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A very disappointing book. It has a lot of pages but no opening is covered in anything like real depth.It tries to show how games develop beyond the opening, which is admirable, but often these games proceed way beyond any relevance to the position that came out of the opening and the type of play that is characteristic.There are also enormous gaps in the coverage with no mention of almost all the main lines in openings such as Sicilian Najdorf.These ommissions combined with very poor error checking (in some cases 1. e4 appears when it should be 1.d4) mean this is not a book I'd recommend to anyone. Not because it's THAT bad but there are much better books available.If you want to buy a 'fat' openings book, buy Nunns Chess Openings which is in a totally different class. NCO is very comprehensive, up-to-date and the condensed text which introduces each opening gives a much better overview than Schiller's work. But then NCO is authored by three leading grandmasters, among others ...

This book does exactly what the author intended it to do. It is NOT an in-depth book for every variation. It is a good, solid book with lots of verbage to help you understand the basics of a new opening. Do you think you may want to investigate several new lines, but are not sure if you want to buy a whole library on that one variation? Get this book. I guarantee you will be pulling it down off the shelf after every visit to the club. "What was that line that person played?" Eric will enlighten you in a way the average player should be able to grasp it. Buy MCO, and you will have a most complete set of reference books.

Eric Schiller has really answered the prayers for such a magnificent book on Chess Openings. This book is really excellent as it caters to the needs of different levels of players (especially for novice). It has detailed explanations for the theme behind each major openings & some on the variations. Also, Eric has given some good advice as to what repertoire to employ according to the skill(experience) of the players in question. Especially of interest are the ECO codes found at the back of the book. Books from MCO & NCO does not include such ECO codings. Overall, Eric Schiller has written a very comprehensive & detailed treatise on Modern Chess Openings. It'll surely be the de-facto standard for the serious chess players. It definitely deserves a place in the chess library. Highly recommended.

OK as a survey of openings for the beginner, who may even pick up a few pointers. But do not expect to learn any opening from this book. It can be used as a starting point for further investigation, but has limited usefulness after that. This was my first Schiller/Cardoza book and I was appalled by the lack of editing. E.g., wrong diagrams; starting one of the featured games from move 4 and having virtually all of the same game included as a sideline discussion in the previous featured game; howlers such as "Black resigned. Black won.", "Sahevening" Sicilian, and many many more.

After reading it almost from the begining to end, I have to say something to balance the stars average on the top of this page. It is a huge work of Mr. Shiller, undoubtelly, but it is the kind of book you should think off just when you are prone to pick openings to make a repertory. Basically the book does not cover variations, it covers a wide variety of opening ideas. Besides, sometimes the games given are quite weird examples of the opening application. So, after you have played some openings and you think its time to make some serious decisions about repertory, pick this one before you get some deep and complicated ones and you should have some insights that would make you feel what openings "fits" you. Not considering the above problems, its a fine book and I don't regret to have it.