Games and Humor Books

I am a calendar junkie. I have at least 4 on my desk. This page-a-day calendar sits at the end of my cube, turned out to face the traffic in the aisle.

Each page poses some sort of ridiculous question. For example: Would you rather dress as a dominatrix and attend church; or dress as a priest/nun and go to a strip club?

The people at my office love it! Each day we have a poll. It's funny how people will rationalize a choice to a stupid question. But it is also interesting to see how people answer, if FORCED to make a choice between two evils.

Lots of fun-- a little risque at times, but I highly recommend it.

The table of content seem right, with history of blacjack and its turn around, myth of counting, and offering new technics. The author do not show or proof anyway that counting is not working at date. His technics is just a simple positive progression betting...which has to be clear in everyone head that no betting method works!! Blackjack is a dynamic game (mean change depending of player action) but with limited possiblities... therefore any sequence of bet is consider static and will not follow the rythm of the game. (except for "Double-up" because of its continous recovering action) The book is very short of ideas and content. I am deceive of this authors being so sure his method works.

If I could give this a zero rating I would. The author is selling snake oil and passing out very bad information. The use of progressive betting is not based on statistics or mathematics - PERIOD. If you are using basic strategy to play blackjack and have studied the correct plays based on statistics/mathematics why use a `betting strategy' based on streaks? The statistics and math reveal that you will not win as much money in the long run using a progressive betting scheme then pure flat betting. The only time to vary from basic strategy (in certain instances) or flat betting is if you are counting cards. Card counting will provide insight into what cards are left in the shoe and indicate when the odds are more favorable for an increased bet. Without card counting the expected outcome for every hand is always the same and is in the favor of the house.

You may have some good outings with progressive betting in the short run (just like the person betting streaks at the roulette wheel) - but in the end statistics will catch up to you - guaranteed.

Garbage! A book like this shouldn't even be legal.

I've tried a zillion systems for Blackjack, and this is the best. It keeps you in the game until a long streak comes along, and then you make a killing. Playing the $10 progression, I have made as much as $700 in one session. I usually start with $200, and I rarely lose it all. Admittedly, I will oftentimes win a little or lose a little, as the streaks do not always come. But it's hard to explain the feeling of making $100 bets, when you started at just $10!

Reading the negative reviews from card counters is amusing. First, they assume that everyone wants to play the game for a living, rather than just for fun. The fact is, most of us are recreational players, and we're not trying to pay the rent from our Blackjack winnings. Second, it's apparent that none of these reviewers has actually tried the system! They criticize based on "theory" and "statistics." Wouldn't it be more fair to actually play the system before trashing it?

My only criticism is that Dahl's basic strategy is a little more aggressive than most authors recommend. I play the more "standard" basic strategy.

Is this a system you could quit your job and play professionally? Probably not. But that's not the point. The point is to give the average player a legitimate shot at winning, while minimizing risk. This system does just that. And you can get some nice comps in the meantime.

PROGRESSION SYSTEMS DONT WORK! thats what many card counters say and players also. THEYRE WRONG! ONLY ONE SYSTEM OF + PROGRESSION PLAYING WORKS AND THAT WAS DEVISED BY A NAVAL NUCLEUR ENGINEER NAMED DON DAHL! ive talked to don and his wife robin several times and found 2 geniuses! ok! HERES WHY IT WORKS! 1. its the only system that repeats the same bet twice! 2, the only system that still gives you a profit when you lose the raised bet.I know, you think its way too slow! Sorry but its not! Don has some clever "tricks" with splits, doubles, and blackjacks that can get you from 5buck bets to 100 bucks before you can see or believe it! and remember. all you need is 1 good streak and the pit bosses are standing behind you! I know the odds of winning 4 in a row are 11-1 against you but think of the number of times you start from square 1 with a 5 buck bet! Its just like the cop on the shoulder! hes sees the same Mercedes day after day after day and then IT HAPPENS! on the 600th day the Mercedes has a tail light out and BOOM! A drunk driving arrest! SAME WAY WITH STREAKS! they happen! you can almost bank on 1 or 2 good streaks a session! Amd then get the he-l OUT OF THERE! F-A-S-T! dont let them get it back! Remember"""" If you fool with them long enough THEY WILL GET YOU! Good luck too you all and hello Don and Robin! Dr.Robert Balaban D.C,

I love Barbie and I love crochet. These are fresh updated designs for her to look fabulous all year round. No one should loose their inner child. This book will help me keep mine close by.

