Winning Chess Openings

by Yasser Seirawan

Start every game with confidence!

The two greatest challenges for beginning chess players are not only to survive the openings phase, but also to choose appropriate attack and defence formations in the process. Winning Chess Openings shows players how to do both. In Yasser Seirawan's entertaining, easy-to-follow style, they are shown formations that can be used with other White or Black pieces.

Winning Chess Openings explains how to:
*Build a safe house for a king
*Estimate losses of ten moves or fewer
*Utilise the elements: time, force, space, and pawn structure
*Plan strategy based on time-tested opening principles of play
*Employ a defence for Black against any White opening
*Apply an opening for White used by World Champions

Winning Chess Openings will help readers develop a solid understanding of opening principles that can be applied to every game they play--without having to memorize a dizzying array of tedious and lengthy opening lines.

Genres: Chess, Nonfiction, Games, Reference

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Yasser Seirawan is an American chess grandmaster and four-time United States champion. He is a published chess author and commentator. His peak FIDE rating was 2658, which he reached in November, 2011.

Reviews

[Theron Prosper · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was in a pretty bad slump. I was losing constant games, too use to only playing my friends. It was after one clear drubbing that I thought to myself, “Enough is enough!”. I needed to understand the game better, and I knew the best way was to learn the openings and the philosophies behind them. Winning Chess Openings by Yassar Seirawan is a superb book for how it methodically goes through the thinking of a chess beginner to the mentality of grandmasters, old and young. He goes through so many lines and variations, and it can seem to be a lot. It was necessary to have a physical chess board in front of me as I went through every single line he talks about in the book. I started naturally seeing them as I played chess, and I started winning.

Seirawan’s voice and personality also comes through clear. You can feel his passion for the game, and he tells his own anecdotes about learning chess throughout the book. It is also comforting that he admits that even as an old grandmaster, he does not know everything and is still learning. He talks of his many losses to prove it. He also imparts solid wisdom of using his book to find the way that feels comfortable for you to play. I highly recommend that anyone who plays chess should have a copy of this book, especially for anyone who is interested in getting better. This is just one of the seven books in his Winning Chess series, and I will definitely be reading the other ones.

[Dan Warren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third book in Seirawan's Winning Chess series that I've finished. I had been curious about openings for a while - I felt like I was making moves at random to open games - and in general this book made me understand basic opening principles and gave me an excellent overview of the most commonly used openings and defenses. That said, I got a bit bogged down in the middle portion of the book, in which Seirawan led me through dozens of openings/defenses/variations and the common lines of play that go with them. It would have been nice if the introductory sections (interesting anecdotes about how his opening choices changed and improved as he was learning chess) and the ending section (in which he offered more concrete solutions to beginning players as to how to handle the opening phase) were expanded.

As a whole, though, Seirwan's book was, and will be, an invaluable resource in improving my chess game. I'm a huge fan, and I'll definitely be reading through the entire series.

I recommend Seirawan's books to anyone looking to learn chess, starting with the excellent primer Play Winning Chess, which starts from the most basic ideas and builds to more complex tactics and strategy.

Highly recommended!

[Erman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seirawan naif üslubuyla açılış kavramı hakkında en ufak bilgisi olmayan okuyucuları hedefleyerek hemen hemen bütün temel açılış pozisyonlarını detaylardan olabildiğince kaçarak anlatıyor. Eğer satranca yeni yeni merak sardıysanız bu kitabı okuduktan sonra da kaybetmeye devam edeceksiniz; yalnızca niçin kaybettiğiniz hakkında daha iyi bir fikriniz olacak!

[Karl Hallbjörnsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seirawan is very good.

[William Herbst · Rating 2 out of 5]

Better than those books that simply list opening as Seirawan includes some explanation of the strengths and weaknesses involved in these positions but ultimately it is difficult for me to assess exactly how much worse some of the positions arrived at are from others because the book leaves you off at the beginning of the mid game and for most of us patzers the progression to the end game from there is opaque.

