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Rating:  Summary: Great commentary on openings Review: A large book thoroughly full of errors. Lots of pages, I have to give him that. There are tons of great opening lines, with very little focus on any of them. Beginners might find some use for this book not so much to study, but to see the different opening structures, however I don't see any other purpose for this book other than to roll it up in a log and make fire. It seemed the author didn't write this book with much care, which defeat the purpose of writing a book. For beginners I recommend Winning Chess Openings by Yasser Seirawan. For stronger players, I suggest Nunn's Chess Opening and Modern Chess Opening-14 which cost about the same but are very thorough and written with care. It is much more accurate, though without moves explain in detail, it does give an accurate analysis of the position after each opening line.
Rating:  Summary: A large thorough book of opening analysis-good for fire wood Review: A large book thoroughly full of errors. Lots of pages, I have to give him that. There are tons of great opening lines, with very little focus on any of them. Beginners might find some use for this book not so much to study, but to see the different opening structures, however I don't see any other purpose for this book other than to roll it up in a log and make fire. It seemed the author didn't write this book with much care, which defeat the purpose of writing a book. For beginners I recommend Winning Chess Openings by Yasser Seirawan. For stronger players, I suggest Nunn's Chess Opening and Modern Chess Opening-14 which cost about the same but are very thorough and written with care. It is much more accurate, though without moves explain in detail, it does give an accurate analysis of the position after each opening line.
Rating:  Summary: just a great book for players of level 1100-1700 Review: First book you should buy to learn chess openings. Vast. Well organized. Execllent annotations. Plus, sights into the middlegame of each opening.
Rating:  Summary: A nice surprise from Eric Schiller Review: I am not normally a fan of Mr. Schiller's books (The Big Book of Busts excepted -- it's excellent), but I was pleasantly surprised by SCO. For those of you breathlessly awaiting something, anything, to replace the now ancient BCO2 and MCO13, this is not it. Instead, this more in the spirit of Fine's The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings, but on a colossal scale. Instead of lines or columns of moves ending in an evaluation, Schiller follows benchmark games that illustrate the themes and strategies of the openings. This is probably the best way to learn the openings and SCO has the advantage over Fine's book in being more recent and much more thorough. Those looking for the new MCO or BCO are out of luck, but those looking to learn about the openings could do far worse. Additionally, this is an outstanding value at 2 1/2 cents per page.
Rating:  Summary: Great commentary on openings Review: I am thoroughly enjoying this book. It has lots of good analysis and illustrative games, but I especially enjoy his commentary on openings. He constantly says whether an opening is used by conservative players, aggeressive players, world champions, etc. He adds helpful editoril comments that are greatly helpful in determining whether I wish to further explore a certain opening. FInally, the book is well-made on excellent papaer and a great binding.
Rating:  Summary: Very disappointing Review: I consider myself an average chess player, that is I play at what I estimate to be 1400 - 1600 ELO. I do not consider myself an expert an eny opening, but am comfortable with a couple of openings mainly the Roy Lopez, Guico Piano, and QP openings. I was hoping that his book would help me learn the basics of some more openings, the way that Chernev's Logical Chess helped me with the QP openings. This book was a complete disapointment, I didn't learn a thing from it. The main problems I had with it were the lack of explanation to each opening and the basic format. The basic format of the book is to take one game and use this game to show the main variations in the opening. I found that this made it hard to use.
Rating:  Summary: Good intro work. Review: This book does exactly what the author intended it to do. It is NOT an in-depth book for every variation. It is a good, solid book with lots of verbage to help you understand the basics of a new opening. Do you think you may want to investigate several new lines, but are not sure if you want to buy a whole library on that one variation? Get this book. I guarantee you will be pulling it down off the shelf after every visit to the club. "What was that line that person played?" Eric will enlighten you in a way the average player should be able to grasp it. Buy MCO, and you will have a most complete set of reference books.
Rating:  Summary: a must have for players with 1100-1800 rating Review: well organized. well-annotated. vast. sights into middlegame for each opening.
Rating:  Summary: Bad Analysis, Baad Speling, The Grammar Bad!! Review: Well, I think you get the point from the heading of this review. First of all...the analysis is terrible. For example, in the game between Ivanchuk and Shirov in the section on the Semi-Slav defense, he gives 23...d4!! as such an excellent move...it's a BLUNDER!!! Black loses 12 moves later with no way to improve his moves. Matthew Sadler in his book on the semi-slav (Game 1) even points out it's a blunder. Let's see now...Sadler is in the top 50 in the world, Schiller is a United States National Master (The United States is WEAK compared to other countries, and I come from the USA). I think with White winning, no ?'s by either side after move 23, and Sadler being much higher ranked...I'd trust him over schiller. Spelling Issues: I don't think I need to dive into the "horible mispelings dat dis buuk iz ful of, as the othur revues alrady writen wil point dis out". Grammar Issues: Also all you have do is read introduction to already see grammar really really bad. Finally, what do you call a dumb statement like "some lines I cover more simply because I know them better" in an introduction to a book for what is obviously a beginner? Does this mean that if Schiller say, knows the Torre Attack, but doesn't know the Trompowsky Attack, he basically would just make up junk as he goes along? What is this author trying to do to the chess world? It seems to me that he figures he's obviously not good enough to write a real book that an expert would read, so let's just sucker the beginners into buying his books...they'll fall for buying his junk, waste their money, and will Schiller care...heck no!!! He's got all the money in the world now. DON'T BUY THIS BOOK!!!!!!!
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