Mastering the Chess Openings: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Modern Chess Openings, Volume 2

Mastering the Chess Openings #2

by John L. Watson

In the second volume of this series, John Watson concentrates on the queen's pawn (d pawn) openings. As with volume one the emphasis is on explanation of the underlying ideas and strategies behind each opening system and the various plans available to each side. By using key games and verbal explanations Watson shows how the theory of each opening has developed with time and why certain lines are nowadays more popular than others.

The book is aimed at club and tournament players and offers enough information to enable a player to take up an opening, without being a comprehensive reference on d pawn openings. More coverage is given to popular openings that have stood the test of time but many sidelines are covered in the nine chapters:
1 Introduction to 1 d4 and the Closed Games
2 Queen's Gambit Declined
3 Slav and Semi-Slav
4 Introduction to the Indian Defences
5 Nimzo-Indian Defence
6 Queen's Indian Defence
7 King’s Indian Defence
8 Grünfeld Defence
9 Modern Benoni

Genres: Chess, Reference

320 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2007

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

John Leonard Watson is an International chess Master and author.

Reviews

[Ray]

I have been reading this slowly over the last years, focusing on openings that I actually play. This book is really helpful for a more advanced (USCF rating 1600+) tournament player, as it teaches the concepts and main ideas of chess openings.

I was in a recent tournament recently where this book made the difference between victory and defeat. My opponent was playing an opening I didn't know, but because of the patterns I learned in this book I had a good idea of what strategy to play, and was able to get the win.

[Mr_Toad]

Cleverly acquaints readers with the strategies behind most of the main openings - rather than just providing masses of indigestible variations.