I would appreciate your opinion of their books.

The authors are:
Danny Kopec
Daniel King
Steve Giddons

I also read that Daniel King has some software on pawns.

Thank you for your thoughts.

skippy

From the few books by Danny King that I’ve seen he appears to be one of the best writers around today. The only stuff I’ve seen by Kopec has been aimed at fairly strong players though I must admit to not reading much he’s written. Know nothing about Steve Giddons.

Thanks for the reply.

I think then I will order two of Daniel King's books and leave Kopec until a later time.

skippy

I love King's How to Win at Chess:Ten Golden Rules to Follow, How Good is your Chess, and Test Your Chess. I have not read anything by the other authors.

have you tried looking them up on amazon.com reading reviews etc?

Yes,and that does help.

s.

I have Daniel King's DVD's (3 or 4 of them). They are much higher quality and more interesting than almost any other chess DVD I have ever picked up.
Currently I have been working on his DVD on the hedgehog.

I've read good things about Daniel King's Power Play DVD series. The Hedgehog one is one of the few that I'm not interested in, but most of the others sound like material I'd enjoy and learn from. Which others do you have, midk?

--Fromper

Fromper - I bought powerplay 1-3 after looking at some sample of his dvd's that you can download for free somewhere (?chessbase website).
I did maybe half of the first dvd and had not started DVD #2 or #3 yet, when suddenly the hedgehog one came out, and I have been focusing a lot of my attention on that one lately. The first one was good, and I really enjoy the latest one on hedge. Of course books and dvd's have their own advantages and disadvantages. I like dvd's when i am tired after work and too lazy to do all the work myself. But the more active roll of going through a book definitely helps my learning more. Anyay, Daniel King is the best DVD speaker I have seen except maybe Kasparov (and actually I have to hit pause a lot with Kasparov cuz sometimes he is too fast for me).
Do you have a defense you use already against the english? The hedgehog is certainly a fun one! You can use middlegame knowledge and ideas of thematic concepts to try to beat players with lesser understanding of the positions.

I already play the Dutch against the English (and anything else besides 1. e4, which is one of the advantages of the Dutch). I'll probably get some of those Power Play DVD's eventually. I agree that it's easier to watch a DVD for instruction when you're tired. A lot of times, this gives me a way to do chess study on a day when I would have been too tired to do any after work. Actually, I think I learn better from DVD's than books, anyway, just because of how my brain learns.

--Fromper