An advantage of using well- worn material is that the facts are usually easily available, but Baker seems in too much of a hurry to bother. This feeling of hurriedness pervades the book. Some topics are covered so superficially that they might as well have been left out. Another casualty of haste is language. Baker's writing follows the informal, breezy style of other British authors such as Chris Ward and Joe Gallagher, but informality does not require frequent grammatical error.
Several chapters are light on game examples and heavy on advice.
And sometimes Baker just seems to be filling up space. Also he is not a very good blitz player for a player of his standard. This information may be of use to those who will play Sheldon or Panczyk in the near future, but for the rest of us it seems rather irrelevant. We don't want to give the impression that SWC is entirely bad. It is definitely a cut above the silly meaderings of Paul Motwani, and several above the haphazard junk churned out by Eric Schiller.