The book was in excellent condition and arrived quickly. The patterns are great looking but some of the threads used to make the outfits in the book have been discontinued and I haven't found substitutes.

These are the clothes I wish I had for MY Barbie when I was a kid. I now have grandchildren to make them for and couldnt ask for a better book to go by. Fabulous patterns! Get it....this book will not disappoint.

I love the pictures. My little girls look at it all the time. But it is very hard to find the suggested yarn. The clothes are very cute but I wouldn't buy it again. I am not good at finding substitute yarns nor do I have the patience for it. Her knitting Barbie book is the same.

A great book (I also have the Knit for Barbie) but a little difficult to follow...but I will continue working on some of the items.

These reviews are all for a BOOK (well, comic book, really), but the product being reviewed is not a book, but a CALENDAR.
How can Amazon get things so jaw-droppingly wrong?

The only way this comic would be tolerable is if you enjoyed the show and can actually visualize the action according to the physics, action, and fun of the original cartoon. Even Futurama fans may find this comic a tough pill to swallow for their Futurama fix.

Though the art is solid and familiar, the writing and stories are ridiculously sub-par. i would much rather watch the worst Futurama episodes over again than read any of the comics in this trade paperback.

The writers occasionally attempt to interject some of the ongoing gags to make it feel like Futurama. Like everyone's disdain for Zoidberg. Common exclamatory phrases (Sweet Zombie Jesus!) and the like. But take all those out, and you just have stories that made me realize that they CAN make bad Futurama stories.

i was dissapointed in this book. the jokes arent funny, and the story drags on.the drawings and color are great. buy it if you are a fan. otherwise.. no

This is a collection of a few futurama comics. If you miss the
best TV show about life the year 3001 ever made, you should
buy it. But that most probably also means that you are a nerd.
===== FUTURAMA, AS-SEEN-ON-TV ====

Futurama-O-Rama includes the first four comic books that have come out: a) Monkey Sea, Monkey Doom, b) ... But Deliver Us to Evil, c) The Owner of Mars Attacks, and d) Doop the Right Thing. Since the cancellation of the show (@#$$%%@@&^*!...), it's been pretty hard without Fry and the gang, but Futurama still lives on through these comics. Overall, it's a GREAT book; the stories and the dialogues are EXCELLENT, as for the witty humor and the characters... they are all there!
In short, it's a keeper!

PS BRING BACK THE SHOW!!!

It's one of my favorite comics in French. There's a laugh in each page. But the English version, which I bought for an American friend, is really boring.

One of the best albums of Asterix has a soothsayer arriving into the rebel Gaul village during a storm (which I guess has the Gauls in a vulnerable mood, since one of the few things they fear is the sky falling over them). All its inhabitants (save Asterix) fall for the con man, who is showered with presents in exchange for favorable predictions. Even Obelix becomes fascinated by the stranger. Eventually, the Romans decide to use the soothsayer to convince the Gauls to flee the village, which they do. When things are becoming real dark for the future of the Gauls, Panoramix (who was in a convention of druids) arrives, and with Asterix plans how to convince the villagers to come back, and get even with the soothsayer (who, imprisoned by a Roman general, who wants him to augur a future as an emperor, isn't going through a good time either). A very good book, overall, that is strongly against gullibility and superstition.

In the middle of a storm, which has the superstitious Gauls nervous, a conman pretending to be a soothsayer arrives.

Almost everyone but Asterix falls for his bumpf, even the Romans he ends up with after Asterix smokes him out.

