Concise Chess Openings

Rating:
Summary: Great little "cheat sheet,"...
Review: This is almost a cheat sheet more than a book. Truly a "pocket guide"...you can actually fit this easily in your pocket, this book has all the biggie openings, clearly explained, with lots of diagrams. Obviously it's for moderately-advanced players and doesn't go into great depth, but like Fine's Ideas Behind The Ches Openings, it tells you why each side is making the moves they are and how the attacks will proceed after the opening is played. Great to have at your elbow if you're playing a computer with its preprgrammed book and you need a hint.

My only slight complaint is the book could be even a little longer. Some more modern openings could have been dealt with a little more thoroughly and the English--not a "modern" opening, is rather slighted. Another 30-40 pages wouldn't have made the book much less manageable and would have been useful. My other reservation is the price: a bit high.

Rating:
Summary: Up to date summary introduction to the major chess openings
Review: This is an excellent book, suitable for people that need an introduction to the major openings, but don't want as yet to invest the amount of time necessary to learn any opening thoroughly.
This book is going to take the place of Znosko-Borovsky's "How to Play the Chess Openings" (which was written in the '30s), and Fine's "The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings" (from the '40s) as a summary overview to all the major chess openings. The advantage of McDonald's book is that it is really up to date (it includes moves from games played up to 2001). Unlike the two older books, Concise Chess Openings does not include a section on the principles behind the chess openings (e.g. develop light pieces before heavy ones, don't move a piece twice in the opening without good reason, etc.); however, since such "principles" are to be found in most beginners' chess books, one does not miss them in McDonald's book. (An excellent feature of the book is that it indicates very clearly what White's and Black's plan are for each opening or major variation.)
The only reason I did not give the book five stars is the price, which is really high for such a small book (smaller than a mass-market paperback).

Rating:
Summary: interesting and useful
Review: This is an interesting book. It gives you the ideas of the openings, much more so than theory-laden books, and it is also quite small. The detail here is not great, but it's certainly an interesting book.

My problem is what is it useful for. I can only guess based on its physical size that you are intended to take it with you to tournaments to help review your games when they are over, but yet the detail of the game is not really sufficient, and nco or mco seem like they would be better suited for this task.