Rating: 
Summary: great except for a glaring omission
Review: Seirawan's book has a great deal to recommend it. He not only covers most of the openings and defenses you're likely to see, but gives you the reasons behind all the important moves. This is important because in any number of openings it looks like the logical move would be something completely different than what the book recommends, but in all those circumstances (or all the ones I've encountered) Seirawan shows why and how this "logical" move is in fact not so logical at all. Another great plus is that in looking at Seirawan's commentary on the openings and defenses you'll learn something about positional play rather than just memorize rote openings. Probably the biggest plus this book has for intermediate players is that, by showing us his own blunders, Seirawan keeps one from getting discouraged. Finally, he mentions quite a few books on the openings he discusses, so the book points the reader in the right directions if she's interested in a certain opening.
So now to the glaring omission: As other reviewers have pointed out, he doesn't cover the English Opening (1.c4). What makes this more than a mere gripe, besides the fact the English is a rather common opening, is that at the beginning of the chapter 7 he groups the English with the Barcza Opening, KID, and Pirc Defense as an opening he recommends and implies that he will discuss it in detail. My theory is that at one time the manuscript did cover the English and editorial pressures forced Seirawan to shorten the book, which he did by cutting his long discussion of the English, and as he planned to discuss it at length there is naturally no short section on the opening and no one remembered to include one. It seems an odd coincidence that this book and the other title in the series I happen to own (Winning Chess Strategies) are exactly the same length. If this is the case they should definitely lengthen the book in future editions, and even if not coverage of the English would be nice. It is exactly the sort of quiet opening that deserves to be discussed with the Barcza. At any rate the recommendations I've gotten say to respond to the English with a Hedgehog Defense, which Seirawan does cover. All an all despite this wart it's still a good book to help one get a grip on openings.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for intermediate players!!
Review: Sierawan's "Winning Chess Openings" is a book that focuses on players of intermediate strength. He takes a main line with the four main openings (King's pawn, Queen's pawn; both white & black) and explains and illustrates why and how a position is reached. One draw back is that there are many variations to each "main line." While this may be good, I thought each variation should have had it's own section to avoid confusing the reader.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for intermediate players!!
Review: Sierawan's "Winning Chess Openings" is a book that focuses on players of intermediate strength. He takes a main line with the four main openings (King's pawn, Queen's pawn; both white & black) and explains and illustrates why and how a position is reached. One draw back is that there are many variations to each "main line." While this may be good, I thought each variation should have had it's own section to avoid confusing the reader.
Rating:
Summary: Good Overall
Review: The book is very well written and does a good job at explaining the basic ideas behind many different openings. It is especially useful as a guide to selecting an opening to study in greater depth. The intended audience is definitely late beginner / early intermediate players.
The last few chapters of the book give the openings that are recommended by the author. They are the King's Indian Attack for white, King's Indian Defense as black against a queen-pawn opening, and the Pirc as black against a king-pawn opening. I have a problem with this part of the book. I've been playing these openings exclusively for about 8-10 months, ever since reading the book. I found early on that it's possible to get into a LOT of trouble quick in the Pirc, so I bought Pirc Alert (a fantastic book) and studied it in great detail for about 3 months. The author argues that these openings should be chosen because of their simplicity and lack of detailed theory. I can buy that for the KIA, but not the KID, and DEFINITELY NOT for the Pirc. The Pirc is a very difficult opening for intermediate players. Both the KID and Pirc put the black player at the mercy of White because White has several definite and clear plans that are very difficult to survive. It is tremendously important to have very detailed theoretical knowledge to play these two openings. All 3 of these openings are very passive compared to many other options. I recently quit playing all 3 of these. I'm doing much better without playing these openings because it's easier to play when I don't spend the first 4-5 moves giving my opponent free-reign to do whatever he wants. Masters might be able to walk on the edge of that cliff, but I don't seem to be able to do it. The KIA is not so bad because at least there, White is not behind by a half-move, therefore, I am slightly less than neutral toward the KIA.
I recommend the book as a general reference, especially for someone who's trying to decide what opening to play. I do not recommend taking the author's advice and adopting the KIA, KID, and Pirc. I think that it's better for less-experience players to focus on tactics, tactics, and more tactics. These openings tend to be closed (or with you running for your life...), so I think they kinda stunt a chess player's growth compared to openings that lead to more open and exciting positions.
