The Blue Book of Charts to Winning Chess - Softcover

This is THE book that first introduced a concept that has revolutionized tournament chess for most players. The concept is simply to create a database of chess games, sorted by openings, and then see which opening moves produce the best results. This book concludes that the overall winning percentage for White is 59%. It shows that the moves 1. d4 and 1.c4 win 60% of the time whereas 1.e4 scores only 59%. Regarding the second move, this book shows that against 1. e4, both 1. . . . c5 and 1. . . . e5 score equally well with 42% for Black, whereas the French Defense 1. . . . e6 and the Caro-Kann Defense, 1. . . . c6, do much worse, scoring only 38% for the Black side. This book is based on 56,972 games, all compiled and sorted, showing the winning and drawing position for each best move in the chess openings. For example, after the moves of the French Defense, 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5, it surprisingly shows that the move 3. e5, the Advance Variation, produces the highest winning percentage, as opposed to 3. Nc3 or 3. Nd2.

Arthur M. Stevens, chess statistician and historian, was born in Downers Grove, Illinois in 1902. He grew up in Aurora, Illinois. He attended the University of Illinois and graduated from Harvard College in 1925 with a degree in economics. Mr. Stevens, originator of a service control system for the automotive industry, served as a systems analyst for many years. He worked for the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company in the Statistical Department. After his retirement, he turned to his hobby, the game of chess, as a correspondence player, and developed his charts of chess openings which are now in use throughout the world. He moved to San Diego California where he spent more than twenty years compiling the statistical database that became The Blue Book of Charts to Winning Chess.