Chess books to avoid

My candidate would be Bruce Pandolfini's "Chess Openings: Traps and Zaps." This sorry doorstop of a book elicited no less than 50 reviews on amazon.com, most of them from concerned players eager to warn potential buyers. There is nothing more to add to what was already pointed out, so here is one of the more useful reviews:

"I was dismayed to find out the following:

(1) This book really isn't about "traps" at all. The vast majority of positions in this book only arise after one (and sometimes both) sides make several bad or downright horrible moves, rather than after being lured into a semi-plausible move (i.e., a trap). If an opponent is so bad as to give you the chance to use any of the "traps" in this book, you should be able to beat him/her easily anyway.

(2) The book only covers double king pawn (e4 e5) openings, which limits the scope of the book. Incidentally this fact is not mentioned on the cover anywhere. Instead of filling the book with useless and impractical examples, Mr. Pandolfini should have filled it with more plausible examples spanning other common openings (Sicilian, French etc.) When's the last time you saw somebody play the Alapin opening?

(3) This book is dangerous for beginners for two reasons. First, in some of the examples in the book, both sides play badly. This can lead beginners into playing bad moves just for the chance to trap an opponent. Secondly, the book should specifically state that if one has a choice between playing a solid move and a dubious one that has a chance of trapping an opponent, one should always play the solid move.

(4) As mentioned in other reviews, there are errors scattered throughout the book, including a diagram error in the very first example. To me this is not a major point but this carelessness can frustrate beginners."

The reviewers are correct, there is in fact an error on the first diagram. This is the only reason I still keep the book in my library.

I have read a lot of criticism of Pandolfini's books.

Are any of his books good? Which ones and why?

stwils

90% of the chess books I’ve ever purchased (and I go back 50 years) were a waste of money. Of the remaining 10% I’d estimate half were good enough to be given bathroom book status. That leaves 5% that were worth reading. Out of that 5% I only actually read about half of them.

I'd vote for Lev Alburt's "Test and Improve Your Chess." He recommends applying what he calls "The System of Predicted Results." Any position can be assigned a numerical value based on the estimated number of points that White is prediced to score out of 10 games played from that position between two GM's of equal strength." Yep. Assigning such a number to a position should be easy for your average player.

good points. Often we just accept such nonsense because it's been printed and published. I'm going to weed through my library this weekend.

Although Pandolfini should remain as a beginner's author, traps and zaps is actually a wealth of different ideas... though not a book to learn sound openings, it provides a way to learn how not to play the openings, and in fact that is exactly the claim the book makes on the back cover... it covers king hunts, forks, skewers, in between moves, and all the mating patterns are essential learning... it's a fun book and good for beginners... keeps you entertained and informed.

But, if you really want good books, follow these authors: beginner- Reinfeld and Horowitz; intermediate- Silman, Watson, Nunn; and for more advanced Dvoretsky (strongly advice avoiding Dvo till you are in the 1800 range)

Avoid, Eric Schiller, he is notoriously poor, has numerous mistakes, and his explanations are scant... wish I could offer more poor authors, but I tend to investigate my books before I buy them...

Silman's books are gold!

oh, by the way (and this is not praise for Pandolfini) but the book does tell the reader that the book only covers e4 e5 openings, being the first volume. The second volume covers the other openings you've suggested ;>)

The list of good books is much shorter than the list of crappy books. Always remember to research your book before you buy it. Apart from opening books, games collections, and a few extremely well written classics, I'm not a big fan of chess books in general. I find electronic tactics training and good OTB practice to be a much quicker and more reliable method of improvement.

Does Pandolfini even play chess ? Whats his rating? I looked him up on both uschess.ord and  fide.com and got nada ....... on uschess.org the only bruce pandolfini there is unrated......

Bruce Pandolfini is a national master, though I dont think he's played since the 80s.

 When does uscf drop you from the rating lists due to inactivity ?

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=77413

Two games!

Wow that's a lot of money down the drain. For every 40 books you bought you only read one. So how many did you read total? Then we can multiply by 40 to get the size of your library! :-)

 I have the book in front of me, and it doesn't say anywhere that this is "Part One", or "Volume One." On the back cover, there is nothing to suggest the book covers 1.e4 e5 openings only, either. Unless the potential reader goes through the book page by page, he is misled into believing that openings such as the French, Sicilian, Caro-Kann etc. are in the book.

Yea that traps and zaps book is pretty junky. Basically its only semi-useful for scholastic players looking to goof around with trappy open games.

 I think if you played lately enough to get into the electronic database then you are in for good, but if the last time you played was 20 years ago you won't show up.

In grade 8, I won a school chess tournament and my prize was a book on openings by Fred Reinfeld. He criticized so many openings as being unplayable. Almost every gambit and counter gambit was garbage, according to him. If it wasn't the Sicilian or Ruy Lopez, it was horrible.

As much as chess is "black and white" the same cannot be said for the evaluation of opening systems. Like other chess books, evaluations are made that a position is won or lost, but when those same positions are reached in actual games, all the book theory goes out the window.

 Reinfeld does that (criticize openings as unplayable) in the final section of "The Complete Chess Course", too. I had this book when I was maybe 10, and thirty years later I still regret that it prejudiced me against some solid openings.

The previous posts are interesting and useful. I'm happy to say I own a few of the good books. Of course now all I need to do is study them! LOL HHH

Snarky reviewers like to take cheapshots at Pandolfini and Alburt because they write books for beginners that teach chess to "the masses".

I have a few of Pandolfini's books.

I am somewhere in the middle with "traps and zaps". I do give him credit for trying to do something a little bit different and I did find parts useful. However he doesn't quite deliver and I was a bit disappointed.

I like his "Endgame Course" which I have found very useful.

When I was starting out I read his "Ultimate guide to chess". Although the title is a touch misleading, I did enjoy reading it. He makes a valiant attempt to get beginners to "think like a chess player". I feel most players who are just starting out would learn quite a bit from it.

I agree with anonym that authors who write books for beginning players often seem to be harshly criticised.  I could be argued however that writing a book that successfully gets your ideas across to a beginner is possibly more difficult than writing for more experienced players.