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Rating: 
Summary: A great addition for beginners and tournament players alike!
Review: A thorough, exemplary work, Schiller expounds on the essential openings requisite to any blossoming chessplayer's repertoire.There are many great features I find appealing about it. One, the book is very clear. The book pictorially presents the moves in each of the openings providing the reader with far more than just a tedious list of annotated moves. In addition, the book is very direct. Instead of trying to explain myriad openings, it qualifies its efforts to concentrate strictly on those openings which are considered the most essential so you don't overwork yourself like a mad man. And moreover, the openings are explained not just move-by-move but also by means of an explanation of the motives and skill factors needed of the chessplayer to successfully execute each opening. Each opening is presented with de facto games played by leading grandmasters including Fischer, Kasparov, Karpov, etc. The book explicitly identifies where moves by such grandmasters are now obsolete and provides the new theory for each move. Thus, I cannot agree with other reviewers who claim that this book is just a book of games and thereby has no qualifications to instruct. The games were simply implemented to better explain the concept of each opening. Finally, the book contains graphs of the moves world grandmasters preferred to begin games. For example, about 60% of world chess champions prefer the open game in response to the King's Pawn Opening, 30% the Sicilian Defense, and only 5% each for the Caro-Kahn or French Defense! This statistic as well as many others make this book a fine source for up-and-coming chessplayers. I would highly recommend this book for any chess player at any level of competition as a mentor for general chess opening schemes and strategy.
Rating: 
Summary: Save your Money
Review: I am just an intermediate player about 1600. Now since i have been into a chess a lot more and play a lot more games I have noticed that these books do not help you at all. All this book has is a reproduction of the games played by the world champions, with annotations(not originally from the author). If your are interested to know the games and get the statistics get some software like Fritz or Chessbase which will be of great help to your game, and will get rid of these books completly. Since I have the database of all the games in the book and more maybe I should publish a book or two too, which must earn me some fast bucks!. I have also noticed that Eric Shiller has a lot of books which are usually a "CUT" from Database and "PASTE" into Book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent reference book - must have
Review: I have been going through this book recently while looking for some new openings to try out. Schiller does a good job of showing the openings that World Champions like to play, and shows some nice sample games from each of the openings. One thing that I like about the book is that you can go through each of the games, and get a point of how the openings work, and what the main purpose is without having to look at a ton of variations, which (for me at least) often leads to to forget what was going on in the main game. I was able to go through the games rather quickly and painlessly. This is a good gentle introduction to the most common openings. I also enjoyed that some non common openings were shown, such as when Tony Miles played 1. ..h6 against 1. e4 against World Champion Anatoly Karpov - and won! This was probably my favorite game in the book. Schiller writes for Joe Chessplayer the average guy, who is looking to learn more about chess, but not neccessarily be obsessive about it. I think he is very readable. After finishing this book I ordered Standard Chess Openings and Unorthodox Chess Openings from Amazon. I look forward to them. ... This book is not a must own, like Logical chess move by move, but it is not a waste of money if you are looking to explore some new openings in a painless manner.
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable thou not a must have
Review: I have been going through this book recently while looking for some new openings to try out. Schiller does a good job of showing the openings that World Champions like to play, and shows some nice sample games from each of the openings. One thing that I like about the book is that you can go through each of the games, and get a point of how the openings work, and what the main purpose is without having to look at a ton of variations, which (for me at least) often leads to to forget what was going on in the main game. I was able to go through the games rather quickly and painlessly. This is a good gentle introduction to the most common openings. I also enjoyed that some non common openings were shown, such as when Tony Miles played 1. ..h6 against 1. e4 against World Champion Anatoly Karpov - and won! This was probably my favorite game in the book. Schiller writes for Joe Chessplayer the average guy, who is looking to learn more about chess, but not neccessarily be obsessive about it. I think he is very readable. After finishing this book I ordered Standard Chess Openings and Unorthodox Chess Openings from Amazon. I look forward to them. ... This book is not a must own, like Logical chess move by move, but it is not a waste of money if you are looking to explore some new openings in a painless manner.
Rating:
Summary: Great place to start
Review: People love to trash Schiller,Pandolfini and a host of other authors who try to reach the beginning players.I like this book and I have others on openings I like just as well.Point is dont listen to the chess snobs if you like it buy it,its your cash and I feel mine was well spent!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent reference book - must have
Review: This is a "must-have" for those who are striving to get into the 1000~1500 rating (USCF rating) range. This serves as a good reference and many variations are reviewed and discussed. After he gives the moves for several variations, he gives us an analysis which is benefitial to your game in chess. Many of the openings in this book may not be used commonly - that's why it is helpful surprising your opponent in which moves you play in the opening. It is worth your expense.
Rating: 
Summary: Mediocre at best. Okay for beginners but lacks detail
Review: World Champion Openings by Eric Shiller has its good points and its bad. Good points:
It is easy to read. It gives a nice simple overview of the major openings so you can learn the basic response to many openings. If you have no concept about any openings and are a beginner, this is a decent book to buy. Bad points:
It lacks detail or options. For many the variations to each opening, he only gives one line. Then it wastes too much time and space going over a whole example game. You're not buying a book to learn the middlegame though. For example, the Caro-Kann defense Advance variation. After "1.e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5..." The next move he gives is "c5." Well what if you opponent plays something else? He admits, that "c5" isn't even the best move, but this is the only move he talks about. What about "Bf5"? What should you do then? Then he plays out whole annotated game between Tal-Botvinnik. Why it's a book about openings? He should spend more time talking about different variations of openings and/or potential traps and less time analyzing entire games. If you are buying for a beginner, it is good. Otherwise, get Modern Chess Openings.
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