Monday, September 08, 2014

New book about openings




 Just released my first  E-book, and of-course it's about chess,
in particular opening theory, especially geared at beginner level
         but also above, at average chess club level, until IM or so.

              Better Chess Openings E-book  (.pdf)


For beginning - intermediate chess players, or those who want to learn it, and then  it's dealing only with the specialty called opening theory.  No e-pub version (yet).

         (The only book at this level, as far as i know, with selected B & W variations for beginners via the 'repertoire' method ; also a rare book with diagrams with Black at the bottom, when it is Blacks move to play(*); thereby a high amount of - colored- diagrams to be an ideal learning tool.)
NB planning to release a printed book (paper)  version before the end of the year (2014), possibly via Ingram Spark, but if there is any (Chess-)publisher having interest, then they can contact me. Probably both a color version (expensive) and a B&W version (cheap) are foreseen.
             jef 

PS writing the book did cost time, but the underlying research has taken me some 15 years, and that's basically where the worth 
of the book is in.  Thereby also more advanced variations were investigated as Slav and Sicilian for Black, but i decided to split the book up into two parts, the first one for beginners to master level. Second part planned is from master to GM level, but i'm not in a hurry to publish that.
PS 2 About the first book, the current one,  while some people may object to the concept of finding and specifying the 'best' opening moves, my experience in correspondence chess, now at masterlevel on ICCF, has taught me it indeed is a valuable and useful concept; which works! In other words, it is a useful concept, and if it works in correspondence chess, you cannot go wrong by using (or even memorizing) such a repertoire in normal chess; although it might take some time to learn/master it. And GM's usually are at such higher levels
and preoccupied in their own struggles against their fellow GM's
that they usually are not suitable on an educational level
to explain opening theory to beginneers (besides few
exceptions, but such books are rare). As for the recommended
lines in my books, wellmost chess players are independent enough i
suppose to experiment sometimes with other variations.
Well at least in my  book i've provided now some clear
guidelines for the basic lines especially for beginners !


(*) a logical thing to do, obviously , but Chessbase does not
have such a feature, contrary to Chesspad for example

Update on Amazon

 now (the new edition of) my book (as on Lulu) also is available on Amazon again: Better Chess Openings (paperback) as found with latest Nnu...