Well, I often try to cure the shopping itch with yet another chessbook. The most depraved form of shopping itch is probably books on chess openings. Agreed, my fine collection of books on the Latvian Gambit has surely earned me 5-600 points but most of my chess Opening Books will stay in mint condition for a very long time.

 

Another pet waste of time of mine is to trying to decide what openings to play. Somewhere deep in my soul I know and realize that the choice of Opening does not matter much for us who play some chess to give the Ol' Brain some work-out but I have not realized how small the difference is between openings.

 

So, here is a sketchy fun time experiement:

 

The value of first Opening Moves according to my silicon friend from Germany 

1. e4 = (+0.18)

1. d4 = (+0.09)

1. c4 = (-0.20)

1. a4 =/+ (-0.31)

1. Na3 =/+ (-0.34)

 

..... just a few quick evaluations according to Fritz v10. The unit is "pawn units". So after playing 1. e4 white is roughly 1/5th of a pawn ahead and the difference between the opening moves 1.e4 and 1. Na3 is roughly half-a-pawn!

 

This is of course an important difference at Master level but not much to brag about at wood pusher level. A wood pusher tend to drop a piece or two which of course will have a greater inluence on the outcome of the game than half-a-pawn in the opening.

 

Conclusions:

• The amount of Opening theory needed up to Master Level could easliy be written on an ordinary stamp.
• Don't be overconfident if someone throws a really odd Opening at you. It is probably not as bad as you think

I recently had to face the following Opening:

It is easy to expect a five move win after such an opening but Mr Fritz is telling me that the difference is less than two pawns. Amazing!

I have too many opening books as well.  Buying them is like a drug you have to resist.

I went looking for a chess book but they all scare me!

I often add new chess books to my library simply to have a more impressive chess library! I am sure I am not the only one who does this. I have 10 books, or more, only on sicilian defenses ! While over the 35 years I have been collecting chess books I have averaged buying less than 10 chess books a year. I have actually been through (cover to cover) maybe a dozen of these books! My latest additions were the Kasparov books on his great predecessors which I did read all of them from cover to cover without going over the games.....I plan to go over the games next time I read them.

Well, I have a decent library of endgame books and I haven't read them all. I don't see the harm in it... and it sometimes helps! I tend to jump around alot when studying a specific ending... each book offers different insights and depths of coverage. :)

Chess books are addictive.  What I did at one point is I took a break from the chess book cycle and bought myself a nice wooden set.  I've gotten more use and enjoyment out of that set than most of my chess books.

BTW if you've too many chess books, and they're in good shape, see if you library would like them.  Its a great way to reach people semi-interested in chess.  Another alternative is to give (not loan) them to your chess club.

Haha I really want to face the standard happy smile opening.

I thik it's interestig but I have one that is move you 2 pawns (in front of your queen and queen) so if he moves his pawn (in front of his rook) then his rook up you can kill his rook with your vishop

 

I wonder how a GM would play the happy face?

I find that buying chess books are addictive.  But I pick like one opening and I have extensive books on it.  It is the French for me.

yep. i bought a pirc book and one on the tango!

 

 

Happy Face vs The Bongcloud attack (as black) would be a "crowd pleaser"

I have owned 40+ books. Most of them stayed at my parents when I moved out.

Now I am getting back to playing I stop of a pick up a book or two when I stop by.

Basically I'm using my parent house as a library so I don't get overwelmed with to much information at once.

 hackcomic@chess.com

 

mrhackcomic> Basically I'm using my parent house as a library so I don't get overwelmed with to much information at once.

Good idea. I bought yet another opening book yesterday, but after skimming through the introduction, I found enough self-discipline to shelf it.  ;) 

People use opening books these days???

I always findbooks are very 'slow' compared to using software/databases. Thats given that the information contained in both are equal.

i could use some help defending openings

I like books because they travel well, the battery doesn't go dead.

haha Im s glad to see so many otehrs on teh same wavelength on this one. I have bought a ridiculous ammount of chess books and for some reason the best bit is first getting one and Ill ook through it and get bored and end up never reading it again after i completely change my opening repertoire and I go through cycles. At teh moment Im in my gambit phase and Im telling myself how much im gonna read through eruic schillers two gambit books and learn the openings so well that I will ahev a solid opening repertoire but of course that wont last long before i move on again. There is something really fun about new chess books but something very boring about looking at every single possible notation for an opening

Jon_Beale> There is something really fun about new chess books but something very boring about looking at every single possible notation for an opening

There's an easy solution: buy more books about the same opening. For example, this week when my book buying bug bit big I bought (say that five times fast!) "Chess Explained: The Semi-Slav Meran" which fits in well with my last acquisition, "Play the Semi-Slav". 

my theory - I buy a chess book to quench 'chess thirst', not to improve my chess playing.

by this I mean that I want to immerse myself in the language and poetry of chess even when i can't get to play a game (which is most of the time).

the first chess book i ever read was O' Kelly de Galway's 'The Sicillian Flank Game' - a highly technical analysis of an opening line I had never played and have never played to this day.

It was completely useless as a way of improving my chess. I had no idea what he was talking about on 113 of the 114 pages.

But I loooved it; lost in the arcane language (which no-one else I knew ever talked) and feeling somehow part of this weird, magical world.