1. Joined
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    22 Apr '08 20:281 edit
    What are the most esteemed awards a chess book can receive? The BCF Book of the Year is the most prestigious and there is also the ChessCafe Book of the Year award and the Fred Cramer award, but what others?

    Oh, I found a good list: http://chess.about.com/od/productbooks/a/aa04k20.htm
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    22 Apr '08 20:50
    Originally posted by exigentsky
    What are the most esteemed awards a chess book can receive? The BCF Book of the Year is the most prestigious and there is also the ChessCafe Book of the Year award and the Fred Cramer award, but what others?

    Oh, I found a good list: http://chess.about.com/od/productbooks/a/aa04k20.htm
    The CJA (Chess Journalists of America) awards? Not that this group is any better than any other countries, but it's just an organization that I've heard about.
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    22 Apr '08 23:18
    Originally posted by exigentsky
    What are the most esteemed awards a chess book can receive? The BCF Book of the Year is the most prestigious and there is also the ChessCafe Book of the Year award and the Fred Cramer award, but what others?

    Oh, I found a good list: http://chess.about.com/od/productbooks/a/aa04k20.htm
    I'm sure I read somewhere that chesscafe is deeply biased concerning it's reviews & won't even look at books from certain authors & publishers.
    The book reviews here
    http://www.jeremysilman.com/book_reviews/book_reviews.html
    I find pretty useful.
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    22 Apr '08 23:401 edit
    Maybe the reviews are biased, but I thought the Book of the Year awards were voted by readers.
  5. Joined
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    23 Apr '08 00:11
    Originally posted by Squelchbelch
    I'm sure I read somewhere that chesscafe is deeply biased concerning it's reviews & won't even look at books from certain authors & publishers.
    The book reviews here
    http://www.jeremysilman.com/book_reviews/book_reviews.html
    I find pretty useful.
    If ChessCafe is biased, they've never been vocal about it. I've heard a few rumors about possible biases, but that's all they are: rumors. However, even if the rumors were true, I suspect most of their biases would line up pretty well with mine. 😏 And it would certainly be their right to be biased, if that's their desire.

    For myself, I'm very happy with the quality of ChessCafe reviews. Yeah, there are times when they haven't reviewed a book that I'm interested in, but they can't review every chess book that's published. I can say that when ChessCafe does review a book, I can usually rely on it to be a thorough and well-done review. Taylor Kingston writes some of the most literate and thoughtful chess book reviews anywhere. I just wish he could write all of the ChessCafe book reviews. And to show my appreciation to ChessCafe for their book review efforts, I have sometimes ordered books from them, even though other internet sellers had lower prices.

    I also like Silman's reviews. He usually puts a lot of effort into them, but occasionally he'll throw out a shortie that looks like it was a "just before the deadline" work.
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    23 Apr '08 02:41
    There's a great book: How to Defend in Chess: Learn from the World Champions and I find it with one cover printed in 2007 and another printed in 2000. However, they both have 224 pages. Does anyone know if there is a difference besides the publisher?
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    23 Apr '08 03:30
    Originally posted by exigentsky
    There's a great book: How to Defend in Chess: Learn from the World Champions and I find it with one cover printed in 2007 and another printed in 2000. However, they both have 224 pages. Does anyone know if there is a difference besides the publisher?
    Silman's review just said that it's a reissue of the 2000 edition and that if you already have the older edition, not to bother with the new one. Whether Mr. Silman actually compared the text for changes and/or typo corrections is anybody's guess. But you'd think that if Gambit made any significant improvements, they'd label it as a second edition and trumpet that on the cover. And they didn't do that.
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    23 Apr '08 04:55
    Thanks!
  9. Joined
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    23 Apr '08 05:28
    I suppose these are the same too (same number of pages anyway):

    http://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-Worlds-Greatest-Chess-Games/dp/185487876X/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208926786&sr=8-4

    http://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-Worlds-Greatest-Chess-Games/dp/0786714115/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208926786&sr=8-2

    Is this correct?
  10. Joined
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    23 Apr '08 14:19
    Originally posted by exigentsky
    I suppose these are the same too (same number of pages anyway):

    http://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-Worlds-Greatest-Chess-Games/dp/185487876X/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208926786&sr=8-4

    http://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-Worlds-Greatest-Chess-Games/dp/0786714115/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208926786&sr=8-2

    Is this correct?
    Did you read the full title of the newer book? 😕
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    23 Apr '08 15:08
    That's quite cryptic response.

    Yes, I did read the title. However, a revised edition doesn't automatically mean more games from a later period. It could be simply with improved analysis and explanations as well as some reorganization.
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    23 Apr '08 15:231 edit
    Originally posted by exigentsky
    That's quite cryptic response.

    Yes, I did read the title. However, a revised edition doesn't automatically mean more games from a later period. It could be simply with improved analysis and explanations as well as some reorganization.
    Sorry, I didn't mean to be cryptic - I thought it would be obvious from the two Amazon descriptions.

    Both editions state that they contain 112 games. The earlier edition was published in 1998. The newer edition was published in 2004, and according to the title, it claims to cover the Kramnik-Kasparov game of 2000. So it's clear that the publisher of the newer book threw out at least one game (maybe more, but there's no way to tell from the description) from the 1998 book to include at least one newer game (the K-K 2000 game).
  13. Joined
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    23 Apr '08 15:301 edit
    I didn't realize that the other one was published before 2000. Now, it's clear what you mean.

    Based on their revision time, I'd kind of expect a new one this year.
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