101 Chess Opening Surprises

Rating:
Summary: By the book ?
Review: 'He's (or she's) playing chess by the book'is very often a disdainful remark. But every chessplayer, sooner or later, wants to increase his knowledge of chess. He won't be able to do it on his own. He will need help, help from '101 Chess Opening Surprises', say. This book is very userfriendly. It has only 128 pages but the most important openings are discussed. The notation uses co-ordinates (the easiest way it seems to me) Moreover, on every page are three diagrams to illustrate the moves that are discussed. A must!

Rating:
Summary: Opening traps and curiosities
Review: Not enough variety to make it a general opening book (Winning Chess Openings by Yasser Seirawan), nor a book specifically focused on one repertoire (The King's Indian Attack by Eric Schilling). The Openings discussed are somewhat in random order and therefore there is no real focus. Though a good book, very instructive and well written, I would not consider it a necessity for players. If you want to cram on a few popular themes then this book will fit your needs. All levels can read this book, but intermediate players (1200-1600) may utilize this book best.

Rating:
Summary: A condensed version of larger books.
Review: Not enough variety to make it a general opening book (Winning Chess Openings by Yasser Seirawan), nor a book specifically focused on one repertoire (The King's Indian Attack by Eric Schilling). The Openings discussed are somewhat in random order and therefore there is no real focus. Though a good book, very instructive and well written, I would not consider it a necessity for players. If you want to cram on a few popular themes then this book will fit your needs. All levels can read this book, but intermediate players (1200-1600) may utilize this book best.

Rating:
Summary: An Interesting Bunch of Ideas
Review: This book is a collection of unusual opening ideas. Most of them are pretty sound, but the funniest is the Bulgarian Defense to the Ruy Lopez (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a5! ), which makes it look as if Black intended ...a6, but accidentally pushed the pawn two squares. Also amusing is Bucker's idea in the Sicilian: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 h6. The idea is that if White plays the normal 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5, Black gets a Sveshnikov/Pelikan set-up without allowing White to play Bg5. There are a lot of interesting and unusual ideas in this book. The author is very careful with his analysis and rarely makes a serious analytical error in any of his books.

Rating:
Summary: Opening traps and curiosities
Review: This book is intended for light entertainment, not for instruction. I cannot see how anyone could benefit from more than 20% of the lines in here, because they are from various openings and sometimes require very cooperative play from the opponent.

Basically I saw this book as a collection of more or less amusing opening traps. If I play an opening, I usually buy a specialized book on it, and those books usually include all the lines that you find in this book, and tons more.

I read this book through in half an hour, and found little reason to return to it later. But it is not badly written. If your local library has it, why not borrow it for a train trip.