Best opening books?

What it says in the topic.  Basically something that doesn't hand out reams of variations with superficial comments like "And white is slightly better", yet aren't too general (like Fine's Ideas Behind the Chess Openings).  A couple of examples would be Marin's Ruy Lopez books by Quality Chess and Shipov's Complete Hedgehog volumes.  The opening itself doesn't matter since ideas and patterns can apply to other openings too at times.  

1.Gives at least decent explanations of strategies.

2.Includes at least some whole games or at least only cuts off where one side is obviously winning. 

I am with you in this search!  To be honest, I am reading books but they always feel a bit lackluster.  They contain a lot of informatin and so cannot focus on one so very deeply.  Given my resources, I plan to eventually join a chess club and hopefully then while playing with much higher rated people than myself can come to understand these concepts.  I have an even more frustrating experience right now because the person I play against every day doesn't follow traditional lines... maybe the 1st 4/5 moves but then he wings it all the time.  He especially likes to push many pawns queen side, and I have yet to fully learn how to utilize tempo and peice development to crush this lack of proper chess gameplay.

Chess books that are wonderful for a higher rated player may not be so good for lower rated players.

I'm sure the two Grandmaster Repertoire volumes for 1. d4 by Boris Avrukh combined with Victor Bogolan's The Powerful Catalan are wonderful and comprehensive...but are probably far beyond my level. Might be appropriate for TheGreatOogieBoogie though looking at his rating.

Personally i like "The Berlin Wall" of John Cox it has everything you asked for and more.

1) First it explains the strategic ideas of the Berlin in a good way.

2) Then it continues by explaining how to play with various combinations of remaining pieces (for example R/B/N vs R/B/B)

3) Then it explains common tactics and motives such as pawnbreaks that often come up in the berlin

4) Then finally moves are discussed based on actual games with both black losses and black wins.

The type of book you are looking for will never exist.  It would be 10,000 pages long.  Opening books will generally fall into one of the following categories:

1. "Objective" books that are "specialized" and focus on a single variation of a single opening.  These tend to be "opening trees" where 15 to 20 moves are given, and then assessed as "Better for White", "Equal", "Black has compensation", etc.

An example of this would be "The Classical King's Indian Uncovered"

2. Repertoire books that cover for one side only.  These are books where maybe it's say, for Black against 1.e4.  It covers the French.  However, it doesn't cover the French in its entirity, and simply gives Black a repertoire, and give one or two lines against each of White's options.  For example, in a book by Neil McDonald in 2008 or so, he gives a French Repertoire where say, after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5, it will cover all of White's options (3.Nc3, 3.Nd2, 3.e5, 3.exd5, Gambit lines), but say, against 3.Nc3, it will give the Rubenstein (3...dxe4) and the Steinitz/MacCutcheon (3...Nf6 4.e5 and 3...Nf6 4.Bg5 Bb4).  It won't cover the Winawer, the Classical, or the Burn.  So this wouldn't do much good to study from the White side.  The games selected tend to be games where Black won.

3. Generic opening books that cover openings at the 10,000 foot level.  This is what the Starting Out books are.  Like "Starting Out: The Caro-Kann" by Joe Gallagher, covers all the lines with complete games, and is objective, but you might get 2 to 4 games of Classical with ...Bf5, 2 to 4 games of Classical with ...Nd7, 3 or 4 games of each of the two main Advanced Variation lines, etc.  You get a very "basic" understanding of the opening with the general themes, but comes nowhere close to showing all of White's options at move 9, or all of Black's options at move 11, etc.

Have you tried Cyrus Lakdawala's books? The Move By Move series. These are quite deep and give whole games, and also quite wordy. He's written books on Caro Kann, Slav, London System, plus some others.

These are repertoire books though, and his writing is not to everyone's taste

Pity you're not a diamond member.  We have access to some wonderful multipart videos on major openings that sounds like what you're looking for. IM Tatev Abrahamyan has a series on the French: a 6 part on the Winawer (what I learned from watching it was "play something else"), a 2 part on the Tarrasch, and even a 2 parter on the Exchange.  Not what you asked, I know..

So I do have one recommendation.  Evgeny Sveshnikov's The Complete c3 Sicilian.  But of course only if you actually play the c3 and you might as well pick up something on the French Advance as well since you often transpose against good players.  It's actualy too much for me right now. 

Nothing wrong with the book, it's just that at my level folks either haven't a clue and the game gets wild and crazy or black goes French so my time is better spent elsewhere.  Anyway, sounds like a nice problem to have; the whole narrowing in on specific openings in some depth. Have read lots of good things about the Everyman series.  

*Slaps self in the forehead* Cox!  Yes he's the author I was thinking of for a Ruy Lopez book and not just Marin!  It's a great book, though I recently completed the Queen Volume of CCE so I may not want to give the opponent a queen trade option so early.  I studied the other endgame types too, but nearly everyone studies rook endgames and many minor piece endings are easy enough to figure out OTB (though obviously there are exceptions here). 

