<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: A review from chessopolis
Review: ---------------------------------------------- It's a tricky proposition to do an openings book with dated analysis, and while the publisher takes a shot at pulling it off by providing some contemporary commentary, the two cooks don't really improve on the soup. IM Purdy was a strong player (four times champion of Australia, and the first World Correspondence Chess Champion) and writer (publisher of Australasian Chess Review, Check, and Chess World). Bobby Fischer has spoken highly of Purdy's analytical talents, and Thinker's Press has published several books of his analysis and insight. Those are mostly excellent books that concentrate on his writings and teachings, and aspiring players would do well to check them out.While Purdy is an insightful author, this book is more about opening lines than concepts, and I think its age shows. The publisher would seem to agree with this concern, because he enlists NM Ronald Wieck to provide running commentary throughout the book, mostly to discuss changes in the theory of the lines since Purdy's day. While this is an interesting choice for a revision method, I don't think the book pulls it off. The primary problem as I see it is that too often Purdy's conclusions, upon which his opening ideas have been based and discussed in the main text, are shown to be different than modern theory would suggest. While this is understandable, given the age of the analysis, I think it is going to confuse the reader and lead him to doubt the concepts that the author seeks to discuss. Purdy's book is based on providing an all-purpose repertoire for the black player, and he mostly concentrates on the structure with black having pawns on e6,d5,c5, and b6. This is a sold structure that can arise from the French Defense against 1.e4 and from the Queen's Gambit Declined against 1.d4. There are also a variety of methods for achieving it against many other first moves for white. It is a viable and decent choice for a black player seeking a defensive structure. Indeed, if the publisher had chosen to include much of Purdy's explanatory text, such as the introductory chapter on Opening Problems and Principles, and the chapter sections that discuss opening play in general, and had gotten another author to interweave his analysis with that of Purdy's that stands the test of time, this might have been an outstanding book. As published, it has too many confusing parts, where players have followed along with Purdy's moves and prose, only to find at the end that the author may have mis-spoken. My second major concern with the book is the inclusion of a section on the Accelerated Dragon Sicilian (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6). While the book mostly covers a solid multi-purpose black repertoire, it veers off to include 31 pages on an extremely sharp line that isn't exactly in keeping with the rest of the suggested repertoire. Further, here a lot of the analysis is dated, and the forcing nature of the lines suggests to me that the black player relying on it for opening preparation will run into many headaches. I've played this variation many times, and I would not recommend it to anybody based on the analysis contained in this book. My final concern is that the lay-out of the book leaves way too much unused space within the book's listed 192 pages. The book is 6" by 9" but the main column spans slightly less than 3 inches across. There is a second column, of slightly more than 1.5" on each page, but it only contains the footnote sized commentary by NM Wieck. This is a curious and wasteful lay-out. The book could have been compressed by running footnotes at the bottom of the page, as is standard practice. Indeed, of the 176 pages of the book that use this format (the title pages, table of contents, editor's forward and commentator's preface span the first 12 pages of the book), 52 have no substantive comments in the footnote column, and another 68 have no more than one substantive comment (often little more than one or two lines). Thus fully two-thirds of the book consists of pages with a second column that is entirely or mostly blank (analysis-wise; we do get pictures of the Purdy's, other chess players, and other books published by Thinker's Press). Indeed, I found only 10 pages where I felt the material justified a separate column. As a player who must often rely on the stated number of pages in a catalogue to gauge content, I find that type of lay-out to be at best wasteful and at worst something worse than that. In conclusion, this book, both because of the age of the material, the manner in which it was updated, and the way that it is presented, doesn't really provide value to most players. If you're a Purdy fanatic or believe that the repertoire presented will be a useful complement to other books, you might want to check it out. Otherwise, I'd shop elsewhere for a "24 hour" repertoire.
Rating:
Summary: A review from chessopolis
Review: I bought this book primarily because I have another Thinker's Press title "The Search For Chess Perfection" and it is one of my favorite chess books. Action Chess is a total disapointment however. The openings it talks about are primarily for black, though it is touted as a complete opening system. The openings themselves are not mainstream and based on old, outdated, flawed logic. The back of the book even admits as much! Don't waste your money. The ultimate "opening system" book has yet to be written.
