Two great new books: don't read this post

Two mini book reviews continuing the theme of my previous post (openings and endgames): one is an endgame book, the other is an opening book. Both of the books are so good that I hesitate to tell anyone about them: revealing them will only make my competition better. As a compromise, I've decided to include a no-read clause for this post: if you think we might play each other in the future, you must stop reading now. Thank you for your cooperation.

The first book is Silman's Complete Endgame Course. This book is wonderful, and has instantly become my favorite endgame book. My other endgame books will be used as supplements. This elegant 500+ page book has a unique organization: instead of organizing things by topic, he organizes them by rating. The first chapter on basic checkmates is for people just starting to a rating of 999. Part II, for those rated up to 1200, includes discussion of more difficult mates and the opposition in King versus pawn endgames. There are 9 Chapters, with the last instructive chapter being for people rated to 2400. Each chapter includes exercises at the end with annotated solutions.

I just finished the bit on Philidor, Lucena, and the encircling maneuver (positions 1-3 from my previous post). The explanations were not only clear and helpful, but actually entertaining. Silman clearly worked hard to find the perfect mix of textual explanations and variation peddling (he takes five pages to explain the Lucena position). The images of the chess board are ample enough to follow along without a board (though of course for endgames it is key to work things out for yourself on a board or computer).

This is the first endgame book I have that really attempts to explain the endgame. It is not just an encyclopedia of positions (all the books have pretty much the same positions). In addition to the key positions and diagrams, he provides useful general principles on the sidebar, and repeats them periodically without being monotonous.

I have heard that he comes off as an arrogant prick in The Amateur's Mind. In this book he comes off as someone excited by his program of study, and who really wants to lift endgame training books up to a new level. He has succeeded.

The second book that I was very pleasantly surprised by was Play the Ruy Lopez by IM Andrew Greet. Opening book authors take note: Greet has just outdone you. This 375-page book is a truly comprehensive look at the Ruy. It is only after 240 pages that he gets to move five, as he thoroughly addresses black's deviations starting when the Ruy begins (3. B5). He recommends a cute little line (5. Qe2) for white, the Worrall System, which avoids all the theory associated with the open Ruy (5. 0-0 Nxe4!).

It will be easiest to say what I like about this book by first listing my pet peeves about opening books:
1) Lazy-ass author squeezes out an annotated game dump and calls it a repertoire.
2) No explanation of the basic plans for each side coming out of the opening.
3) The book advertises itself as an opening about X, but in fact 90% of the book is about a subvariation of X after move ten, and the last chapter includes one or two games that are meant to cover all other possibilities.
4) Lazy-ass author constantly says "And this transposes to another line in the book" without telling you which line (it isn't always obvious to the reader, but the author could put in about six seconds of work and improve the book tremendously).
5) Unobjective, too optimistic about the repertoire.
6) No index of variations to be found in the book.
7) Dry, mechanical writing style: the book doesn't seem to have been written by an actual person.

What is so good about Greet's book? He does the exact opposite of 1-7. To Everyman Chess, kudos for bucking the page limit usually imposed on chess authors' opening books: this is a tour de force, and while I am technically not supposed to be focusing much on openings right now, this book will make this charge very difficult.

I'll end my praise and leave you with a quote from Greet's introduction (p. 14):

One of my goals in writing this book was to make it suitable for as many chess players as possible, from casual club players all the way up to, dare I say, grandmasters. So to begin with, it was necessary for me to include a lot of textual explanations in order to enable less experienced players, or newcomers to this opening, to absorb all of the key ideas behind the move. At the same time I have conducted quite a rigorous theoretical examination of every major variation in order to cater for more advanced players who demaned a deeper level of opening preparation. [...] I will just mention that I have never, at any time, taken the opinion of any other author or commentator at face value. Every single move and evaluation has been carefully checked by my own eyes, as well as with at least one (and sometimes all three) of the strong analysis engines mentioned in the Bibliography.