Reviews for Winning Chess Openings

The average rating for Winning Chess Openings based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-05-27 00:00:00 Ronald Barrick I was in a pretty bad slump. I was losing constant games, too use to only playing my friends. It was after one clear drubbing that I thought to myself, "Enough is enough!". I needed to understand the game better, and I knew the best way was to learn the openings and the philosophies behind them. Winning Chess Openings by Yassar Seirawan is a superb book for how it methodically goes through the thinking of a chess beginner to the mentality of grandmasters, old and young. He goes through so many lines and variations, and it can seem to be a lot. It was necessary to have a physical chess board in front of me as I went through every single line he talks about in the book. I started naturally seeing them as I played chess, and I started winning. Seirawan's voice and personality also comes through clear. You can feel his passion for the game, and he tells his own anecdotes about learning chess throughout the book. It is also comforting that he admits that even as an old grandmaster, he does not know everything and is still learning. He talks of his many losses to prove it. He also imparts solid wisdom of using his book to find the way that feels comfortable for you to play. I highly recommend that anyone who plays chess should have a copy of this book, especially for anyone who is interested in getting better. This is just one of the seven books in his Winning Chess series, and I will definitely be reading the other ones.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-04-05 00:00:00 Peter W Niebauer This is the third book in Seirawan's Winning Chess series that I've finished. I had been curious about openings for a while - I felt like I was making moves at random to open games - and in general this book made me understand basic opening principles and gave me an excellent overview of the most commonly used openings and defenses. That said, I got a bit bogged down in the middle portion of the book, in which Seirawan led me through dozens of openings/defenses/variations and the common lines of play that go with them. It would have been nice if the introductory sections (interesting anecdotes about how his opening choices changed and improved as he was learning chess) and the ending section (in which he offered more concrete solutions to beginning players as to how to handle the opening phase) were expanded. As a whole, though, Seirwan's book was, and will be, an invaluable resource in improving my chess game. I'm a huge fan, and I'll definitely be reading through the entire series. I recommend Seirawan's books to anyone looking to learn chess, starting with the excellent primer Play Winning Chess, which starts from the most basic ideas and builds to more complex tactics and strategy. Highly recommended!