OK let's cut the discussion here. Normally I don't like when people end discussions with "Ok I will agree that we disagree" or "You get to be right and I get to be left alone".

On the back cover the book claims to be "A comprehensive guide to a highly popular opening". Being that English is not my first language I have perhaps misunderstood the meaning of the word comprehensive, so I just consulted the ALD. Comprehensive means "that which comprehends". Comprehend in turn means either "fully understood" or "include".

My final point is this: MN's book is neither

1) comprehensive nor
2) correct.

Now 1) is claimed by the book itself, but it stands beyond dispute that the book is NOT a comprehensive view of the KG.

2) Regardless of whether a book pretends to be comprehensive or not, whether it is a collection of annotated games or a theoretical overview, one must demand some sort of honesty.

Being a physicist/mathematician I find it totally unacceptable when chess books perpetuates refuted variations when the refutation are widely known or easy to find (perhaps with a computer). I find it equally unacceptable when references are used selectively according to the author's predilections.
Even if it is 'just' a chess book and not a scientific article there is no excuse for ignoring the facts and misusing other sources.
When a mathematical conjecture is proven wrong, the community moves on and disgards the conjecture as such.
Scores of variations in MN's book are so easy to prove wrong and the refutations were right there for MN to behold. Chess variations are not contingent, and therefore it is simply not true that the book (and I mean the whole book as one item) can be useful for some while useless for others. The book does not stand up to any measure of honesty. Disputing this is tantamount to claiming that 2+2 = 3 is just as fine as 2+2 = 4 or that "Intelligent Design"/Creationism is just as useful a scientific theory as Evolution.

One last point: MN spends a lot of time on the variations after 3...d6 4.d4 g5 . In my experience more than 80% of players below 2000 Elo don't play this with Black. They play 3...d6 4.d4 Nf6 or 4...Bg4. So if you are playing the KG with White at above 2000 Elo you are left with a book that is no help at all and full of mistakes. If you are below 2000 the lines your opponents play are not even in the book! This begs the question: With whom in mind was this book written?

So I also have to end with something positive. I liked the chapter on the classical defence.

woofwoof wrote on 08/06/06 at 15:29:58:

I haven't read the Korchnoi & Zak book (I have all the easily-found english ones...Gallagher, Soltis (far worse than NM's attempt), Raingruber, NM, our own TJ, etc) but wasn't Korchnoi the guy who turned Spassky onto the KG for White? Or maybe I'm forgetting my history...

Quote:


I guess you don't take the correspondence title as seriously, but I think that's pretty impressive.

Let me end with a positive note on McDonald's book then. As IM Tait already has pointed out, no KG-eer can afford not to buy it, because it contains interesting analysis. So as an addition to other sources it certainly has value.

blueguitar322 wrote on 08/05/06 at 18:30:50:

Dave, 

I get it.  I hear you.  As much fun is it sometimes can be to play the role of agitator, I have no intention of doing this here (at least no further intention).

The McDonald book obviously is considered to be more flawed here than I ever imagined it to be based on my own reading of it.  Arguing any further on this point is an exercise in futility.  

Besides, I think we may soon exceed the forum software's limits on nested quotes.  

OstapBender wrote on 08/05/06 at 16:29:19:

Peace!  
Ostap

blueguitar322 wrote on 08/05/06 at 14:15:34:


OstapBender wrote on 08/04/06 at 20:57:55:

And this is my point.  Obviously, McDonald's book is not just a collection of annotated King's Gambit games, but is claiming to be something more...  My mistake.  

Pointless argument anyway.  When the King's Gambit starts coming up in my OTB games more than once in three years I'm sure to appreciate the importance of exhaustive preparation better.  Until then, I will always suffer from a serious lack of perspective.  The only cure I can envision is to take up the King's Gambit as White.  When this happens, I'll at least know who to ask for book recommendations.

Henceforth there will be no further attempts (by me at least) to defend a book which folks here obviously find indefensible - from any perspective.

If I understand correctly McDonald's book was never intended as a single, self-contained source to prepare someone to play the King's Gambit - with either color!  It is an annotated game collection intended to provide representative, clearly explained King's Gambit games (do I really need to say this one more time?).

Nowhere, except perhaps (incorrectly) in this forum, has it ever been suggested to be more than this.

I merely stated that my impression was that the book seemed to have a bias towards Black's side of the King's Gambit (which seems a bit unusual, particularly for a book on this opening) and that I found it useful for learning how to play the black side of the Kieseritzky.  Playing through the clearly annotated model games gave me a good overview of key ideas in some of the important lines. With only McDonald's book and Emms's Play the Open Games as Black as my main sources I feel completely comfortable facing the King's Gambit.  In the rated games where I have faced the King's Gambit with the black pieces [a rare occurence (I wonder why??), I can only distinctly recall two of these], I have always won.

I will not go so far as to recommend which book(s) should be chosen to prepare someone to play the King's Gambit (with either color) - I'm perfectly happy to let this be the exclusive domain of those with genuine expertise (self-proclaimed or otherwise).

My contention remains that you are maligning McDonalds book mainly for failing to serve a purpose that it was never intended (or claimed) to serve.

And we don't disagree.  I'll settle for we simply can't hear each other's arguments (this is evidently true in at least one direction). 

I will not add to or argue with the specific criticisms leveled at McDonald's book, at least not those regarding the accuracy of his coverage.  I don't play the King's Gambit with White (except occasionally in a blitz game) and I therefore wouldn't be in a position recognize gaps (or even actual errors) in McDonald's theoretical treatment of certain lines, etc.

However, I do own the book (and found it useful for my own needs) and have a couple of observations:

• The book doesn't even pretend to offer a comprehensive theoretical treatment, but merely presents a collection of "model games and clear explanations" to provide a "rapid understanding" of the opening.  It is, and only claims to be, an annotated game collection with only King's Gambit games.
• For some reason, McDonald's book seems to more useful for someone wanting to play Black against the King's Gambit than for someone wanting to take up the King's Gambit as White.  Whether this was an intentional bias (which I doubt, actually, but I won't elaborate on this) or an accidental one, this in no way invalidates it as a book of annotated games intended to provide a flavor of the King's Gambit.

I found McDonald's book useful in learning how to play the black side of the Kieseritzky, but I imagine I might find it lacking if I wanted to play the white side of the same line.  And I felt the game annotations, which quite clearly favored verbal explanation over a dense web of variations, highly informative.  My impression is that King's Gambit players here are maligning this book, in part, for not living up to expectations which seem unrealistic for such a book.

Demonstrable errors in main lines, of course, are another issue.  Before seeing these catalogued so systematically here, I had been blissfully ignorant to the deficiencies in my King's Gambit education which have resulted from my relying on such a disreputable book....

When/if I become a serious King's Gambit player, I'm sure I will take this much more seriously.  When/if that time comes, however, I hope I will still have a few non-KG friends left who will, from time to time, tell me to LIGHTEN UP!