Rating:
Summary: A very disappointing title from Thinkers Press.
Review: I bought this book primarily because I have another Thinker's Press title "The Search For Chess Perfection" and it is one of my favorite chess books. Action Chess is a total disapointment however. The openings it talks about are primarily for black, though it is touted as a complete opening system. The openings themselves are not mainstream and based on old, outdated, flawed logic. The back of the book even admits as much! Don't waste your money. The ultimate "opening system" book has yet to be written.
Rating:
Summary: A very disappointing title from Thinkers Press.
Review: I bought this book primarily because I have another Thinker's Press title "The Search For Chess Perfection" and it is one of my favorite chess books. Action Chess is a total disapointment however. The openings it talks about are primarily for black, though it is touted as a complete opening system. The openings themselves are not mainstream and based on old, outdated, flawed logic. The back of the book even admits as much! Don't waste your money. The ultimate "opening system" book has yet to be written.
Rating: 
Summary: Purdy magic, even if openings outdated
Review: The reason I first loved Purdy's The Search for Chess Perfection was simple: it brought chess to life for me like other books had not. By comparison, for instance, My 60 Memorable Games by Fischer does nothing for me--the annotations are dry and two-dimensional. As an average player but avid consumer of chess books, I am attracted to books that bring chess to three-dimensional life. Silman's books come to mind as classic examples of this. My System by Nimzo. is perhaps the greatest example of this (with quotes such as "the passed pawn is a criminal which must be kept under lock and key"). I need chess brought to life, because I get bogged down and bored by books that emphasize variations at the expense of explanatory text. Now, to the text at hand. I repeatedly find myself turning back to this book Action Chess. It is pure Purdy, talking to you the reader about opening principles, and about his search to find manageable systems. Whether the lines he selects hold up perfectly to modern analysis or not, the point is that we can follow this journey through opening ideas in a manner that is rich with imagery, enthusiasm, and Purdy's infectious chess excitement. And I enjoy the margin comments as well, by Ron Wieck; they are very instructive. The production is excellent and the book feels very good to leaf through. This is a very fun book, that in the scheme of things deserves far more than one star. The fact for me is that I have over 250 chess books, and for better or worse, this is one I find myself studying quite a bit, while other supposed "classics" go un-opened.
Rating:
Summary: Purdy magic, even if openings outdated
Review: The reason I first loved Purdy's The Search for Chess Perfection was simple: it brought chess to life for me like other books had not. By comparison, for instance, My 60 Memorable Games by Fischer does nothing for me--the annotations are dry and two-dimensional. As an average player but avid consumer of chess books, I am attracted to books that bring chess to three-dimensional life. Silman's books come to mind as classic examples of this. My System by Nimzo. is perhaps the greatest example of this (with quotes such as "the passed pawn is a criminal which must be kept under lock and key"). I need chess brought to life, because I get bogged down and bored by books that emphasize variations at the expense of explanatory text. Now, to the text at hand. I repeatedly find myself turning back to this book Action Chess. It is pure Purdy, talking to you the reader about opening principles, and about his search to find manageable systems. Whether the lines he selects hold up perfectly to modern analysis or not, the point is that we can follow this journey through opening ideas in a manner that is rich with imagery, enthusiasm, and Purdy's infectious chess excitement. And I enjoy the margin comments as well, by Ron Wieck; they are very instructive. The production is excellent and the book feels very good to leaf through. This is a very fun book, that in the scheme of things deserves far more than one star. The fact for me is that I have over 250 chess books, and for better or worse, this is one I find myself studying quite a bit, while other supposed "classics" go un-opened.
Rating:
Summary: Collectible Item
Review: You cannot trust the opening system outlined in this book. The side notes of Tykodi reveal too much flaws in the system. The system may work 30 years ago but I doubt if it can be played today even in club games. A major flaw of this book is the absence of examples from grandmaster games (Nunn's strict requirement for an opening book). Purdy even gave his wife's game as an illustration. If you want a book as an addition to your collection, this book may be for you. But if you are expecting to build a repertoire based on this book, forget it. An example of how a repertoire book should be is Summerscale's "A Killer Chess Opening Repertoire". Unfortunately, this book deals only with white's repertoire.
<< 1 >>
|