I'm keeping the Berlin Wall in my repertoire, just have to decide openings with the endgame in mind.  After sharp tactical complications or quiet maneuvering pieces will eventually come off. 

The Powerful Catalan is almost there, maybe making it good enough to buy, but isn't quite there. 

There are instructional opening videos out there, but I need something I can sit down with at a physical board. 

Shaw's King's Gambit book is great from what I hear.  The idea isn't necessarily to know an opening for its own sake but also carry over some of its ideas.

I don't play the c3 Sicilian but may come in handy as black, unless he just goes over plans for white. 

"With opening books I also always had my doubts about what the book author would share with you and what not ?"

He doesn't have to share everything since that would be information their opponents could use, but just ideas and themes with analysis where necessary. 

" He especially likes to push many pawns queen side, and I have yet to fully learn how to utilize tempo and peice development to crush this lack of proper chess gameplay."

If they're violating principles then you could break the balance by also violating some.  One could violate a principle of king safety in certain Sicilian lines with g4!  If his play is sound then other principles are coming to the forefront.  Lipnitzsky talks about how some moves that seemingly violate principles actually follow others.  He'd show games with a few queen moves that centralize in an opening (to prevent ...e5 in one case) and another with ...a6 and ...h6 (to avoid a pin in h6's case thus maintaining his central control with the knight)

Hi Oogie.  I am glad you woke up.

I am finding lately the Chess Stars series from Bulgaria is the best set of books.  The Safest Grunfeld, The Safest Sicilian, The Easiest Sicilian, The Most Flexible Sicilian, all wonderful books.

Oogie it is good to see you asking questions.  And I would never want you to be a "trained money."

Yeah the k didn't register when I tried typing monkey I use a wireless keyboard.  K is home row so it's especially bad. I usually catch when it doesn't register and sometimes when I type the text will appear some seconds afterwards.  Ending process on Flash Player within Windows' Task Manager usually helps when I'm online.

I've heard Chess Stars has great stuff but can't find a sample page anywhere.  Their Berlin Wall Book I hear is a good suppliment for the Cox book. 

That's OK, "trained money" was a nice new term. 

Keep dancing the Boogie.

John Watsons "Secrets of modern chess openings" series. Its simply amazing. Its true when I say I improved 400 rating points after finishing those books. Now I am at 2000 Elo Level

I can't find any books by Watson with that title. Are you sure you have the title and author correct?

I'm sorry, its called Mastering the chess openings by John Watson. I only have the German Version and translated it into english. Really good books, all 4 volumes.

I benefited quite a bit from Dzinzi's Chess Openings for Black Explained. I played quite a number of games as black on here and got some good results after I switched a few opening move orders around.

I struggle as black more than white, so I was really happy with the OTB experiences I had with the openings in this book.

I reviewed it on my chess blog as well. I don't want to appear spammy, so I won't post the link here, but if you want to read my review the link is in my profile.

-Allen

IpswichMatt wrote:

Have you tried Cyrus Lakdawala's books? The Move By Move series. These are quite deep and give whole games, and also quite wordy. He's written books on Caro Kann, Slav, London System, plus some others.

These are repertoire books though, and his writing is not to everyone's taste

Lakdawala is the new Schiller.

Let's face it. Most opening chess books suck. But most reviews are favorable. They get you to buy the book, only to waste your money. I've since decided to waste my money collecting the really awful opening books. At least that way I get a laugh out of it, which is better than nothing, haha!

Here's a couple:

381 Black opening wins against the computer!!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I6M0WVG/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb

You have to "Look Inside" to see how awful it is, haha! There are a few other opening books that have been published by players rated 1000-1200, such as Chess Openings New Theory (http://www.amazon.com/Chess-Openings-James-Alan-Riechel/dp/1466445025/ref=la_B0060M1DS0_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339864194&sr=1-1) and In Your Face Novelties, which is currently crowned as the worst book published in the last 35 years (https://web.archive.org/web/20101205115032/http://www.chesscafe.com/hansen/hansen.htm)

But as far as great chess books are concerned, nothing could stand against Nimzo's My System. Just marvel at his annotations in his Immortal Overprotection Game:

=

I am an MCO guy, Modern Chess Openings. I dont read the whole book, just the opening Im interested. Lately I prefer to study (memorize 😊) Fritz Power Book. At most 15 moves deep.

I love the following opening books because they have the soul of chess woven into the writing:

The Italian Gambit System by Jude Acers & George Laven

Understanding the Grunfeld by Jonathan Rowson

Two Knights - A Chess Killing Machine by Andrew Bussom

Play 1.b3! by Ilya Odessky

Pirc Alert! (second edition) by Lev Alburt & Alex Chernin

It was a spoof, a well-known satire of My-System - it's meant to be amusing, not to be taken seriously!