"Never run away from data!" - A review of the ChessBase Opening Encyclopedia 2021

by ChessBase
12/17/2021 – Jon Edwards is a passionate chess player, a passionate chess teacher and one of the world's best correspondence players. He knows how important it is to study openings and to study them with the right tools. In the current issue of the "American Chess Magazine" Jon Edwards had a look at the ChessBase Opening Encyclopedia, a tool he uses "every day".
The comprehensive theoretical reference work for beginners and pros alike. Over 1,200 opening articles with professional analyses, 60 opening videos (total running time: over 22 hours), 7,127 opening surveys, opening tutorials for beginners.

Never run away from data!

"New books and new data are worthy of your time so long as they contain original and reputable ideas. You will not adopt every new system but knowing about different variations and their finer points can only serve to improve your chess."

This is how Edwards begins his review of the ChessBase Opening Encyclopedia. He then illustrates the many possibilities the Encyclopedia offers and gives examples how to use the tool to expand your opening knowledge and to study openings.

He concludes:

"I am old enough to have purchased every edition of the MCO and ECO Opening Encyclopedias, all now gathering dust on my shelves. I am young at heart and still competitive enough to recognize that our modern age requires some flexibility and recognition of the fact that this new environment is vastly more efficient. I find that I am using it every day."

Get the full review as pdf...

Edwards' review appeared in the current issue of the American Chess Magazine.

The cover of the current issue of the American Chess Magazine

About Jon Edwards

Jon Edwards is currently competing in the World Correspondence Candidates. He won the 10th United States Correspondence Championship in 1997 and the 8th North American Invitational Correspondence Chess Championship in 1999. He is a four-time winner of the APCT (American Postal Chess Tournaments) Championship and has been awarded the APCT Game of the Year Award twice. He received his correspondence International Master in 1997, his Senior International Master (SIM) in 1999. He is currently fighting for his final grandmaster norm in the prestigious ICCF Spanish Masters tournament.

He has competed on the US Correspondence Chess Olympiad team competing, reaching the final round. His correspondence ICCF rating places him the top 100 correspondence chess players worldwide.

In addition to the extremely popular ChessBase Complete, Jon has written more than a dozen chess books, including The Chess Analyst (Thinkers Press 1999) which chronicles the success in the US championship; Teach Yourself Visually: Chess (Wiley 2006), a photographically based chess primer; and Sacking the Citadel: The History, Theory, and Practice of the Classic Bishop Sacrifice (Russell Enterprises 2011). He also writes a regular column on chess technology for the American Chess Magazine.

Jon provides chess instruction in the Princeton, NJ area and monthly lessons to college-bound students in the Chess in the Schools program in New York City. He has taught chess to more than 2,500 students over 30 years.

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