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Chessville
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How To Build Your Chess Opening Repertoire
by Steve Giddons Gambit Publications, 2003 Softcover, 144 PAGES ISBN 1901983897
Or, ‘another quick-fix for lazy chess players…’ Well, maybe a little strong but you have to accept that the main lure of a Chess Opening Repertoire book is normally aimed at the Chess Player who wants someone to do all the hard work for them! Am I being too disparaging of these types of books? Well, I have to admit the reason I brought my first Opening Repertoire book was precisely for these reasons. I wanted to win, and I wanted to win now! So as a naïve newcomer to Chess, I believed that the book would solve all my problems. To some extent it did, but in other respects it laid me open to the ‘pain’ that was to follow when it transpired that some of the opening lines recommended were actually not that good! So it was with a biased attitude that I was asked to review the latest book from Steve Giddens that I would straight away go into ‘cynic’ mode. After all, an industry has evolved with people ‘knocking’ the latest ‘Keene’ book! The book is called “How to Build Your Chess Opening Repertoire”, with the sub-title ‘A user friendly guide to choosing and planning your openings’, another book from the growing GAMBIT Publications Ltd. Steve Giddins is a FIDE Master from England who plays regularly in international events and has frequently contributed to the British Chess Magazine. This is his second book for Gambit. The book is 144 pages long, and costs £13.99 or $19.95. A little over-priced in my opinion, but then I think all chess books are over priced these days. A victim of being part of a ‘niche’ market I guess. A pleasant book to put on the book shelf, but will it go the way of many chess books – onto the book shelf after a quick browse, never to see the light of day again? Lets start with the positives: the author clearly lays down the road map for the book when he states he is not into ‘miracle cures’, so you are in for a shock straight away! OK, if Steve Giddens is not going to give me a ground breaking Opening Repertoire what’s the use of this book? Personally, I think the book is a breath of fresh air. It states clearly at the onset it’s not about a miracle cure. What Steve Giddens is attempting to do is provide good, solid, and hopefully sound advice on how YOU do the work for yourself! So if you have switched off thus far, then rest assured the book is not for you! However, if you are still with me; then maybe the book is for you. The book is clearly aimed at the novice or improving club player. In my view the book contains a lot of sound advice that the stronger player would or should already know. Each chapter is broken down into specific themes, which contain many thought provoking comments, which should get those old thought processes in you brain active again. The style of Steve Giddens is to try and think of your questions first, and then provide the answers to those questions in this book. Throughout the book you will find many examples of games that help to illustrate the theme that Steve is attempting to get across. OK, so what does the book contain which is so different from other Chess Books? Firstly, it is the first chess book I have read in a long time cover to cover. Well you have been asked to review it so you have to do this I can hear you cry. Yes, to some extent I agree. However, I have to be honest and say I managed to read the whole book in two or three sittings. So in my book, this means the book was NOT BORING THE PANTS off me! It also means there are not pages, pages, pages and more pages of Fritz Analysis! You have seen the Chess Opening books I am talking about. What really frustrates me is the way sub lines and sub variations end up being so weighty that you find you lose track of the original move order. Steve Giddens keeps this down to the minimum, letting the game in question speak for itself. The book as I say is broken down into a number of chapters each containing a specific theme or question to be answered: Chapter One – The Keys to Successful Opening Play Sets the stall out, here Steve is letting you know that there is no ‘miracle cure’ but states three key elements he has borrowed from GM Matthew Sadler. Concluding that basically, all normal openings are sound and it is a fallacy to say the Sicilian is better than the French. Chapter Two – Variety the Spice of Life An interesting chapter which considers the pros/cons of following either a ‘limited’ opening repertoire or a ‘broad’ opening repertoire. Chapter Three – StylisticsConsiders the old fashioned logic of ‘positional’ or ‘tactical’ openings and players. Chapter Four – Main Roads or Side-Streets Considers the pros/cons of following main line openings or using less analysed sidelines. Chapter Five – Move Orders and Transpositions A nice chapter on how to use move order and transpositions for your own benefit; but also warnings on how you can also be caught out. Chapter Six – Use and Abuse of Computers Some very good useful advice on how to use computers for you own analysis and a discussion on the pitfalls that exist. Chapter Seven – UniversalitiesConsiders those ‘universal’ opening approaches and their various pros and cons for the chess player. Chapter Eight – Infidelity and DivorceA chapter on what can happen when you ‘deviate’ from your opening repertoire. Some interesting examples from GM play, where some GM’s were sucked into playing lines they know nothing about! The classic Gurevich-Short game from the 1990 Interzonals is covered here as well. Here's a short excerpt from this chapter, to give you a feel for his writing style: As you will have gathered from the foregoing chapters of this book, I am in general quite hostile to the idea of changing one's opening repertoire in a fundamental way. Just as in other walks of life, divorce can be a messy and expensive business, and in my opinion it is rarely justified in the context of chess openings. The main cause of my hostility is the impact that changing openings has on one's understanding of an opening. I have repeatedly stressed throughout this book that understanding typical positions is the single most important factor in successful use of an opening. Such understanding is first and foremost the product of experience, and must be built up over a period of years, by playing and analyzing the opening. It follows from this that by changing openings completely, one is abandoning the experience and understanding that one has built up in the line concerned, and thereby putting oneself back to square one in this respect. In the great majority of cases, the change will backfire. Chapter Nine – Some Players’ Repertoires Analysed Considers the repertoires of a few GM’s and the different approaches they take. ConclusionsFirstly, the book makes a refreshing change to your normal run of the mill chess openings book. On this basis one hopes that the book is successful. Secondly, the book contains a lot of good sound advice and if you follow the advice Steve Giddens provides then I am sure your game will improve. Nevertheless, one has to remember that this is a book about YOUR Opening Repertoire. You will still need to do the work on your opening repertoire. Remember: it’s not about a miracle cure. What Steve Giddens is attempting to do is provide good solid and hopefully sound advice on how YOU do the work for yourself! And you will still need to work on your middlegame and endgame techniques. It requires work and lots of it from yourself if you wish to take on board the advice Steve dispenses. If you are willing to do this, you will find the book is a useful companion to fall back on when the going gets tough. If you are a novice or improving player, then I would recommend you consider this book before you buy any specialist opening book. Don’t fall into the trap of buying opening books because the line is in fashion. If you are a strong player already then I guess the book is not really for you. However, I would strongly recommend you browse through the book given the chance. Like most self-improvement courses it is handy to have to hand a quick guide!
Buy this book at the Amazon closest to you by clicking on the flag above.
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