FCO: Fundamental Chess Openings

Well of course it gets a 5-star review because it's a modern classic of chess literature. I'm no chess expert, just an enthusiast and adult improver (I hope). Here's what makes this a great book IMHO: What I appreciate most is the structure of the book. The first half of the book is d4 openings, the second half is e4. Each half starts with a little 3-page essay with a paragraph or two on about a dozen of the most-used openings that spring from that first move, roughly organized in historical order. Then the 200 pages that follow are chapters which tackle more in-depth exploration of each of those openings, organized in the order that they are mentioned in that first essay. Even at over 450 pages, this book can only scratch the surface of opening theory; you can get an entire book about the Ruy-Lopez or Sicilian or King's Indian openings just on their own. But he gets you to about move 6 or 7 on most of the main lines in each, which is more than enough to develop a solid intermediate understanding of each, and he also includes some of the history of the development of each, which I found really fun. Finally, like most of the great chess writers, he writes with great excitement and enthusiasm. I have only had this a few months and have explored like 10% of it, but I am more than satisfied with this addition to my chess library.

Without a doubt this is the best opening book to start with, and possibly the only one you might need for quite a while. Oh how I wish this had been available when I started out. What's the first thing a beginner does (ignoring all advice)? He starts surveying all the openings to find a few that he likes (and then changes his mind repeatedly). Before this book that involved buying a book on each opening, at great expense, both of money and time. That's no longer necessary - you can buy this one and get all you need for that purpose. It does expect some experience, but no more than any opening book does. The book reminds me alot of Watson's Mastering the Chess Openings, except that it's much broader and less deep. It's far less selective and sophisticated than Watson, but it's not superficial at all given the target audience. It gives very good explanations of the general themes, historical development, and early move orders of pretty much every opening you could want, although it does have a strong focus on mainlines. For a beginner or intermediate, this book will give you enough theory to get started - your first half dozen moves with some deviations - but not enough to distract you from tactics and endgames. Coaches should love it. I'm sure they would tell you it's all you need until you are an expert. The book is targeted at non-Masters. It's perfect for beginners to intermediates - I would say this is an essential book for beginner to Class C. Higher class players would still get a lot of value as a reference for unfamiliar openings they encounter and for broadening their repertoires, but I suspect an Expert would get diminished value from it. It has 450 some pages of large page size and has a huge amount of prose for each bit of analysis. I bought this expecting to be disappointed by superficiality, but I was wrong. After the fact, it's hard to imagine this book hasn't existed until now. Thank you Grandmaster van der Sterren. Thank you Gambit. Update: I find myself immersed in this thing all the time - it's addictive. I defy anybody in the target audience to read about their favorite opening and not learn something.

It really gets 4.5 stars. This is a nice primer to all the openings, without going deep into all the variation and theories. This shouldn't be a surprise: there are so many openings, and even more variations and sub-variations to each, that it would take well over a thousand pages to cover it all in detail. This is not the intention of this book. Rather, the goal is to introduce each opening, with main variations lines to each, and supplement it with basic explanatory prose. On this score, the book achieves what it sets out to do. The strong points of this book are primarily its prose and its organization. The prose is excellent. The author provides a nice mini history of each opening, in addition to a few sentences on the theory. He then gives main variations that are typically played, and explores each one, with a few sub-variations. Occasionally, he mentions the development of the opening variations through the years, who popularized them, who refuted them, who famously played them and etc. The prose is also sparkled here and there with some dry humor and witty commentary, which give this book a particular flavor (i.e. "this move is meant to make a knight on e2 look silly"; etc.). The other strong point of the book is its exceptional organization. It is easy to follow all the variations and sub-variations given, because the book is nicely organized to keep the reader focused and without going into long and distracting lines of analysis. All the main variation and sub-variation lines that the author highlights are in bold and the few variants of variations/sub-variations are in normal font. The weaker points of the book, IMO, are that the author doesn't often mention (though sometimes he does) the common traps that exist in the openings. And I also wish that more theoretical grounding was provided for the openings and its variations. To be sure, the author usually mentions a few sentences about the strengths and weaknesses of the openings, but never going much under the surface. Of course, great depth is not expected in a survey book of this sort; but some depth coverage would have been nice. This book is geared toward intermediate players, and perhaps as a refresher course to more advanced players. It would have no use for more seasoned masters of the game, and might be a little advanced for the early beginners. In conclusion, it's a solid primer for all the openings and provides a good introduction to each, thus serving as a starting point for further and deeper exploration of each particular opening and/or variation.

like a chess bible, paper and quality are good. An hardcover will be a good idea and redesign this cover will be "fundamental" , anyway this is a must have.

definitely one of the best or probably THE best opening book you can get, explains the history and each variation very clearly and is perfect for beginners ,intermediate and advanced players as well ....

Très complet, tout est détaillé et bien expliqué. Au top

Preso per mio figlio che me l'ha chiesto, mi sembra soddisfatto, l'ha trovato interessante.

Well written book and a simple YouTube search on recommended chess books will show this is a highly recommended book and for good reason! Well written and easy to follow and play with a board to learn the theory behind the moves as you play. If you know the name of opening you'd like simply refer to index or chapters and find and understand the main lines, and variations of each of them. Highly recommend! 5 out of 5