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Rating: 
Summary: Wish I Hadn't Picked it Up.
Review: As a beginner at the game (two months only, now), I found this came not at all helpful: in fact, I found it actually had a corrosive effect on my game. I was expecting a book that would help me with the ins-and-outs of different opening strategies; instead, The Winning Way is a quick-fix book, aimed at "teaching" a player how to win with quick traps. Of course, only a moron would fall for half of these tricks, and it wouldn't be a very satisfying if they did. What did happen with reading this book was an almost unintentional tendency to try to defeat my opponents in the quickest ways possible: the results of this type of mindset is obvious.At best, this book isn't helpful; at its worst, this book will have a cancerous effect on your game. Avoid.
Rating: 
Summary: Another book to avoid
Review: From time to time I buy a book by Pandolfini thinking that maybe I'll like it better than his others. I always regret it, and this book was no exception.
Rating: 
Summary: Avoid Traps the Easy Way
Review: If you wanna learn to lose really fast this is a great book for that. Maybe it will help you beat someone rated in the 600-900 range at best. I really do not know why they print books that are this bad. I think it is to make sure some people just never get better at chess. By some games that I play it seems like it has worked on a few people. Basically the only value from this book is comical. Not cuz of anything the writer wrote, but cuz its just so bad. You look in book and at positions and some of the moves. Hard to stop from bursting out in laughter over how absurd and bad the moves are. So throw your money away on this book if thats what you wanna do. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. You can drop your kid off at school but can't make him learn. Enjoy this review, its written better than this book.
Rating:
Summary: How to Lose Fast.
Review: If you wanna learn to lose really fast this is a great book for that. Maybe it will help you beat someone rated in the 600-900 range at best. I really do not know why they print books that are this bad. I think it is to make sure some people just never get better at chess. By some games that I play it seems like it has worked on a few people. Basically the only value from this book is comical. Not cuz of anything the writer wrote, but cuz its just so bad. You look in book and at positions and some of the moves. Hard to stop from bursting out in laughter over how absurd and bad the moves are. So throw your money away on this book if thats what you wanna do. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. You can drop your kid off at school but can't make him learn. Enjoy this review, its written better than this book.
Rating:
Summary: How to play like a "fish"
Review: In case you're not aware, "Fish" is a derogatory term amoungst chess players for an unskilled, new player. These players tend to go for quick and easy traps that any player with a decent amount of experience would easily avoid. This book teaches exactly the kinds of silly traps that a "fish" would try to play against you. On one level, it may be a good thing to know why certain moves are so bad, on the other hand, you certainly wouldn't want to rely on this traps in a real game. Bruce gives a position and then shows the "killer move", the move that destroys your opponent. However, in order to get to that position your opponent needs to make some really stupid decisions. Of the 20 or so positions that I looked at before setting this book down in disgust the opponent had made at least one HUGE blunder in every position. Perhaps this is what Bruce is trying to teach (how to take advantage of your opponents mistakes) but don't rely on these positions ever happening if your opponent has been playing for more than a few months. I'm sure there are people somewhere who would benefit from this book. But there are so many better books out there that I just can't suggest this one in good faith.
Rating:
Summary: How to play like a "fish"
Review: In case you're not aware, "Fish" is a derogatory term amoungst chess players for an unskilled, new player. These players tend to go for quick and easy traps that any player with a decent amount of experience would easily avoid. This book teaches exactly the kinds of silly traps that a "fish" would try to play against you. On one level, it may be a good thing to know why certain moves are so bad, on the other hand, you certainly wouldn't want to rely on this traps in a real game. Bruce gives a position and then shows the "killer move", the move that destroys your opponent. However, in order to get to that position your opponent needs to make some really stupid decisions. Of the 20 or so positions that I looked at before setting this book down in disgust the opponent had made at least one HUGE blunder in every position. Perhaps this is what Bruce is trying to teach (how to take advantage of your opponents mistakes) but don't rely on these positions ever happening if your opponent has been playing for more than a few months. I'm sure there are people somewhere who would benefit from this book. But there are so many better books out there that I just can't suggest this one in good faith.
Rating:
Summary: Good puzzle book
Review: Outstanding collection of puzzles that do require a certain amount of memorization. But be careful! You should not rely on this book if you're playing against an experienced player or a computer. Pandolfini himself states that you will "encounter these problems from time to time" and that's when the knowledge of this book will come in handy. It helps if the reader is already familiar with the names of the openings and variations.
Rating:
Summary: Good for beginners, but Traps and Zaps 1 & 2 are better.
Review: The title is not quite accurate. This is really a book of opening traps. The explanations are not nearly so helpful as the traps themselves. Unfortunately, this book is not nearly so useful as Pandolfini's other trap books. As another reviewer stated, the traps here are categorized by the winning move, e.g. Bxf7 or Qh5. That makes the book useless for drilling tactics, as the winning move is already named in boldface at the top of the page. Also, the diagrams do not always follow the blunder immediately. However, this book has the broadest coverage of the three, with maybe 25% non-king pawn openings. Perhaps you could cut out the pages and clip off the headings, then go through these in random order. Definitely read the Traps and Zaps books first. I find this one valuable in improving my pattern recognition still further, as I can go through several examples of a single motif in one sitting, but you might consider skipping this one altogether nd going straight to the deeper traps in Chernev's wonderful Winning Chess Traps, then on to Burgess's Quickest Chess Victories of All Time. This book seems to have fewer errors than the others, so I give it 4 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Average.
Review: This book could have been much better. The target of the book is the beginner/intermediate player ( 800-1600 elo points ), and deals with opening mistakes, the way to avoid them or take advantage of them. In fact, all the examples are very good, as well as the explanations that are also very clear because they point out where the mistake was made. The only problem is that Pandolfini put together all the examples according to the winning move ( Qh5/Axf7/etc ), instead of the opening line. It is fair to say that you can find an index at the end of the book with all the examples classified by opening, but following the reading of the book with it is not very comfortable. But I strongly recommend this way of reading to take advantage of the material, because you can focus on the opening lines that you play regularly or the ones that you want to improve.
Rating:
Summary: Avoid Traps the Easy Way
Review: This book has gotten some undeserved bad press. This book simplifies the avoidance of falling into elementary traps. There are a bunch of books about the various traps, but they aren't systematic, and, therefor, they are impossible to remember. Here the traps are systematically presented and easy to spot. Most of the traps involve checks and hanging pieces. The book also teaches the pluses of early aggressive Queen moves. I found it very informative and have avoided falling into some of the traps in my games. It also teaches you to take advantage of the opponent's mistakes. If you are getting boloed in the opening, take alook at this book.
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