Whenever I spend a lot of time with my little brother, we end up playing a lot of chess. I want to get him a book on openings. Ideally it would be both accessible and fairly thorough.

I know we have some chess players here, can you recommend anything? I may get him this book too: click, which I think indicates the level and style I'm looking for (although not the aesthetics... I'm worried he'll feel dumb reading a book that looks like that, even though the material is pretty good).

For beginners of all ages, I recommend "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess".

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It may be a bit advanced considering the one you've linked, but I find Jeremy Silman's "Amateur's Mind" and "Reassess your chess" outstanding general thinking books, albeit not aimed at openings.

It tool me a while to remember what it was...at about age 12 I got a lot stronger when I read Reuben Fine's "Ideas Behind The Chess Openings". It was written in 1943 and is still in print today.

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I have no idea how strong you or your brother are at chess. The books topazg recommended are great for players under 1800 USCF or so.

Really, if I wanted only one book on the opening, I would just buy an MCO (Modern Chess Openings), assuming that series is still in print. Around 12 years ago I was using the 13th and 14th editions. It's easy to use and comprehensive enough for anyone without a title.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. The Fine books looks, well, fine, if a bit musty typographically speaking, so I ordered it. Modern chess openings looked like something I might get if I ever start caring about chess (and I much prefer the modern notation to the older style you see in so many legacy opening books...), but a little too spartan for a kid.

The other books look great, but not quite right... he would probably benefit from the Bobby Fischer book, but not enough to feel a challenge. The Silman books seem like they would be tough sledding for me, let alone him.

The Fine book is a classic, but you do have to be aware that it is very out of date, and some of what he says has to be taken with a few grains of salt. It's not just that specific variations are out of date. Some of the ideas are out of date. Still, it's a good book for showing how to think about openings.

I think the Yasser Seirawan "Winning Chess" books are generally pretty good. Actually, studying openings isn't really as useful as people make it seem. Practicing tactics is a lot more important. Susan Polgar's "Chess Tactics for Champions" is good, as is the more advanced "1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations" by Fred Reinfeld.

Another good book is Steve Giddins's "50 Essential Chess Lessons" which has 50 annotated games, where the annotations emphasize ideas and go easy on the variations.

Is there anything specific I should be wary of before giving him the Fine book?

The problem is really that some absurdly high proportion of our games start out 1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Bg5 h6 4. Bf4 g5, or something closely related. Then in the minority of the games where he wants to try something creative, that normally involves Nb3, or throwing his queen into the center, or something bizarre like that. So I think that finding some other openings that he likes and practicing them would serve him well.

I haven't looked at the Fine book in many many years, so I'm going on hazy recollections here...but I do remember that in the section on the Sicilian (because I used to play this opening), he says that the main idea for Black is to prepare to advance the d-pawn to d5, and advancing the e-pawn is disadvantageous. This isn't true in all variations. In a number of important variations, the best plan for Black is to prepare for an e5 advance.

I also remember that he pooh-poohs the Scotch Game, which reflects grandmaster opinion in the 40's. However, the Scotch was revived in the 90's and is now regarded as a perfectly fine opening. There's other stuff like that.

On the other hand, you will (I think) see an explanation of why after 1 d4 d5, the strongest reply is 2 c4 (the Queen's Gambit.)

Yes, that sounds fine. At our level any opening that has a name is probably as good as any other... like the 3-5 in go. Thanks for the warning!

d4 d5 Nc3 is definitely inferior to e4 e5 Nf3. While it is true that for players under 1600 elo tactical training is supreme, basic opening knowledge is really imperative if you want to put yourself in a position to play favorable tactics.

Ultimately though, the most efficient way to improve at chess in the long term is to get very strong at endings. Start by mastering the basic king and pawn endings, then move on to the Philidor and Lucena positions, and later study the basic minor piece and rook + minor piece endings. You will win and save more games here than anywhere else.

Haha, thanks guys but I'm not the one who I want to improve, it's my little brother. Given that he's only ever forced me to a winnable endgame position once in his life, I think we should start a little earlier.

I just saw this topic, so this might be too late, but there are two recent surveys of chess openings that are really good (and much-needed updates on the ancient Fine book):

Sam Collins, Understanding the Chess Openings
Paul van der Sterren, Fundamental Chess Openings (FCO)

Both of them go through pretty much the entire constellation of chess openings, explaining the main ideas and exploring the principal variations. FCO is about twice as long, which means it both has more information and is a bit harder to read front-to-back. Both are very well written.

couldn't agree more with you. It's what my husband use to teach our son.

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