perp's journal

I just picked up Seirawan's Winning Openings.  Anyone either reading it now, or has already read it, let's discuss.

Yes its a good book to start from when understanding how openings work.

A friend at the office is worshipping the Seriwan series

Whew.   Thx for the positive comments.  With so many books out there, I always wonder if the one I leave the store with is a stinker.

Indeed! One additional problem is that we all like different books. Basically, a lot of books contain the same material but we might have a different attitude towards how the material is presented.

I do think the Seriwan series is a good bet (but I have not read it myself) based on what I hear from people.

I have his openings book and tactics book.  Pretty much based on the number of times I saw his name on forum posts.  Good a reason if any I guess.

Read through Seirawan's openings book once.  Now I'm re-reading and playing out the openings on my board at home.  Really helps to get the point across when you get to move the pieces yourself.  Also, I'm finding that I can navigate effectively through the opening, instead of just pushing out some pieces mindlessly.

"Winning Chess Brilliancies" is a really excellent games collection. I would recommend it to anyone who wants something a little more advanced than Chernev, but with the same high quality annotations.