An invasion of the village by Romans leads the Gauls to return the favour, allowing the women to partake of the magic potion.

I ordered this because I read them when I was a kid and loved them. Unfortunately, the portrayal of Africans wasn't something I wanted the young African American I was mentoring to see this portrayal. Sorry!

Rene Goscinny, Asterix and the Soothsayer (Dargaud, 2002)

A soothsayer comes to the Gaulish village and begins working his con. Asterix is skeptical, but the rest of the town believes him, so they set him up in the forest and devise a plan to keep Asterix away from him. Things get complicated when the Romans, who are under orders (from their augurers, of course) to imprison all Gaulish soothsayers... Goscinny takes a pot shot at con men with the help of Asterix and Getafix in one of the series' more amusing titles. One of the better places for newbies to start with Asterix and co. ***

There is probably nothing more effective to get results in practical play than to know the traps and tactics you will find in the openings you use. Therefore, the idea behind this book is excellent.

It covers 300 different opening traps in many openings. No problem them there. The problems are as follows,
a. it is in english descriptive notation.
b. it provides very little analysis and in many cases ignors telling you the reasons and improvements when there is a ? or a ?? given.
c. There are mistakes in the analysis.

This book will still be useful in helping you improve your knowledge of opening traps but which I feel is important, but this is not even close to being the best opening traps book.

This is a great book, with 300 traps, mostly 10-15 move games, though likely continuations are sometimes given beyond 20 moves.

You can use this book in several different ways.

A) Play through the games. They are much easier to understand than modern grandmaster games. In this way, it's similar to Reinfeld's Great Short Games of the Chess Masters, another great book. You'll see tactics in motion, and you can learn as if by osmosis.

B) Use the diagrams as tactics drills. Each diagram represents the state of the game immediately following a blunder (marked in the game by "?"). Look for the refutation. Great practice! In this way, it is similar to the Pandolfini trap books, but Chernev's traps are typically a bit more subtle.

C) When learning a new opening variation, look it up in this book first to see the simplest traps. Then to see deeper traps, look it up in Burgess's Quickest Chess Victories of All Time, another great book. The two books have very little overlap, surprisingly. I sometimes copy a line from one to the other.

Strengths:
* Well-indexed (similar to Burgess above). Table of contents lists major openings. Alphabetical index lists openings and a fair number of variations. Move index allows you to look up games based on the first 2-3 moves.
* Correspondence between diagram and moves is obvious. (Some books make you scratch your head to figure out which move was just played.)
* Wide audience. Advanced-beginner level, but even a master must be prepared for the traps in his own openings.
* Text explanation next to diagrams.
* One trap per page.
* Excellent use of fonts for different types of info.
* Footnoted light annotation, rather than in-line clutter.
* Broad coverage, not just king-pawn openings. Pandolfini covers only a handful of queen-pawn openings in The Winning Way. Here, Chernev has 89, plus a few other tries.
* Blunders for both sides of the board. Some authors concentrate on White's point-of-view. Here, Black wins about a third of the games.

Weaknesses:
* Diagrams are old-style, but at least they are dark enough. (Some old re-prints are way too light.)
* Usually, the diagram is at a logical location, either following the blunder, or one move later when the blunder was really tough to notice. But sometimes the diagram precedes the blunder, which can be annoying when you're just doing tactical drills.
* Descriptive notation, a minor weakness for this sort of book.

Overall, it's hard to improve. A really great book.

WINNING CHESS TRAPS is a great way to improve your openings. You will not just learn opening lines, but the most common tactics and mistakes found in the openings.

The three hundred traps are organized by opening type with a diagram covering the most critical part of each trap. You get one entire trap per page.

This book gives you a good way of studying tactics that are most likely to happen in actual games. This is extremely helpful to gain better results in your play.

Since the book wasnot written recently there are some newer openings not covered and there is not a lot of detail in the analysis, but not much explaning needed in many cases anyway.

A good opening trap book (or two) will do most players a world of good!

