How to Open a Chess Game

Personally, I can either translate or study. Can't do both. I'm just a casual chess player who has only recently got comfortable with algebraic notation. This book obviously has a ton of really good material I would love to study, but I must first translate. I see my tactics and strategies in algebraic notation. Don't have any trouble reading descriptive notation. I just can't use it for study. Gave the book to my grandson who will likely not have the same problem. Subtract one star because the editors did not believe a translated edition was necessary.

5 stars for content, 1 star for print quality. ISHI publishing needs to upgrade their quality control. The printing in this book (my copy anyway) varies from clear to unreadable in places. Had this book when it was first published. Lessons are just as valid today.

The first chapters by Evans and Glivgoric are the most enlightening for beginners; they help you understand not only abstract concepts like “fight for space, time, development, and mobility,” but concretely, with arrows in diagrams, the ins and outs of the strategic back and forth in various openings, like the Sicilian, Ruby Lopez, and Caro Kann.

The best book opening ever!

A superb book! Both theoretical and practical. A book that teaches the true principles of the opening stage and how others are a byproduct of them.If you want to play the opening well buy this book!If modern elite gms ever wrote a book like this one it would get 6 stars!Its disadvantages are its descreptive(not algebraic) notation and the fact that it eas written in 1974

This book has a lot of sentimental value to me. I won my first important tournament by using ideas from this book! I recently ordered this out of print gem because I (literally ) wore out my first copy! In addition, it contains historical information and is a great read!

Good product and good service.

This book is plenty of fun to read. In it, seven very strong chess players discuss the question of how to open a chess game.We start with Larry Evans, who tells us (hopefully reminds us) of the basic principles of opening play, namely dominate the center, develop all your pieces fast, castle early, don't sacrifice any material unless you see how to get it back or force checkmate, don't move the same piece twice, make only enough pawn moves to free your pieces, develop Knights before Bishops, don't indulge in early adventures with your Queen, avoid giving useless checks, and do not play for traps unless desperate.Next, Svetozar Gligoric expands on these principles, with some fine examples from games played by leading grandmasters (including himself).Well, that alone will get you to play openings reasonably. But there are some simple traps that you'll fall into unless you learn how to avoid them. The next chapter is by Vlastimil Hort, and it is superb. We see some terrific examples of how to play in the opening, and some more sophisticated principles. One game that I particularly liked was 1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 dxe4 4 Nxe4 Nf6 5 Qd3 e5 6 dxe5 Qa5+ 7 Bd2 Qxe5 8 0-0-0 Nxe4 (Oops! This gets mated at once. 8...Be7 would have kept Black in the game.) 9 Qd8+ Black Resigns.Hort continues with a 9-page introduction to the Trompowsky Opening. At the time, this was a brand new try for White, and I remember reading all about it quite eagerly. It still is worth reading today.In the following chapter, Lajos Portisch gives some advice on developing an opening repertoire, and he has a bunch of suggestions, with some interesting lines. For White, the Ruy Lopez Exchange Variation. For Black, he then shows the Modern Steinitz defence to the Ruy, as well as an interesting variation of the French, with an early Queen deployment to a5 and a4.Portisch recommends 1 e4 c5 2 Nc3 Nc6 3 g3 for White. And he has some suggestions for White in the Caro-Kann and the Pirc. Plus, there's material on how to play the King's Indian Attack for White, the King's Indian Defence for Black, the Symmetrical English for White, and the Exchange Variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined for White. And he concludes with eight pages on how to play the Nimzo-Indian for White.Former World Champion Tigran Petrosian has a fine chapter on how to study and learn opening theory. He gives some spectacular examples of how simply copying recommended moves can lead to disaster. And he shows how to carefully examine lines for possible improvements.Bent Larsen, in an unforgettable chapter, has more advice on the same topic. We see some games where he opened 1 e4 c5 2 f4. And there's a great example of how not to play the Gruenfeld for Black, to demonstrate that one needs to know quite a few variations fairly well to be ready to play an opening line.The final chapter, by Paul Keres, shows how he prepared some lines at home for use in tournaments. It's fascinating. We see the Keres variation of the Chigorin, with 11...Nd7 (a line Nigel Davies recommends for Black in his 1 e4 e5 repertoire book, written in 2005!). And we see ideas for Black in the Siesta Variation of the Ruy as well. Plus a few other tidbits.This book needs to be reprinted. I highly recommend it.

A very interesting approach to a complex subject

Sometimes it's all too easy to get lost in modern chess opening theory and forget that this gane has been played for quite a few years before now. If you're at the cutting edge of opening theory then this is not the book for you, but if you have a tactical and historical interest then this book helps you to benefit from several different approaches to the opening and to learn about some of the styles of the great masters of the last century. I loved it and found the approach very user-friendly, managing to get lost for a good couple of hours at a time with my board and pieces. The only thing that stops me from giving it five stars is that it is written with the old fashioned positional notation which some may find hard to deal with at first. And yes - I think I am better at openings now, not just rote learning, but real undestanding born of hard work.

I contenuti sono validi, ma la notazione antica rende ILLEGGIBILE il libro. Sconsigliato