the eBooks (Openings)

by siegrun , Sunday, July 24, 2005, 22:02 (7208 days ago) @ Don Lester

? ? Has anyone read it yet? Any comments, good or bad?
?
Hi, I've now read the openings ebook & I'm quite as clever as I was before. Howver, I learned the difference between a 'complete' and a 'repertoire' openings book. After a lot of thought I decided that complete means its devoted to just one opening in detail & the repertoire is about a lot of openings starting with the same move.
I've read similar advice before & it never helped me at all, because I don't know my style. Asking another club member is a good idea. But if they asked me what suits them best, I wouldn't know how to advise them.
As black I've been struggling for years vainly learning various responses to e4. Then, last year, a stronger player looked at 8 of my games & decided that I ought to play the Caro Kann & hey presto! I won my first game with it & I only knew the first 3 moves. so, looking at masters' games is good, but it doesn't help much at my level, because my opponents don't make book moves.
How come, all you opening advisers never suggest the Caro? It saves so much study, because you can play it against nearly every first white move! I could have saved myself a lot of time, had I known about it years ago. I'm not winning all my games, but you can't expect that anyway, unless you're good at tactics.
I don't like the format of Tony's ebook. I'm itching to print it out & read it like a book - when you look at a game you either have to try seeing it blind or you get a wee chess set out.
Andrew's ebook on the other hand is much better - you can see the games in chessbase & I'm looking forward to studying them when I've finished my monthly quota.
I'm pleased that yous are still improving the site & am recommending it to all. I especially like the tactics library & the fact that we can look at all of them. Tactics is probably the bit I need to practise most.
However, I've still got a gripe with your front page - the page which you show to the world! The photos are of a poor quality, e.g.Andrew's photo is most unclear, yet on his ebook, its perfect. I paid for the course before I saw it - I wouldn't have done that had I seen your front page. We do judge a book by its cover!
On the other hand I think its good that you let the general public have a go at some of the things for free, its better than just demanding to buy, buy, buy.
All the best, siegrun