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Chessville
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Chess Opening Playing Cards Reviewed by Michael Jeffreys
“This is not chess, this is poker!” Now you can play poker AND work on your chess game at the same time! Synheme, a company out of Canada, has produced a deck of playing cards that features a different chess opening on each card: 52-different openings are covered. For example, here is the Queen of Hearts:
Notice that the ECO code is given at the top of the card, followed by the name of the opening in three different languages: English (in bold), French and Spanish. This is followed by the opening itself. In our example, the first three moves of the Nimzo-Indian Defense, 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4, is given. This is followed by a colored diagram showing the resulting opening position. Underneath the diagram are White’s most popular fourth moves: 4.e3, 4.Qc2, 4.Nf3. Here is how the deck breaks down: Spades = 1.e4 Openings Owens, Nimzowitsch, Scandinavian, Alekhine, Modern, Pirc, Caro-Kann, Sicilian, French, Alapin, Danish, Center-Game, Bishop’s Clubs = 1.e4 Openings Vienna, King’s Gambit, Latvian, Philidor, Petroff, Ponziani, Scotch, 2 Knights, 3 Knights, 4 Knights, Italian, Hungarian, Spanish Hearts = 1.d4 Openings Blackmar-Diemer, Colle, Chigorin, Albin-Counter, Slav, QGA, QGD, Semi-Slav, Grunfeld, Catalan, Queen’s Indian, Nimzo-Indian, KID Diamonds = 1.g3, 1.g4, 1.b3, 1.f4, 1.Nf3, 1.c4, & more 1.d4 Openings King’s Fianchetto (Benko), Grob, Nimzowitsch-Larsen, Bird’s, Reti, English, Trompowsky, Torre, Budapest, Old Indian, Benoni, Dutch, Stonewall The Publisher, SynHeme, also manufactures a set specific to the Sicilian Defense, with plans for other decks focused on the French & Spanish defenses. Other products include decks for the Periodic Table and guitar scales and chords. The Bottom Line So there you have it; the opening moves to 52 different chess openings printed on playing cards. On the positive side, the cards are well produced on plastic coated stock and thus should last a while. However, while the cards are not bad looking, I have to ask one big question: Are they really necessary? I guess the answer depends on how long you’ve been playing chess. If you are new to the game and want a quick overview of the major chess openings than these cards will teach them to you. Since they’re small, you can take them with you and thumb through them when you have a few minutes to kill, such as when you’re waiting in line at Starbucks for that Vanilla Latte. Actually, I just now thought of a game you could play with them: you and one of your chess friends could take turns cutting the deck and whichever opening you cut to, you have to play those opening moves in a blitz game! This would be a fun way to actually try out and get to learn the move order of each of the different openings. Having said this, I do feel that if you are a more experienced player, i.e., you have been playing chess for over a year, odds are you know most of these openings and those few that you don’t you can always look up online or in an opening’s book. Therefore, I won’t be giving my usual 1-10 rating for this review, but rather I’ll just say that I recommend Chess Opening Playing Cards for those fairly new to chess, but think those who have been playing for a while will find the material too basic.
Contact the Publisher at: EMail : contact@synheme.com SynHeme
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