- Paperback: 192 pages
- Publisher: Microsoft Press,U.S. (1 Dec 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0735605149
- ISBN-13: 978-0735605145
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 18.3 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,537,030 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
The single greatest challenge for beginning chess players is not only to sphase, but also to choose both an appropriate attack and defense formation"Winning Chess Openings" shows readers how to do just that. In Seirawan's easy-to-follow style, readers are shown formations that can be used with epieces--a unique concept in chess books. "Winning Chess Openings" shows behow to:
Build a house for a safe king
Eliminate losses of ten moves elements: time, force, space, and pawn structure
Plan strategy based on
Employ a defense for Black against any White opening
Apply an openinWorld Champions
Readers will develop a solid understanding of opening papply to every game they play without having to memorize a dizzying array opening lines.
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.
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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.
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Take a look at Diagram 1, the starting position of a chess game. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Take a look at Diagram 1, the starting position of a chess game. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Sierawan's "Winning Chess Openings" is a book that focuses on players of intermediate strength. He takes a main line with the four main openings (King's pawn, Queen's pawn; both white & black) and explains and illustrates why and how a position is reached.
One draw back is that there are many variations to each "main line." While this may be good, I thought each variation should have had it's own section to avoid confusing the reader.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I found myself laughing outloud at the anecdotes Yasser describes in the first few chapters. He has a great sense of humor but also delivers the goods when it comes to teaching chess. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is new to chess (may be too easy for advanced players).
I don't know Yasser, or affiliated with MS Press, I genuinely think this is a great book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book starts out nicely, and it covers all the openings, and Seirawan has an easy style to read. BUT:
- he starts off by telling you how to open badly, recounting his early learning experiences. This makes for a good story, but since first impressions last, what I remember most clearly from this book are all the bad openings!
- the pages are badly laid out and printed. Sam Collins's Understanding The Chess Openings shows how it should be done, with a new page for every opening, three sharp board illustrations per page and lots of space and clearly set moves. By contrast Winning Chess Openings does not have enough illustrations, and the ones there are are quite badly printed, fuzzy with extra lines on the squares. The openings just run into each other over the pages as though trying to save space. It makes it really hard to flick back and forth through the book, which you need to do in order to work out how each opening relates to the other, since ...
- ... the different openings are relentless. I didn't feel there was enough of an overview to know what to do with each opening. You turn the page and bam, there's another opening to swallow, and the book goes on like that page after page. He needs much more logical grouping, so that the reader knows how the openings relate to each other. The bulk of the book is the central 166 pages, split into sections by king vs queen's pawn and classical vs modern. Those categories are far too broad, and were meaningless when I was beginning. It would be much better to split the openings under the central variation - Sicilian, Italian, French etc. - as then each section would be much smaller, and it would be clearer how the openings are grouped and differentiated.
- he tells you that he has missed out some hypermodern openings, and that he has saved these until last on purpose as he thinks they are the best when learning chess. Brilliant. You have to read 200 pages of the book before he tells you the best openings. If these are the best openings, why doesn't he just put them first? The book seems to be written backwards. He should lay out the material the way he does his tactics book, in which he starts with the main tactics likes forks and pins and ends the books with less common things like windmills which makes sense as, let's be honest, how often do you read right to the end of a book?
With editing, re-setting and better printing this could be a great book. I like his easy beginner's style and friendly way of writing. But as a beginner I stopped reading this book and it was only when I came back to it months later, having learned elsewhere (Wikipedia's entries on chess openings are brilliant, as is Sam Collins' book) lots of opening theory, that I could see what he was trying to say.
- he starts off by telling you how to open badly, recounting his early learning experiences. This makes for a good story, but since first impressions last, what I remember most clearly from this book are all the bad openings!
- the pages are badly laid out and printed. Sam Collins's Understanding The Chess Openings shows how it should be done, with a new page for every opening, three sharp board illustrations per page and lots of space and clearly set moves. By contrast Winning Chess Openings does not have enough illustrations, and the ones there are are quite badly printed, fuzzy with extra lines on the squares. The openings just run into each other over the pages as though trying to save space. It makes it really hard to flick back and forth through the book, which you need to do in order to work out how each opening relates to the other, since ...
- ... the different openings are relentless. I didn't feel there was enough of an overview to know what to do with each opening. You turn the page and bam, there's another opening to swallow, and the book goes on like that page after page. He needs much more logical grouping, so that the reader knows how the openings relate to each other. The bulk of the book is the central 166 pages, split into sections by king vs queen's pawn and classical vs modern. Those categories are far too broad, and were meaningless when I was beginning. It would be much better to split the openings under the central variation - Sicilian, Italian, French etc. - as then each section would be much smaller, and it would be clearer how the openings are grouped and differentiated.
- he tells you that he has missed out some hypermodern openings, and that he has saved these until last on purpose as he thinks they are the best when learning chess. Brilliant. You have to read 200 pages of the book before he tells you the best openings. If these are the best openings, why doesn't he just put them first? The book seems to be written backwards. He should lay out the material the way he does his tactics book, in which he starts with the main tactics likes forks and pins and ends the books with less common things like windmills which makes sense as, let's be honest, how often do you read right to the end of a book?
With editing, re-setting and better printing this could be a great book. I like his easy beginner's style and friendly way of writing. But as a beginner I stopped reading this book and it was only when I came back to it months later, having learned elsewhere (Wikipedia's entries on chess openings are brilliant, as is Sam Collins' book) lots of opening theory, that I could see what he was trying to say.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Enjoy chess
Its not often that you will start to read a book on chess openings and end up enjoying a good belly laugh. Read more
Published on 15 Mar 2006
The reader re C4
Though not strictly a review a dear friend recommended this book to me, I've read other books by yasser and his explanations are very clear. Read more
Published on 21 July 2001
Fantastic book!
This book really helped understand the why and how of the classical openings. Yasser explains in detail to the reader the strategies behind the openings. Read more
Published on 10 Aug 1999
Good Book on Openings for Beginners.
GM Seirawan entertains and educates on many common openings and the ideas behind the openings in this book. Read more
Published on 27 July 1999
Another Great One in the Series
All 5 books in the series are extremely good. Although this book is not as detailed of an opening book as many others; however, it is probably the best beginner's book on the... Read more
Published on 10 Jun 1999
Simplifies the opening game.
This book really helped me in my opening. I learned many openings and how to defend them. I have won many more games after I used this book.
Published on 29 Mar 1999
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