. These are tournament games, mostly from this century, so the mistakes made are not the sorts of blunders you will find in Internet blitz chess, but rather subtle errors that you could easily make yourself. (Burgess mentions an interesting exception, noting that the old penalty for an illegal move was a king move, which forced horrible positions and often resignation.) * Breadth -- All reasonable openings are covered, including a few games for some dubious flank openings. * Ease of use -- The table of contents lists openings by name. The index is by move order. (There is no index of games or players, but who cares?) If you're studying a given opening, you go to that chapter. If you're studying a particular variation, you find the page in the index. For each variation, there is at least one complete game plus branches for other games within it. * Reliability -- Burgess went to great lengths, according to his introduction, to ensure that moves which receive question marks are truly mistakes and suggested alternatives are reasonable. * Insight -- The notes are excellent. Each chapter has a brief summary of the odds of an opening's difficulty. Transposing move-orders are usually mentioned. Some games have little anecdotes or historical connections. Whenever a game is resigned for less-than-obvious reasons (as most of these are) Burgess explains the mate threat or material loss to us patzers succinctly and precisely. This is really a book of how NOT to play openings. It will complement any repertoire books and opening encyclopediae. I highly recommend it for your shelf, even to intermediate players (like me). You might find it entertaining. You will find it useful.
Rating:
Summary: Most Valuable Chess Reference Book in the World!
Review: OK. If I had to pick one chess reference book, it would be an opening encyclopedia (probably Nunn's) but this is the best in a different way. It's a book to refer to while you're trying to learn openings. Many authors have suggested that the way to study an opening is first to walk through the main lines, then to play out some sample games to understand the themes and goals, then to learn the traps, and finally (if ever) to study the variations. This book is the best reference for traps. In fact, it is the only satisfactory one, and for its uniqueness it deserves the MVB award. There are a few other useful books of traps (Chernev's especially) but this one has advantages that set it apart: * Volume -- Over 2000 short games are included, not one over 13 moves. These are tournament games, mostly from this century, so the mistakes made are not the sorts of blunders you will find in Internet blitz chess, but rather subtle errors that you could easily make yourself. (Burgess mentions an interesting exception, noting that the old penalty for an illegal move was a king move, which forced horrible positions and often resignation.) * Breadth -- All reasonable openings are covered, including a few games for some dubious flank openings. * Ease of use -- The table of contents lists openings by name. The index is by move order. (There is no index of games or players, but who cares?) If you're studying a given opening, you go to that chapter. If you're studying a particular variation, you find the page in the index. For each variation, there is at least one complete game plus branches for other games within it. * Reliability -- Burgess went to great lengths, according to his introduction, to ensure that moves which receive question marks are truly mistakes and suggested alternatives are reasonable. * Insight -- The notes are excellent. Each chapter has a brief summary of the odds of an opening's difficulty. Transposing move-orders are usually mentioned. Some games have little anecdotes or historical connections. Whenever a game is resigned for less-than-obvious reasons (as most of these are) Burgess explains the mate threat or material loss to us patzers succinctly and precisely. This is really a book of how NOT to play openings. It will complement any repertoire books and opening encyclopediae. I highly recommend it for your shelf, even to intermediate players (like me). You might find it entertaining. You will find it useful.
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