<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Poor reviews miss the point
Review: As an intermediate club player, I love the attack! And I was very excited to find this book when it first came out. The book promises an 'In Depth Guide to Powerful Opening Repetoires'. Unfortunately, it is not in depth, nor reasonably complete, or particularily powerful. At one stage the author is so brazen as to actually give about 4 pages of treatment for a black defense, examining only 1 or 2 possible lines, and then says to the reader that if you want to learn the opening you should go read a book by another author! I wish to be fair to Mr Schiller, and I realize that no 'repetoire as white/black book' can hope to adequately treat the majority of possible opening lines, but he grossly abuses this liberty beyond my wildest dreams. The book's back cover makes promises of 'DESTROY ANY BLACK DEFENSE!'. And yet Mr Schiller freely admits that a number of the gambit lines he offers really are inferior! As gambit players we are willing to take chances, but we have to wonder what an author is really offering us when he admits that a # of his own lines are bad. It seems yet again that Mr Schiller's efforts are more focused on inflated promises designed to gather your dollars then on making any reasonable effort to provide the goods. The book's promises are misleading, many of the lines are particularily poor, and there is little that is 'in depth'. I could almost tolerate the substandard product if Mr Schiller was not so deceptive in his bold faced promises that he plasters across the front and back cover of this book.
Rating:
Summary: Book deserves more respect
Review: I find Schiller's style to be engaging and practical. He is completely about ideas and understanding. If you are a 1. c4, 1. g3, 1. Nf3, or 1. d3 player, it makes sense to know the Reti, and this is the best book with which to do that. This is a very enjoyable book.
Rating: 
Summary: Pure Garbage!
Review: The back cover proudly states: DESTROY ANY BLACK DEFENSE. I'm sure the gambits recommended in this book would be sufficient to destroy any Black Defense played by a sufficiently weak player, but who needs this book--or any book for that matter--to beat such a player? Even assuming this book is intended for average players looking to steal a few points from their own kind, the question still remains: Are these gambits good enough for even that modest task? For the most part, they are not. Even author Schiller admits that he doesn't have anything that meets his "standards" to recommend against the Scandinavian. He says that if you really must play a gambit after 1.e4 d5 (why else would we buy such a book, if not to learn something about some sort of gambit against a move that is played very often at the sub-Master level?), go ahead and try your luck with the Tennison Gambit, which continues 2. Nf3?! fxe4 3. Ng5. What I find peculiar is that, rather than offer this dubious gambit, why not recommend transposing to the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit with 2. d4? It's not very good either, but at least it isn't the sort of thing your typical Class C player can refute over the board. The author managed to get his books published and widely distributed by Cardoza Publications, better known for their books on gambling. I don't know if all of Schiller books are as terrible as this one, as I am not masochistic enough to read all of them; however, I have taken the time to examine most of his Cardoza books, and none of them are any better than this one. The book's jacket proclaims its author THE WORLD'S LEADING AUTHORITY ON OPENINGS. I would wager that,if he is an authority on anything, it is self-promotion. With all the bad grammar, misspellings and typos in this dreadful book, one gets the impression that his books are written at a blitz pace and not proofread at all. I suppose the author figures that, as long as people are dumb enough to buy such trash, he has no reason to try to write something good. I suggest that, if you intend to purchase any books from this publisher, stick to the ones on gambling. This book is no gamble; if you buy it, you are a sure loser. And--since you ask--no, I didn't buy it. I read most of it while hanging out at the bookstore's coffee shop.
Rating:
Summary: Poor reviews miss the point
Review: The negative reviews miss the point of this book: nowhere does Schiller recommend that you play these openings; rather, he is saying that if you choose to play gambits as white, here is a repoeroire that you may find suitable. I think this book is quite well done. The main use I have made of it is as a quick reference when I am playing black and I see these gambits pop up on the white side. I have found this book to be very helpful in refuting some of these gambits. The negative I have with these books is that they don't have a moves index; but I find that the analysis is very helpful and seems thorough. Plus, these are fun books and I find myself picking it up qauite a bit, which is more than I can say for some "classics." The fact is, that these openings rae used a lot in internet chess, so it pays to prepare for them, especially when you can pick this book up used for a song.
<< 1 >>
| 
