Product Description

A major new title from Gambit Publications Ltd. For most chess-players, opening study is sheer hard work. It is hard to know what is important and what is not, and when specific knowledge is vital, or when a more general understanding is sufficient. Tragically often, once the opening is over, a player won’t know what plan to follow, or even understand why his pieces are on the squares on which they sit. With this book John Watson seeks to help chess-players achieve a more holistic and insightful view of the openings. In his previous books on chess strategy, he explained vital concepts that had previously been the domain only of top-class players, and did so in ways that have enabled them to enter the general chess consciousness of club players. Here he does likewise for the openings, explaining how flexible thinking and notions such as ‘rule-independence’ can apply to the opening. Watson presents a wide-ranging view of the way in which top-class players really handle the opening, rather than an idealized and simplified model. This is a book that will make chess-players think hard about how they begin their games, while offering both entertainment and challenging material for study.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22320 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

About the Author
International Master John Watson is one of the world’s most respected writers on chess. His groundbreaking four-volume work on the English firmly established his reputation in the 1980s, and he has produced a string of top-quality works since. In 1999, Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy, Watson’s first book for Gambit, won the British Chess Federation Book of the Year Award and the United States Chess Federation Fred Cramer Award for Best Book.

Customer Reviews

Good opening overview
This volume covers the KP openings.

Like Volume 2 it explains the concepts concerning pawn structure and piece placement, rather than give variations to memorize.

If you want to understand WHAT to do in an opening, rather than HOW to do it, these are the books for you.

Best opening book for the amateur player
Watson has succeeded in producing a great book that introduces the opening and the correct approach to developing an understanding of the various openings. He first gives three chapters on the elements underlying the openings for the weaker player. Then follows the openings themselves; they are fully explained with words and not just analysis (as is contained in reference works such as Modern Chess Openings). The analysis follows the ideas and does not just substitute for it. There are many complete games to show how the ideas work out to their logical conclusion.
The book does not cover all the openings, but it does cover all the main openings used in current top level chess. Watson concentrates on sound openings that will give the player good competitive chances. He avoids the marginally sound and bizarre openings that some players use in an attempt to confuse an opponent. Such tactics usually end in the player of those openings getting a disadvantage.
By concentrating on ideas, analysis, and games Watson shows how to prepare for using an opening in competition and how to continue adding to and improving the opening for future use.
This book puts the old Ideas Behind the Chess Openings by Fine to shame. Before he died Fine had the chance to update his book; instead, he choose to leave it a half-century out of date and woefully incomplete.
Players should applaud Watson for finally providing the work needed to really understand and master the opening.

for under 1800
I have examined 2/5ths of volume 1 and roughly another fifth in volume 2: my impression is, if you have a good grounding in general opening theory, you will find this material merely repetitive. It does not educate an advanced palate except coincidentally. Of course, it will here and there add an insight to your learning, but that's as any text will do that has been seriously written. The level of the material is, in general, elementary and, of course, in a work of this size, far from encyclopedic. A player above ~1800 will not be well served, unless he wishes to fill gaps in his overall knowledge of the openings. You will not be able to play any of the openings covered in a competitive setting: it simply covers too much ground to provide the player with anything approaching an adequate preparation. Moreover, since opening theory is largely concrete (this is the gist of Watson's Modern Chess Strategy as well), even in this respect Mastering the Openings is apt to be as dangerous as it is beneficial.

A student can obtain this material in less expensive, less verbose presentations; and studying the great masters will absolutely advance your understanding of opening play far more concretely and with greater sophistication than do these volumes. Someone once asked Bobby Fischer how best he could improve his chess play; Fischer directed him to study a comprehensive opening manual (like Nunn's). After completing his assignment some time later, the student returned to Fischer with the same query. Fischer directed him to go read it again. With openings, that's about the sorry best of it, I am afraid.

Still, for the uneducated, as an opening primer it IS adequate, albeit, since it is published in two volumes, time consuming and, again, unduly expensive. If you wish to pay over much for insufficient material, this is your baby. Otherwise, avoid it. I can unequivocally state, I am very disappointed in the purchase.

tlt