How about the actual chess content? Ignoring the rules stuff for a mo.

Would be interested in looking at the saemisch NID, 4p KID. How is the coverage of these lines? Skeleton repertoire?

Antillian wrote on 02/16/10 at 12:33:05:


The publisher, New in Chess, is a sponsor of Chessvibes 

Although I own no book by Moskalenko the guy did have the guts to put out something out of the ordinary.

Quote:


I find this the most stunning part of the review. Above all Moskalenko is a GM and probably knows a lot of GM's and IM's. So he could have a clue what he is talking about.

Perhaps it comes from the popular view that tittled players 'know' something that the rest of us don't. If there were trully universal rules then chess could be very simple: learn those rules and prosper. 

As is, chess theory is quite diverse and confusing. What works in one position could be disastrous in an other position and even tittled players don't always identify the correct plan in a given position. 

In this case, the author chose to be philosophical, and the T1-T5 desciptions also just seem very distracting.

There are other books around...

I agree completely, Schaak.   

It's clear that while GM Moskalenko thought about his response carefully, Arne Moll just banged his out quickly.  I say that because he could have made the same points in about 5 less paragraphs.   

Regardless of the quality of the review itself, the way chessvibes handled the response is sadly disrespectful of the author.

next round:
http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/gm-moskalenko-responds-to-chessvibes-review/#m...

Strange - I think the touchstone system is one of the easiest to use for a chessplayer. I really like it  - just think about 1-2-3-4-5 and see what comes to your mind when you look at a position.

The book itself offers lots of explanations to this approach and additionally gives insight in some interesting openings and Moskalenkos very special thoughts.

Surely one of the better books one can buy.

I have read this book. Well, like I read all my chessbooks...leafing through them and sometimes reading a section that looks interesting more thoroughly.

I bought this book because I liked "The flexible French" by the same author. That was a nice mixture of fundamental opening theory and assorted interesting stuff. Sometimes a little unstructured, but that was not a big problem. 

In "Revolutionize your chess" there is also interesting stuff. It is much more unstructured however, so much that it bothered me. Also, the revolutionary chess system doesn't convince at all - not that I expected this, I would be genuinely surprised if some chess author came up with something that actually works and doen't involve hours of study of endgames, tactics and analyses.

My judgment: some interesting stuff but not well organized, does not give a revolutionary new look at the game, necessity to buy depending on severity of chessbook-buying-addiction.