I used to have that book, got misplaced somewhere :(
There is a lot of text, it was fun to read. Some lines are fun to play, others are complete rubbish. I must point out that Mr Schiller does not endorse these rubbish lines, he merely points them out.
All in all, it's probably a better guide to how to play against these openings then how to play with them.
As for other unorthodox openings books -- how about the Secrets of Opening Surprises series by New In Chess? They're up to SOS 11 now. Their site has PDFs with a list of variations for each booklet.
You may have heard this at least a dozen times, but let me point out that according to Wikipedia, "[Tony Miles'] review of Eric Schiller's book Unorthodox Chess Openings (Cardoza Publishing, 1998) which appeared in Kingpin consisted of just two words: "Utter crap"."
The Borders here in Nashville has a pretty good chess section, from a number of books standpoint. The problem is, the section was obviously stocked by someone who knows nothing about chess.
Case in point, there is no opening book on the Sicilian. Not one. One book on the Ruy Lopez. Nothing for the King's Gambit, Queens Gambit, KID, Italian Game, Scotch Game, or Dutch. There is one French defense book, and one Caro Kann.
But they had, last time I was in there, three copies of "Play the Polish!" Weird.
The Borders here in Nashville has a pretty good chess section, from a number of books standpoint. The problem is, the section was obviously stocked by someone who knows nothing about chess.
Case in point, there is no opening book on the Sicilian. Not one. One book on the Ruy Lopez. Nothing for the King's Gambit, Queens Gambit, KID, Italian Game, Scotch Game, or Dutch. There is one French defense book, and one Caro Kann.
But they had, last time I was in there, three copies of "Play the Polish!" Weird.
The title was probably "Play 1.b4!", by Conticello and Lapshun. No book with the title "Play the Polish" was ever published.
The title was probably "Play 1.b4!", by Conticello and Lapshun. No book with the title "Play the Polish" was ever published.
He's from Poland so he should know.
Hi this is killthequeen. I am looking for a book on unorthodox, or strange chess openings. There is a book by Eric Schiller called "Unorthodox chess openings" I have not read much about it but would like to ask the following.
1. Is it simply notation and games on end, or is there text?
2. Is the variety of openings good?
3. Is it very heavy to read or light-Is it relaxing?
4. Does it rely heavily on games?
5. Do you need to have a chessboard to read it with?
6. Is it interesting and engrossing?
7. Does it also have a slight historical side to it?
Thank you for your comments. Please note that this forum provides comments for not just this book but for ANY book on unusual openings, or even the game in general. And if there are any other books, the 7 questions apply to them too.
Thank you all, and please have a nice day!