From: Robert_Ryan@brown.edu (Rob Ryan)
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess
Subject: Re: Novice Question-Openings/Books
Date: 12 Oct 92 17:47:57 GMT
Organization: Brown University - Providence, Rhode Island  USA
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In article <1992Oct12.144507.29624@news2.cis.umn.edu>,
bedwards@nextear4.psych.umn.edu (Brent Edwards) said:

> ...
>
>I'm a novice myself and have been reading a wide variety of books,
>including ones on openings, and I've never seen an author plainly say what
>the strategy and objectives of various opening lines are. Are there any
>good books that discuss standard openings and don't just list hundreds of
>variations?

People often complain about "Modern Chess Openings" (MCO-13) because of the
number of opening variations that are simply listed without much of a
narrative.  True, it doesn't go into too much depth about the individual
variations, but each opening has a narrative description at the beginning
that describes the overall goals, strengths, and weaknesses of the opening
are.  It often has a narrative list of the major variations, explaining
some of the characteristics of them.  Clearly it doesn't go into detail
about the motivation behind individual moves in individual variations of
individual openings, but that's impossible.  I personally think that MCO-13
is underrated and that the narrative at the beginning of each opening is
overlooked.

If you want more detail, a book like "Winning Chess Openings" by Fred
Reinfeld is nice.  It picks 1 variation from each of 10 different
major openings and describes it in more detail, move by move.  It then
has listings of characteristic games employing the variation of the opening
so you can really see how the opening pans out in practise.

For beginners, there's Reuben Fine's "Chess the Easy Way" which gives a
list of 10 fundamental rules for openings.  It's the quickest way that I've
come across to avoid gross errors in the opening.  It's an old book, but
it's a good, quick introduction.

Clearly, none of these are ideal, but there is no ideal.  MCO-13 provides
an unparallelled breadth in a single volume.  It gives you a feel for the
characteristics of different openings, but it doesn't hold your hand for
blow-by-blow accounts.  "Winning Chess Openings" provides excellent detail,
but it just doesn't cover enough openings to be useful.  You can read it,
learn what makes those 10 openings good, but it won't help you understand
what makes other variations good.  It tries teach you how to analyze openings,
but it won't provide any quick answers for any opening besides the 10
covered by it.

If people are looking for a single volume that describes the strengths
and weaknesses for all variations of major openings, it probably doesn't
exist.  MCO-13 is the closest thing to comprehensive, but doesn't provide
any theory or much depth.  Any book that discusses a lot of theory just
can't be that comprehensive.

-- Rob
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