Idea for opening books: desired next move

I had an idea for chess opening books, which are notoriously bad for not describing the reasoning behind the moves they give for each recommended move...

After each book move, put the move that the same player would ideally like to play immediately thereafter, if he/she had an extra move. For example: 1. e4 would ideally be followed by 2. d4 if Black were able to and did skip a tempo. Or Bd3 would ideally be followed by Qc2, which in turn would ideally be followed by Bxh6+ if Black were able to and did skip a tempo. Or g3 would ideally be followed by Bg2. You could even put two or three such recommended follow-up moves, like e4 d4 c4.

I believe my suggestion would (1) give more insight into *why* the moves were being recommended, such as that g3 is supposed to be for fianchettoing the bishop, not for preparation for f4. (2) Also, it would provide a default follow-up move in case the opponent made a pointless move like a6 or Kh8, so that the player being instructed would know which move was the ideal one if the opponent gets out of "book." (3) It would help prevent computers from making stupid moves, like b6 followed by Bf5. (4) It would cut down on search times for both man and machine since it would highlight the opponent's most dangerous lines right away.

Any feedback on this idea? Of course, there should also be descriptive text, but evidentally authors of opening books are disinclined to help out that way, so this method would at least make it much easier for lazy authors to provide more background on the ideas behind the recommended moves instead of giving us what comes close to a sterile database.

This is what you should do if black doesn't move. 

I think this would appeal to many players. However, opening books are usually geared towards strong players, and the authors don't bother explaining much (which is a lot of work).

This is an interesting idea.  Sometimes when I’m looking over a GM game and I don’t understand why a move was played, I’ll use the “show threat” feature in Chessbase which skips the opponent’s move and analyses what the follow up move would be for the move I didn’t understand.

However it has some major limitations.  Firstly, a move can be flexible or multipurpose such as 1.Nf3.  White may continue with c4/d4/e4/b3/g3/etc depending on what Black does and White’s aims.  In such cases, players will often wonder why a move is included or not included.  Secondly, sometimes a prophylactic move is made purely to prevent the opponent doing something, e.g. h3 to prevent Bg4.  The follow up move will often have a new idea of its own so highlighting it will not necessarily show what was prevented or the reason for the previous move.

But my main concern is that chess ideas are seldom adequately explained by noting a single follow up move.  Often a sequence of moves is required in order to understand the idea.  For example, consider the typical Greek Gift sacrifice with Bxh7+.  A player needs to see enough of the lines in order to understand the idea.

I agree that there is a problem with poor and lazy authors.  But unfortunately, I think the only solution is for authors to better explain ideas.  Chess is often not simple so there can be no simple way of explaining it.

The problem is that not all moves are played with simple threats as you use in your examples.

moves that establish a goal not readily defined by an exact sequence of moves  such as waiting moves, or controling a square to limit opponents piece freedom, more examples could easily come to mind.

Additionally, much of the text would simply be superfluous, since although white and black may want to play all these moves, their opponent will prevent them and naturally it will never be realised.

Thanks for the feedback.

justus_jep,

I thought of the same thing, though with scholars mate, but your example that is supposed to be humorous is actually exactly what I mean: that example illustrates vividly White's intended threat and Black's most vulnerable point.

pfren,

You just threw out an opinion without saying *why* the idea is supposedly ridiculous, and if it sounded so ridiculous I wouldn't have posted it, so I still can't get any value out of your comment.

ThreeSteps and Godlike,

I think you have the best criticisms: that the best moves are those that do several good things at once, so such a book would have to show multiple follow-up moves.

Oh well, if my idea is so bad, then we'll just have to let lazy authors continue to put out dry database-type books instead of books for people who truly want to understand the openings.

Skipping a move is illegal in chess. Do you understand this or not ? 

Yes, and making a pointless move is legal, common, roughly equivalent to skipping a move, and usually requires analysis to figure out how to exploit it. Do you understand this or not?

