Latest edition of Encyclopedia of Chess Openings

That once was true, but the quality of the contributers to ECO has vastly declined over the years.  There is a one volumne edition out.  Here is the link to buy ECO

http://www.chessinformant.rs/

 +1

Here is the "feel" of the books:

Chess Opening Essentials

ECO

NCO

FCO

MCO-13

Mastering The Chess Openings (Vol. 3)

BCO

COTAP (see Fezzik's post #71)

For beginning/intermediate players, Djuric's Essentials series, van der Sterren's Fundamental Chess Openings, Watson's Mastering the Chess Openings series and Gabor Kallai's Basic Chess Openings series explain the ideas behind the most popular lines.

For more advanced players, the one volume encyclopaedias Batsford Chess Openings and Nunn's Chess Openings were quite useful when they came out circa 1999, but a little dated now.  Modern Chess Openings has always favoured somewhat old-fashioned lines.  Sahovski's Small ECO is more recent, but covers fewer lines that NCO.

For tournament players, the second edition of Sahovski's Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings had big name GMs like Mikhail Tal, Viktor Korchnoi and Paul Keres in charge of individual sections.  In the 1990's, there was also a series of monographs by the likes of Karpov, Anand and Korchnoi on specific lines.  The Chess Informants still have top annotators covering the games, but as Silman says, the 5th edition of ECO is mostly a collation of annotations from Informant by little known Serbian IMs and GMs.  It is still one of the most detailed references of its kind, but its importance has decreased a lot since its heyday in the 1970's and 1980's.  Recently, the Chessbase Encyclopaedia, chesspublishing and New In Chess Yearbooks have emerged as major competitors for Sahovski amongst masters.  Sahovski ECO, the Informants, Chessbase Encyclopaedia and chesspublishing's surveys are all available in electronic editions I believe.

When was the last time you remembered to buy it a chocolate, or even simple flowers ? Be honest.

Or even MC0 15!? Oh the horrors!

I've decided to skip MCO-14, due to her ill repute. I have 12, 13 and 15th. MCO-12 was my first love...

I have the first editions of the ECOs, except for volume A , which I saw no need for at the time.  Maybe I should buy the second editions ?  

I learned this game entirely from books, and I was really one of the last people to convert... but at this stage I think that someone who uses MCO/ECO instead of a database should just turn off their computer and go buy a 16 volume hardcover Encyclopedia Brittanica.

Wow Fezzik, thats a great deal for you ! I might break down and get volume A , just to have a complete set. The 4 volumes I have are holding up well even though they have seen a lot of use .  I bought them in the 70s !  Yikes ! 

It's a small world, Fezzik. I bought my French Classical at that very same bookstore in Portland!

Once upon a time Powell's was not a book store principally featuring  new (and newish) books; it used to be mainly used books. The Sci-Fi section was epic and affordable and the chess section nicely sized and capable of containing several exotic gems.

I got my Marache's Manual of Chess (c.1885) there and my MCO-2 as well.

Recent years it's much more pedestrian offerings, and smaller.

   I don't understand the interest in ECO and MCO because you get a much better understanding of the openings including middlegame plans when using a book dedicated exclusively to a specific opening. There are alot of great opening books out there.

And if such a resource is not available for the given opening then you can as was mentioned by  previous posters, simply flip on your computer.  Welcome to the 21st century.

I was buying chessbooks before you were born, sonny.

...and my nurse led me to this thread.

The interest in opening " Bibles " such as MCO, NCO, BCO, FCO and the ECOs  ( did I miss any ?  ) is mainly one of convenience imo. When I used to take books to tournaments ( nearly always before moving to Europe ) I always took along my trusty MCO. ( later switched to BCO and NCO ) I did this because it was easier to take one such book if I wanted to look up a particular line for a particular round than it was to take books dedicated to a single opening, or dedicated to one line in a particular opening. I couldnt imagine lugging along opening books on the sicilian, caro kann, french, Ruy Lopez  etc as an 1 e4 player and then also having several books to take for my black openings against both 1 e4 and 1 d4 ..... I would be taking a suitcase full of books ! Ofcourse, after moving across that big pond all this changed and I just take my laptop with chessbase and chess assistant, several strong engines and the entire collection of Informants as well... no books !   Amazing........ 

Drat, didn't delete my comment about the fuddy duddys fast enough.

LOL  Do you remember what year you bought your first chess book ?  If not, maybe your nurse remembers ?  I bought my first chess book in the early 70s but not sure which year...... 

My first chess book gift was 1969 as I recall. Reinfeld stuff. I still have my HB copy of his Great Games by Chess Prodigies. I opened it up a few years ago and was surprised by how much I was entertained and informed by Reinfeld's annotations.

He has a somewhat deserved bad rep but he also wrote some good books too, early on mostly.

First chess book I bought was MCO-10...1971. One of the best MCO editions. Still got it. Evans, the editor, died recently. I'm impressed how much chess opening knowledge he had crammed into his brain.