Les Ouvertures

by Luděk Pachman, Sylvain Zinser (Translator)

Teoria moderna en Ajedrez

212 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published February 15, 1994

About the author

Luděk Pachman (German: Ludek Pachmann) was a Czechoslovak-German chess grandmaster, chess writer, and political activist. In 1972, after being imprisoned and tortured almost to death by the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, he was allowed to emigrate to West Germany. He lived the remainder of his life there, and resumed his chess career with considerable success, including playing in the Interzonal in 1976 and winning the West German Championship in 1978.

Reviews

[Alberto · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a big Pachman fan and really really wanted to give this 5 stars, but I couldn't do it.

First, there are quite a few notational errors. Most of them appear to be mistranslations from algebraic. Second, there are some basic analytical errors (I don't mean lines that are out of date, that would only matter to players rated higher than me who are memorizing lines two dozen moves in). Third, some openings (most notably the Petroff) do not get sufficient treatment.

The chapters on the Ruy Lopez and the King's Gambit are outstanding and still useful to a class tournament player to this day. All in all, not a bad opening book.