If it's something you would find useful, there's nothing stopping you from going through the book and putting in the "next" moves yourself. Granted, you may get it wrong occasionally but you would probably learn a lot more than you would from just having it spoon-fed

There is a book that covers the reasoning of moves made, and the moves not made waiting for the opponent in case they make a move.

It is by Larry Kaufmann, "THE CHESS ADVANTAGE In Black and White" Published in March 2004 by Random house. It is available at AMAZON about $20.00 plus $3,00 shipping.

It cover about a dozen openings for White and a Dozen for Black and variations of them. Does not cover minor one not in use at the time.

Thanks, DENVERHIGH. I'll try to look at a copy of that book, ideally through a library. I wasn't sure what you meant by your "moves not made" phrase, but it sounds like an interesting book anyway.

Although by now I'm pretty familiar with the openings I use the most, some of my knowledge is based on sheer memorization. For example, in the Petroff Defense the characteristic moves ...Nc6, ...Be7, ...c5 were shown in one opening book of mine in a certain order, but when playing through master games online I saw that the order varied quite a bit, and I didn't realize when I memorized them that the order wasn't very important. In some openings the order of the moves is important, in some it isn't, so I believe a good opening book would mention things like that.

No happy medium? I've read plenty of opening books that do an excellent job of explaining typical plans.

In a loose way they tend to follow your idea somewhat: the best books usually will show different structures and present the plans for both sides ,often including what they are aiming if unimpeded. However, including such a sequence after every move would frankly be without any real purpose, and could get somewhat irritating.

So I guess my argument really boils down to the fact that it is much more sensible for an author to present the plans for both sides in a wider context. Also, these plans should generally be focused on piece placement: for example saying

''The knight will move to e1-c4-e4, and white will play a3-Rb1-b4'' is useful

however saying something aong the lines of:

'White would like to play Nf3-Ng5-Qf3-Qxf3# is somewhat ridiculous''

So I do not support lazy database dumps, but I don't really like this idea either, I would rather there effort be channeled toward explaination of pawn structures and typical end games

How do you castle.

There aren't any openings moves that are made with the idea the opponent will pass, so a lot of the "next" moves will be useless especially in the sense that they'll explain something.

If you want a book to explain why... then just ask that authors explain why.

If you want to know the next move if the opponent passes (basically you want to know what the threat is) then use a chess engine.

Godlike,

My idea *was* intended to be a happy medium so that *if* authors insisted on being lazy, they could at least easily jot down a few more strokes of text, in the form of desired moves, which wouldn't exert themselves too much, which would be a good value for the little time invested on the authors' part.

Admittedly I haven't looked at recently published opening books, but I'm pretty sure the situation hasn't changed much over the years. Another beef I have with opening books is they don't give if-then directions. For example, I once bought a book on the Najdorf Sicilian that was chock full of moves and variations, but nothing that explained the important generalization that sometimes Black's QB goes to d7, sometimes to b7. I had to play through a lot of Fischer's games even to notice that the placement of that bishop varies, and to this day I still don't know under which conditions Black should play one versus the other, although it *appeared* that he favored having a counter fianchetto aimed at his opponent's fianchettoed bishop. Partly as a result of that lack of knowledge, I lost one game to an expert who later told me my bishop move was "terrible," that I misplaced my QB. (No need to explain the reasoning to me now: I don't use that defense anymore.) That's just one example of how a simple explanation could have been many more times useful to me than reams of analysis that contained only specific moves.

I would love to have a book that explains the pros and cons of each opening move but, that book would be rather thick, if it had any indepth information.

Yeah, I think they call them middlegame books, or a books on strategy

It wouldn't have to go that deep. Even if it explained why the first 5 moves of each side where played, and why they are better and worse than the alternatives...

There are beginner strategy books too... you put a knight on f3 because it's hitting two central squares and doesn't block a central file in contrast to putting a knight on e2.

That's the sort of basic explanation you'd see for the first 5 moves... with tons of asterisks noting that a dozen other moves are playable but less enterprising.

dude i seriously believe that you need to spend more time analyzIng
 the effects of those "off book" moves. most of them i believe will offer you initiative, but for within the first 5 moves i cannot say. there is stil way too much development to do.