Great Presentation, Great Teacher, Great Book! Another of my must haves.

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Product Description

Start every game with confidence!

The two greatest challenges for beginning chess players are not only to survive the openings phase, but also to choose appropriate attack and defence formations in the process. Winning Chess Openings shows players how to do both. In Yasser Seirawan's entertaining, easy-to-follow style, they are shown formations that can be used with other White or Black pieces.

Winning Chess Openings explains how to:
*Build a safe house for a king
*Estimate losses of ten moves or fewer
*Utilise the elements: time, force, space, and pawn structure
*Plan strategy based on time-tested opening principles of play
*Employ a defence for Black against any White opening
*Apply an opening for White used by World Champions

Winning Chess Openings will help readers develop a solid understanding of opening principles that can be applied to every game they play--without having to memorize a dizzying array of tedious and lengthy opening lines.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #235182 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781857443493
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Back Cover
Start every game with confidence!
The two greatest challenges for beginning chess players are not only to survive the openings phase, but also to choose appropriate attack and defense formations in the process. Winning Chess Openings shows you how to do both. In Yasser Seirawan's entertaining, easy-to-follow style, you're shown formations that can be used with other White or Black pieces.
Winning Chess Openings explains how to: build a safe house for a king; estimate losses of ten moves or fewer; utilize the elements: time, force, space and pawn structure; plan strategy based on time-tested opening principles; employ a defense for Black against any White opening; apply an opening for White used by World Champions.
Winning Chess Openings will help you develop a solid understanding of opening principles that you can apply to every game you play - without having to memorize a dizzying array of tedious and lengthy opening lines.

About the Author
Yasser Seirawan is the highest-rated American chess professional on the Federation Internationale des Echecs (FIDE) rating ladder and the first American to vie for the World Championship title since Bobby Fischer. He is a three-time U.S Champion, the 1989 Western Hemisphere Champion and an eight-time member of the U.S chess Olympiad team. Currently one of the worlds top-ranked chess players, he is one of only a handful of players to have defeated world champions Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov in tournament play.

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Customer Reviews

Opening Book for a Beginner
The author has selected openings where brief analysis is provided, some of the concepts that are important in the specific opening and then provided variations. Memorizing lines is not what a beginner should be doing. It is better to "understand" the ideas behind the openings - yes this book doesn't say "memorize openings" per say, but it that is what the actions of this book seem to call for.

Personally I feel that a beginner should be looking for "non" mechanical openings that contain a variety of both tactical and to a lesser degree positional concepts for learning purposes. The type of tactics that you will encounter at a beginning level in the openings you are using is important. I like the idea of getter a general survey type of opening book that has a good concentration of the ideas (like "Understanding the Chess Openings") along with a book that covers opening tactics (like one of a variety of Chess Trap books) is the way for a beginner to find the right openings and to gain an understanding of what they entail. You need a good variety of openings to be shown for you to get a fair grasp of what you might like - and this book falls short in this area.

Tries to fill too many approaches to what other opening books cover
It is not so clear exactly what this book is trying to do. It tries to set itself up as an "Modern Chess Openings" or "Nunn's Chess Openings" when listing variations but fails by being far to sparse to be of any use. It tries to provide some ideas of what is happening in the opening like "Understanding the chess Openings", "Winning Chess Traps for Juniors" or "Ideas Behind the Openings" but yet it is far to sparse with the ideas. The mix and match, trying to do cover all of these in one book is off base. Not enough ideas for the beginner or intermediate level player, Not enough lines/variations to be of any use to an intermediate or advanced player. I think three stars is rather generous, as perhaps the just beyond beginner or just under intermediate range of player might find some small benefit to this book. Some of the "Winning Chess" series books are very well done. This is one of the few books in the series that is at the bottom end.

great except for a glaring omission
Seirawan's book has a great deal to recommend it. He not only covers most of the openings and defenses you're likely to see, but gives you the reasons behind all the important moves. This is important because in any number of openings it looks like the logical move would be something completely different than what the book recommends, but in all those circumstances (or all the ones I've encountered) Seirawan shows why and how this "logical" move is in fact not so logical at all. Another great plus is that in looking at Seirawan's commentary on the openings and defenses you'll learn something about positional play rather than just memorize rote openings. Probably the biggest plus this book has for intermediate players is that, by showing us his own blunders, Seirawan keeps one from getting discouraged. Finally, he mentions quite a few books on the openings he discusses, so the book points the reader in the right directions if she's interested in a certain opening.
So now to the glaring omission: As other reviewers have pointed out, he doesn't cover the English Opening (1.c4). What makes this more than a mere gripe, besides the fact the English is a rather common opening, is that at the beginning of the chapter 7 he groups the English with the Barcza Opening, KID, and Pirc Defense as an opening he recommends and implies that he will discuss it in detail. My theory is that at one time the manuscript did cover the English and editorial pressures forced Seirawan to shorten the book, which he did by cutting his long discussion of the English, and as he planned to discuss it at length there is naturally no short section on the opening and no one remembered to include one. It seems an odd coincidence that this book and the other title in the series I happen to own (Winning Chess Strategies) are exactly the same length. If this is the case they should definitely lengthen the book in future editions, and even if not coverage of the English would be nice. It is exactly the sort of quiet opening that deserves to be discussed with the Barcza. At any rate the recommendations I've gotten say to respond to the English with a Hedgehog Defense, which Seirawan does cover. All an all despite this wart it's still a good book to help one get a grip on openings.