[Noah Seymour · Rating 3 out of 5]

Proved invaluable in my earliest days of playing chess. Provides a brief introduction to various popular openings, detailing various reasonable continuations with a thorough examination of the associated theory to ensure the chess player can develop an understanding of their moves.

[Onur the reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Temel şah ve vezir piyonu açılışlarını, bunların karşı taraf için oynanabilecek temel savunma oyunlarını çeşitli varyantları ile anlatan güzel bir kitap.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great primer on the essential openings, and, most importantly, the ideas and plans behind them. I haven't adopted the final repertoire recommendations, but that doesn't weaken the rest of the book.

[Kevin McDonagh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great walkthrough a useful repertoire.

[Çağlayan Taybaş · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seirawan'dan yine harika öğretici bir satranç kitabı!

[Mark Galassi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yasser Seirawan is one of the top chess players in the US. He has written a collection of introductory books on all aspects of chess, and he is a frequent lecturer at the St. Louis chess club, with several of his lectures being available on YouTube.

In general I think Yasser Seirawan's pedagogical approach is excellent: he is pleasant, out-of-the-box, has a sweet sense of humor, and has a clear point of view on what someone's stumbling blocks might be as she learns an aspect of chess.

This book on openings takes a particular approach which I think can be quite useful.

He starts by showing how he started his games as a beginner, with a frank and humorous account of his early silly mistakes. In showing how he progresses to (still lousy) opening approaches he can help a reader understand that process and go through it more quickly.

Then he continues with a tour of all the more important openings. The tour is rather comprehensive and gives good conceptual and philosophical explanations of aspects of the openings.

Finally he has three chapters which propose a repertoire so that you can learn just a small amount of opening theory and get going quickly without falling in to poor situations:

one chapter for white (Barcza opening, i.e. King's Indian Attack)

one chapter for black against 1. d4 (he proposes the King's Indian Defence)

and one chapter for black against 1. e4 (he proposes the Pirc defense)

The choice is a good one because with these openings you can develop in your own with limited clashes, which is good for someone transitioning from beginner to club/tournament player.

I think that this approach is excellent: everyone should have a reasonably comprehensive tour of the opening zoo, and everyone should have a simple repertoire. This book is nice because if you want to go beyond the simple repertoire you can always dive into specific sections on specific openings.

I would maybe criticize two things about this book as not having reached perfection:

1. typesetting is always a challenge in chess books -- how do you clearly separate sections, variations, topics, ...? in this book you have to get used to how he starts discussing one variation of an opening, and then he steps back and shows what other variations could have been. I don't find his way of doing it immediately intuitive, but I got used to it.

2. it might be nice if the sections on specific openings could clearly delimit a useful overview, after which you have a feeling and can skip the details so as to run on to the end to build your repertoire. Silman's Endgame Course Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner to Master does a good job of separating out the various levels of play so that you can study in different passes.

[Francisco Galán · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Specially liked the last three chapters, in which Yasser gives his opening recommendations.

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very basic book. I am no master on Chess Openings, but this only goes thru basic sets, and doesn't go into a lot of detail regarding the ideas behind the various openings. Still, this was a good read for me since I am still such a rookie. At least now I can put names to the openings I see.

[Tyler Leary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seirawan has done what no other chess writer has managed before: get me to read a chess book beginning to end. If you only play chess in fits and spurts like I do, but like to know the names of openings and their basic strategy, this is a very accessible guide.

[Derek]

Not very good for beginners. No explanation of the symbols used, e.g. Qxe4+ and a4?? or which colour moves first, or which colour the beginner is playing. Not got past page 6 before getting frustrated.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good openings book. Everybody needs one.

[Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seirawan's writing style is entertaining and so easy to follow. Great book. May need to read it twice.

[Yudhveer]

about chess

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

I needed a refresh on Opening strategies, and this book was spot on.