by mentioning the players who invented or popularized it) and summarize the options available for White and Black.

Each opening has an individual introduction that will typically outline its important strategic concepts, present some historical background (e.g.

The final section, thankfully, is again straightforward it covers the flank openings.Ī sizable attractive feature of MCO is that it does not consist simply of language-free symbols. Likewise, section five (‘Indian Openings’) includes all defences arising from 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4, except for the Budapest, which is again in section four (of course, one could argue that the Budapest is not an ‘Indian’ defence, but nor is the Catalan, and that is in section five). This seems anomalous and overall one could say that section four is something of a ‘sundries’ section, including as it does the Dutch, the Colle and the Polish, amongst others: these systems are quite unlike each other. So section three (‘Double Queen Pawn Openings’) covers all Black responses to the Queen’s Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4), except for the Albin Counter Gambit (2 … e5), which is given in section 4 (‘Other Queen Pawn Openings’). Sections three, four and five together cover the openings arising after 1.d4, but here the demarcation of material is somewhat fuzzy. Sections one and two cover the open games (1.e4 e5) and the semi-open games (1.e4 and any reply other than 1 … e5) respectively and here the organization of material is quite straightforward. The openings are set out in six sections. Generally, MCO is a user-friendly book in the way that its content is organized, though there are a few quirks. And MCO fulfills the latter objective admirably it is a good first port of call and it will be the one-stop-shop of choice for many. For with regard to the openings, one should strive to know everything about something (that is, to specialize) and something about everything (that is, to have a wide general knowledge that one can call upon when needed). One would have to answer with a guarded ‘Yes’. But the question might well be asked: is there still a place for a single-volume work on all the openings in this age of specialist opening monographs and mega databases? For your second lesson, I want you to do it again.’ It is a telling anecdote, which illustrates the high regard in which Modern Chess Openings (henceforth, MCO) is held. ‘For your first lesson,’ Fischer supposedly told him, ‘I want you to play through every column in Modern Chess Openings, including footnotes. Batsford’s Modern Chess Openings, Fifteenth Editionīobby Fischer’s biographer, Frank Brady, relates an occasion when he asked his subject to tutor him in chess.

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