A First Book of Morphy

Great Player, Good Games, Okay book.....:
I am still new to the study of chess so my opinion could change with hindsight in a couple of years, but I have to say this book was just okay. I was really excited when I ordered the book, as it was going to be my first game collection focused on one person. (I have gone through Chernev's Logical Chess, which obviously has games featuring many different players) It has been fun to play over Morphy's games but the book's layout is a little awkward to me and the annotations are somewhat dry, especially for a book that acts as if it is going to be an instructional book. I know that it has been a worthwhile experience to go through Morphy's games but I am glad to be done with this book and looking forward to studying some Tarrasch and maybe some Tal. In the spirit of full disclosure, I will say that at this VERY EARLY stage of my chess study, I seem to prefer playing over games that are strategic struggles instead of quick and flashy "brilliancies". The games I really enjoyed in this book were the few that took Morphy awhile to win (and even the one he lost to Anderson!!) This IS a worthwhile book to study just because of Morphy's tactics and sound principles, it just hasn't gotten me as excited about chess as some other ones I have worked through. Update: 11/18/08 I am even more convinced that this book is over rated! I have played through some other game collections and have a little more experience under my belt, and these annotations are just not that informative. I have recently gone back and begun to analyze some games I have played over per my coaches instructions. I went back to a few of these Morphy games and the author's annotations just don't give you anything to go on. I am thinking there has to be a better Morphy collection out there..there just has to be! I have changed my rating from three stars down to two stars! If you want to get game collections that have truly instructional annotations I recommend the following books: Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking, Anything by Paul Keres (especially his own game collections), anything by Chernev and Best Lessons of a Chess Coach.

Great book, bad notation choice.:
As previous reviewers have said before, the book is fantastic. Unfortunately it has a peculiarity that makes it somewhat hard to read. The author wants to do without any indicators (!, !!, ?, !?, etc), which says have been abused in the past. Well, the author takes that premise to the extreme, removing all indicators, including the capture and check symbols. For example, Nxc3+, Nxc3, Nc3 and Nxc3# are written as Nc3 on this book. It may not sound as a big deal, but it eventually gets tiresome. It is specially annoying when side-lines are given. Here is to hoping the next revision is printed on Algebraic or Descriptive notation.

Had high hopes but...:
I had great hopes for this book. I love Morphy's games and wide open attacking play. However I was very disappointed with this book. The first reason is that the notation is very strange -- he does not use "x" to signify captures even when it is a piece capturing. The diagrams are fairly infrequent. Both these features make it impossible (for me ~1300) to follow without a chess board. The typesetting has some errors too. The pattern used to display the black squares is very odd and looks unprofessional. Much better books in this area are Chernev's classics Logical Chess Move by Move and The Most Instructive Games of Chess ever played.

Disappointed:
Like the reviewer, Jonathon, I had high hopes for this book but I was disappointed. I was looking for a gentle introduction to Morphy but this just doesn't cut it. The pseudo- or minimalist algebraic notation is extremely distracting away from a board and a nuisance at the board. There are no capture indications nor check indications. This is a serious distraction when trying to focus on the game content - it's not like somebody at the target level can afford a lack of focus. The most disturbing thing is that this is so totally unnecessary - it's like a personal challenge to the reader. Hasn't regular algebraic or figurine notation been established as the standard for decades? If the author wants to include perverse visualization exercises in a book then let him write another one and tell the buyer. I could get past that if the book was appealing in other ways, but it's just not good enough to overcome the nuisance factor and I abandoned it. I've moved on to Beim and I'm already seeing more benefit, even though it's much harder. Skip this one.

A great teacher!:
A great way to learn the fundamental principles behind chess. You can learn a strategy and go over a game of Paul Morphy. Apply the things you learned from this book and you will definitely see your game improve!