Hi,

I'm looking for a decent overview of chess openings, is the Seirawan book (Winning Chess openings) the best book for this, or are there others?

(Just to note, I've read Chernev's Logical Chess, but now I'm looking for something that focusses on openings entirely.)

Cheers

Russell

well i can't help you anyway with gettign a book, but i must advise you, don't buy an opening encyclopedia, it just won't help you...what you need to understand now is how to develop correctly in different types of openings, it doesn't meen you need to know specific lines, but more of an understanding of this part of the game in general.

as i said, i don't know any chess books, but i just wanted to make sure you knew what you're looking for, oh sorry that i didn't send you what i promised to do, about the mid game and stuff, it was just to vast for me to explain and my computer caused too much trouble, i just gave up...

Modern Chess Openings should be right up your alley.

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Chess-Openings-15th-Firmian/dp/0812936825/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_k2a_3_txt?pf_rd_p=304485601&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-2&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0812930843&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1RRRBAVQ802YJVZK9VNF

Chris Ward's Improve Your Opening Play

Isn't Modern Chess Openings an encyclopedia? The reviews on Amazon say it is not for beginners.

A beginner would do better to get Ruben Fines Ideas Behind The Chess Openings. MCO and similar reference books arent good for beginners imo.

Thanks for the advice all. I think MCO will be a little daunting for me at the moment (720+ pages of opening advice), so I think I'll stick with some of the others mentioned. (Though I'll aim for MCO sometime later this year.)

Also, there is a 2nd edition of Fines' book on Bookyards.com to download for free... if anyone is interested. Though I should warn people that the latest edition (the 3rd) apparently has lots of notational errors, so the 2nd might be just as bad - if not worse!

Regards

Russell

Mendis "How to Play Good Opening Moves" is quite nice!

I learned my openings in high school from Horowitz, Chess Openings: Theory and Practice. Studying this book also turned out to be good preparation for graduate school a decade later.

Nevertheless, I agree with Reb that R. Fine, The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings is a good place to start opening study. Seiriwan's book on openings that was already mentioned, and Chris Ward's are both good for explanations, which is what you seem to be after. MCO has minimal explanations; NCO and ECO have even less, but better lines.