KSN News Service

Modern Chess Openings (14th edition) versus Fundamental Chess Openings

These two large books on chess openings are both broad in their coverage. They include the following openings (but are not at all limited to them):

• Alekhine Defense
• Austrian Attack (Pirc)
• Benoni
• Bishop’s Opening
• Blumenfeld Counter Gambit
• Cambridge Springs Variation
• Caro-Kann Defense
• Catalan Opening
• Center Game
• Danish Gambit
• Dutch Defense
• English Opening
• Evan’s Gambit
• Four Knights Game
• French Defense
• Giuoco Piano (Italian Opening)
• Grunfeld Defense
• Hedgehog System (of the English Opening)
• King’s Gambit (Accepted and Declined)
• Latvian Gambit (Greco Counter Gambit)
• Max Lange Attack
• Muzio Gambit (of the King’s Gambit)
• Nimzo-Indian Defense
• Petroff Defense (AKA Petrov’s Defense)
• Pirc Defense
• Queen’s Gambit (Accepted and Declined)
• Reti Opening
• Ruy Lopez (Spanish Game)
• Scotch Opening
• Slav and Semi-Slav
• Stonewall Variation (of the Dutch Defense)
• Three Knights Game
• Torre Attack
• Two Knights Defense
• Vienna Game

Modern Chess Openings (MCO)

As of November 2, 2015, it has 38 customer reviews on Amazon:

34% five-stars

39% four-stars

16% three-stars

8% two-stars

3% one-star

Fundamental Chess Openings (FCO)

As of November 2, 2015, it has 62 customer reviews on Amazon:

55% five-stars

32% four-stars

7% three-stars

6% one-star

Conclusions

The Amazon readers reviews appear to favor FCO over MCO. Combine the top two ratings (those with favorable reviews):

MCO=73% and FCO=87% — that favors FCO

Combine the lowest two ratings (those with poor opinions of the books):

MCO=11% and FCO=6% — that favors FCO

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Chess Book for a Beginner to Win Games

If you already know the rules of chess but losing has cut down some of the fun, “Beat That Kid in Chess” puts back the fun. . . . See where you can get a checkmate and where a position is not quite set up for checkmate . . .

Review of Some of the Best Chess Books

How is any publication a “best chess book?” That’s too deep a subject to cover well in this post. What does the reader want from the book? That’s easier to answer.

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How does an average non-genius learn how to win a game of chess? The tradition method for a beginner is quite simple: Play chess games and learn by experience. Reading a chess book is the second most popular way for a novice to learn, but that does not usually work as well, for most chess books are not for beginners but for players of mid-level abilities at least.

The new paperback Beat That Kid in Chess may be the first publication to systematically use the teaching method called “nearly-identical positions” (PIN). It was also written especially with the “early” beginner in mind.

Beat That Kid in Chess – published by Createspace on September 2, 2015 –  for beginners

Nearly-identical positions can help chess students catch onto tactics in a natural way, allowing novices in the royal game to gradually see tactical opportunities and avoid the pitfall of overly-simplistic strategic generalities in their thinking.

Quoting Createspace

According to the publisher’s page for this chess book, Beat That Kid in Chess gives these advantages:

1) Simple – It really is for the early beginner

2) Concise – no chess history or reciting the rules

3) Huge Diagrams – no magnifying glass needed

4) Win-focused – quickly learn to win a game

5) Two levels of exercises – learn at your pace

6) Reviews – appropriate repetition, as needed

7) Internal references – find things quickly

8) Two indexes – general and exercises

9) All three phases – opening, middle, end game

10) Critical tactics – pin, knight fork, etc

11) Checkmates explained – attack and defense

12) Common pitfalls explained – avoid errors

Quoting the Introduction in the book Beat That Kid in Chess

“If you know the chess rules but almost nothing about how to win, this book is for you. We’ll keep to the basics that you need most . . . I must tell you something I’ve learned over the past half century: If your opponent has both a greater natural ability at chess and a greater drive to win, expect to lose at least a few games. . . . If you have a greater drive to win, however, you can combine that with what you learn in these lessons, and you can expect to beat a raw beginner more often than you lose, even if that person has more natural ability than you have. What better lesson to teach your opponent than humility?”

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Chess Books for the Novice and Post-Beginner

Three chess books compared

How to Play Chess to Win

Winning consistently comes not from stepping through a chess game as if it were dancing . . . It’s more like dinosaurs attacking.

Beginner Chess Book

I’ve read and studied dozens of chess books in the past 53 years. I don’t recall any of them that included nearly-identical positions for training. [aside from Beat That Kid in Chess]

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Susan Polgar, a former Women’s World Chess Champion, has said:

“According to research, [academic] test scores improved by 17.3% for students regularly engaged in chess classes, compared with only 4.6% for children participating in other forms of enriched activities.”

She has been promoting chess for children for many years in the United States, a nation that actively promotes sports for the physical development of students but promotes intellectual competition (like chess) much less than European countries promote the game in schools.

She has also said the following:

“You have to be responsible for your actions, you make a move, you had better think ahead about what’s going to happen, not after it happens, because then it’s too late. Chess teaches discipline from a very early age. It teaches you to have a plan and to plan ahead. If you do that, you’ll be rewarded; if you break the rules, you will get punished in life and in chess.”

It’s hard to object to that kind of logic.

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Chess for the Early Beginner

“This 194-page paperback was written with a modest goal: Teach and prepare the raw beginner to win a game of chess, even if it’s against another raw beginner.”

Susan Polgar Foundation

“In approximately 30 nations across the globe, including Brazil, China, Venezuela, Italy, Israel, Russia and Greece, etc., chess is incorporated into the country’s scholastic curriculum.”

Chess Benefits New York City Children

“Chess dramatically improves a child’s ability to think rationally”

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