Larry Evans (1) (1932–2010)

The book is titled “New Ideas in Chess”, but the concepts presented are timeless. After some preliminaries, Evans, himself an International Grandmaster, includes chapters on pawn structure, force, space, and time, the key aspects to a well-rounded game. The principles in each chapter are illustrated in general summaries as well as in examples taken from individual games from history. The titles on lessons (e.g. “Strike Pawn chains at their base”, “My kingdom for a Luft!”) are show more succinct and memorable – I still recall some of them decades after studying this book in the effort to become a better player. I got a lot out of it and only wish it would have included richer chapters on openings as well as the end game, which are also important. show less

Back in the 1970's when I played on Oconto Falls High School's chess team, we had a copy of MCO-11, the "updated" version to this one. We made do with it, but the general consensus at the time was that MCO-11 had too many typographical errors in it and that MCO-10 was the superior work. Like MCO-11 and all the versions before it, MCO-10 uses English descriptive chess notation, i.e.: P-QB4, etc rather than the more "modern" algebraic notation that was then coming into vogue. I prefer English show more descriptive. Make from that what you wish.

Physically, it is a sturdy well-bound book and holds up well to travel, so if you want something to take to tournaments with you, this will fit the bill. Like all the versions of MCO, it is more of a reference work or an encyclopedia of chess openings, not an exhaustive reference work on any specific opening. As expected, the more popular openings like Ruy Lopez, Queen's Gambit and Sicilian Defense have more pages devoted to them as they have had much more "development" by masters in tournament play. You won't find many lines of the English Opening or the Reti System, but they are at least mentioned. The Blackmar-Diemer Gambit and other modern openings developed after the publication date are, of course, not referenced at all.

In my opinion, this version will serve the novice well and most likely will work for most people up to the master level. If you are among the best of the best, you want a more modern version to fill out your library, among other more specialized books, but there is no harm in having this one on the shelf next to it. show less

As far as chess books go, this one is pretty good. It uses algebraic notation, it goes over games, it covers ideas using events that happen in actual Master Level play, and it has general techniques that can be used to cover your own games. I honestly don't know why it is rated so low on this site, but I thought it was all right.

This is a collection of Evans' columns from the early 2000s... they try to hype it as some sort of tell-all book, but is just a slapdash collection of his later writing...there are few older columns that are reprinted from the 50s and 60s... one about some American players touring Russia during Kruschev's era was pretty interesting... look, anything about chess history will likely get at least 3 stars from me, but that's about it in this case.