MCO or FCO?

Most of chess litterature consisists of books dealing with the opening phase of the game. For practical use one comprehensive book is preferrable and the two standard works are Modern Chess Openings and Fundamental Chess Openings. Which one do you use and why?

My choice is FCO. I find the commenting text helpful.

Unsurprisingly, this is not the first time the question has arisen.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/trouble-with-mco-15

https://www.chess.com/forum/search?keyword=mco

Both books are getting pretty old. Books like that were very helpful in the days before the internet and online databases came along.

I did read (and own) M.C.O. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I think that it's what to do in middle game tactics which is where guys like me fall short. I'm currently beginning How To Reassess Your Chess.

This, after realizing I need to reassess my not so hot playing....It's actually quite enjoyable to work towards chess improvement. Many tools available and far too easy to get side tracked with many of them.

A good book, going over one's losses "carefully" and tactical puzzles is my area of need.

Just my two cents.

The first chess book in english I read was Lasker´s Common Sense in Chess. What he wrote about the opening phase - "This proceeding will take as rule, no more than six moves, as we shall see
later on" - has stuck in my mind. Six moves are manageable to memorize.

What about the five volumes of Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (ECO). It too is unfortunately pretty dated. I very much liked the New In Chess (NIC) Yearbooks that came out quarterly but are unfortunately no longer being produced.

It's true both are getting old. But the age matters more with MCO because of its nature. If you want to know details on a lot of lines (which is what MCO focuses on), you'll need to look elsewhere. On the other hand, FCO still gives a good overview of what's at stake in various openings.

In short, start with FCO, and then when you want more details, go to more recent books, chessable courses, etc.

MCO or FCO? -- both

MCO is an old way of learning chess openings and could be argued is obsolete now with computer databases. We will likely never see a new version (though that might be in part due to how opening theory doesn't really advance anymore also). However there may be value in playing out the moves over an actual board or an online board and noting the comments, it also has some very nice essays on the openings to introduce them. Also it's nice to get away from a computer screen sometimes. If money isn't an issue consider getting both and complement it with online.

I never considered MCO to be a book for learning openings. It is more of a reference book—like an encyclopedia.

FCO...

For the same reason given by the OP in post #1.

Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I still see value in such tomes as MCO. You get a curated selection of lines to consider.

MCO was probably neither as good as NCO or as exhaustive as ECO (circa 1990s), but it's the last such option.