By now I have seen many books nominated but I seriously doubt if any of them is worse than the book I mentioned. It is even worse than I care to remember and (un?)fortunately Cheescafe is there to remind me for the second time:

http://www.chesscafe.com/fromarchive/fromarchive.htm

barnaby wrote on 10/20/13 at 17:46:55:


I am not at all offended, but I am not sure we're talking about the same book. If you click on your earlier link, you get to a book which only contains 1.e4 e5 games--no Caro-Kanns. Look in the table of contents.

Bibs wrote on 10/20/13 at 07:39:47:



well, at risk at offending mr descartes, (in my perspective) it is filled with cheap tricks and traps and only aims to create wins in the opening and does nothing else to improve a persons understanding of the game

the majority of the traps offered in the book are old and well known (and won lots of games in the 19th century !) ...   easily refuted with good play and decent understanding

my opinion is that the majority of works by pandolfini are rather superficial


an example of one of his lines for white he offers 5. Qe2 v. the caro-kann:

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Qe2 Ngf6?? 6.Nd6#

Bibs wrote on 10/20/13 at 07:39:47:


I own that book. It's good. It's not supposed to be a repertoire or even an opening guide. It's actually a specialized tactics book, like Convekta's excellent Encyclopedia of Opening Blunders. And the puzzles are not all for beginners. For those who followed the advice of Dvoretsky, Yusupov, Lars Bo Hansen, MacDonald, et. al., rather than that of Markovich, and after a certain point played an opening suiting their style rather than use the Two Knights' Defence all the way up to FIDE 2000, this opus of Caruana's first coach provides a nice sampling of some of what they were missing--the disasters that happen in the early stages of the Open Games once you're out of book. 

I doubt whether many books have actually lowered their readers' playing strength, except from misuse. In fact, I doubt that many players' playing strength actually decreases at all except through inactivity, stress, and age. The only real cost of studying a bad book is wasted time.

Perhaps an opening book that doesn't fit one's natural playing style can temporarily lower one's playing strength (even if in the long run it raises it). But this is just another case of misuse. 

barnaby wrote on 10/19/13 at 23:58:58:


Helpful to explain why if not self-evident.

Yes, Northeastern is a real university, and not a bad one.  I once knew someone, a Navy Lieutenant, who had graduated from there.

Bibs wrote on 09/01/13 at 10:44:33:

I think you underestimate the stupidity of humans