Toxic Precision: The English Opening from Either Side of the Board, 58 Games and Commentary

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback
• Published by: Thinkers Pr Inc. / Chessco September 1991
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0938650610
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0938650614
• Book Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.2 inches
• Weighs: 3.2 ounces

Reader Reviews
This book presents 58 games, all played by Gary Kasparov, that either start out as or transpose into the English opening. Gary played both sides of the board roughly equally, thirty games as white and 28 as black. He won 15 as white and 13 as black, lost only four (2 as each), and naturally drew the rest. All of this is fine, I now have 58 games played by Kasparov (from the years 1978 - 1991) against opponents of similar skill. The problem is there isn't much more to the book then that. The title says there will be commentary, and there is. The editor comments on how deadly Kasparov is while either playing or playing against the English opening. The editor comments about the lack of up-to-date scholarly analysis of the English opening. The editor includes a response to an article (and the original article itself) that states the above. All of this is very interesting, don't get me wrong, but I got the book to help me learn the English opening. What I was expecting when the title said commentary was annotations and comments about the various moves in the games themselves, and that I didn't get. In the editor's defense he was very up front about this and about why he didn't include them, unfortunately that was in the introduction. It is difficult to read a book's introduction when you are buying it on line. So am I happy with the book? Overall, yes. Do I find the book helpful? Again, yes. Is it for the casual chess player? Well, for the novice and the casual player, there are probably much better books to start with. If you are interested in studying some interesting games using the English opening, you could do a lot worse then this book.