I'd recommend learning some basic ideas behind king pawn white openings, perhaps the Italian Game or Spanish Game. Granted, it's not possible to be a theoretical opening wizard as an intermediate player, but that should not be the intermediate player's focus anyway. As Black, the intermediate player needs to have a basic response ready for king pawn or queen pawn. One could probably use the Italian Game or Spanish Game knowledge as Black also, and just play king-pawn as Black. Against a queen pawn opening, I assume that it would not be too difficult to learn a pet Queen's Gambit variation.
Rating:
Summary: Good coverage, good recommendations, needs more depth
Review: This book did a wonderful job of explaining the ideas behind and many of the tactical possibilities present in most of the standard chess openings. The author also gave some wonderful recommendations for an opening repertoire based around seeing first to king safety and piece development in order to get quickly out of the opening and into the middlegame.
Some might argue that following this advice as white gives up white's initial advantage without a fight. While that might be true at the grandmaster level, at the club level where I play, I can honestly say that I've never seen a game decided by white nursing his first move advantage all the way through to a won game.
I adopted this repertoire then made some modifications as I found what worked best for me and it's served me fairly well. The one deficiency I find in this book is that, once Mr. Seirawan makes his opening recommendations, he gives a fairly brief overview of the "best" responses to the openings and how to deal with them. The problem is that most club players don't play the "best" responses and very little coverage is given as to how to take advantage of these "lesser" responses to the openings.
Overall, I recommend both this book and the openings Mr. Seirawan suggests, but I wish he had delved more deeply into his own recommendations.
Rating: 
Summary: Unbeleivably Excellent!!
Review: This book is amazing!! I really can't believe it. Only on chapter 3 and I am like, why in the world didn't I see that before!! I would have eliminated my losses by half at least!! I am in no doubt going to by the other books in this series. The writing style is easy to follow, it is a tutorial, and filled with why and why nots (you should do this or that). I really can not believe how good this book is. I WANT TO PLAY NOW!! It has me with that much confidence and I am only a beginner.
Rating:
Summary: Simplifies the opening game.
Review: This book really helped me in my opening. I learned many openings and how to defend them. I have won many more games after I used this book.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic book!
Review: This book really helped understand the why and how of the classical openings. Yasser explains in detail to the reader the strategies behind the openings. I learned alot and improved my game immensely after reading this book. However, I must agree with one of the above readers that the book does not include 1. c4. I have a chess computer that often starts with 1. c4 and beat me everytime! I was desperate and somewhat dissapointed when I could not find this opening in WCO because I know/knew Yasser could do an awesome job of explaing this "reversed secilian" opening. I hope he introduces an updated version of WCO
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book
Review: This is a teriffic book for chess players (preferably for beginners). This book explains every chess opening and in detail. I have found a very interesting strategy using the Queen's Gambit. I don't want to spoil the the fun of reading it. 2 simple words for this book: "Truly Extrodinary"
Rating:
Summary: A Proven Blueprint!
Review: This is one of the best ideas for a chess book I have ever seen. Many times I have had students ask me, "Is there a book out there where a proven player, (a multiple U.S. Champion winner like GM Yasser Seirawan); has laid out the openings he plays and/or approves of?" Is there a book out there that will give me the opening repertoire of a World's 'Top 100' player? Someone who has won many international touraments? Will he analyze the variations for me? Tell me what a few of the basic ideas are? If the answer is yes, then this is the book you have been looking for. GM Yasser Seirawan, one of the best players the U.S. has ever produced, lays out - in great detail - an opening repertoire that should be successful for ANY player. And its not just esoteric knowledge. Yasser gives you many of the openings he personally plays. This is a proven commodity based on one of the more successful players this country has had over the last 20 years. (At one time, maybe the ONLY U.S. player to have defeated BOTH Karpov AND Kasparov!) On top of this, you are getting one book of the best set of chess books ever produced anywhere. MS Press has assembled a top-notch team of writers, editors, proof-readers, etc. They have all assisted in bringing forth maybe the best overall set of chess books ever published. If you are looking for an opening repertoire, and like the openings played by Seirawan ... this is THE book for you. ....
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