Overall the idea of organizing by opening the most common traps is a very good one. This is exactly what "Winning Chess Traps" does.
As a 1500 rated player I found some series weaknesses in the book (which could be improved in an updated edition),
a. The book was written in the 40's and not updated. Opening styles and theory have changed, yet the books hasn't been updated.
b. There are many mistakes in the analysis with better moves not being shown when they should be.
c. Overall, it doesn't go into much detail when important concepts should be explained.
d. It only provides one diagram per game making it difficult for lower rated players to follow without the use of a board.
e. It is in the old Descriptive type of notation.
However, in spite of these weaknesses it is worthwhile having in your chess library, and when used with solid opening books and/or a data base then the mistakes are found.
As said and worth repeating, an updated book on traps using this book's concept without these weaknesses should be published.

Getting some books on opening traps is perhaps one of the best moves any serious chess player should take. I like that there are a lot of traps, but the drawback is this book is older than the hills so considering getting a more up to date book on opening traps in addition is what I would suggest.
The traps in this book are arranged by type of opening. This makes zooming in to the traps in the openings you play easy with the drawback as mentioned, it may not have the modern variation you use. The tactics in these openings will be helpful for everyone though. Most people should improve their tactics anyway.
If I was writing this book I could also improve it by doing more analysis on the moves before the trap itself. Notes are sparse leaving you wondering what should have been played instead of the move given a question mark.

I am not a golfer. The appeal of hitting a little white ball with a bent stick and then chasing after it eludes me. So why would I read a collection of golfing tales? The answer can be summed up in one word: Wodehouse. P.G. Wodehouse is, hands down, the funniest author I have ever read.

"The Clicking of Cuthbert" consists of ten short stories, featuring a typical assortment of Wodehouse-style characters: likable, good-hearted, but often clueless and bumbling. As usual, love (or the hope of love) is the impetus of the plots and many misunderstnadings and hilarious highjinks quickly ensue. Oh, if only real-life romance were this much fun!

If you are a fan of screwball comedy or classic Brit-coms, you'll probably enjoy this book--even if you don't enjoy golf.

"The Clicking of Cuthbert" by P. G. Wodehouse was first published in the U.K. by Herbert Jenkins on February 3rd, 1922. It was published in the U.S. by George H. Doran under the title "Golf without Tears" on May 28, 1924. This is a collection of ten short stories, all of which deal with men and the battle between their two loves, women and golf.

The first nine stories all have a common narrator and premise, which is the Oldest Member of the golf club relating tales of golf and love. The last story has the same themes, but it is given as an historical story about golf that the authors are trying to sell to a publisher.

The stories are as follows:

"The Clicking of Cuthbert", the title story, is the story of Cuthbert Banks who has had some success at golf, but who can't seem to grab the attention of Adeline, the woman he loves.

"A Woman is only a Woman" is the story of Peter Willard and James Todd who have been lifelong golfing buddies; that is until they both fall for Grace Forrester.

"A Mixed Threesome" is the story of Mortimer Sturgis, a man who takes up golf late in life for his fiancée (Betty Weston) only to then pay more attention to his game than he does to her.

"Sundered Hearts" continues the story of Mortimer Sturgis where his new love of golf has come to dominate his life, and then he meets the woman of his dreams, a professional golf player. However, things are not what they seem, and Mortimer has to decide if love will conquer all, and is it the love of golf or of women?

"The Salvation of George Mackintosh" is the story of George Mackintosh who after falling in love has learned to become a great conversationalist to win the heart of Celia Tennant. Unfortunately, that process has also turned him into the bane of golfers everywhere, including Celia.

"Ordeal by Golf" is a story in which the Oldest Member plays a significant role, in that he tells his friend Alex Paterson, the president of Paterson Dying and Refining Company, that the best way to find his new treasurer is to play a round of golf with each of the candidates and judge them on their temper. When he discovers who the two candidates are though, he realizes he has made a mistake and attempts to set things right.

"The Long Hole" is the story of two competitors for the attentions of Amanda Trivett, Ralph Bingham and Arthur Jukes, who have decided to play one long hole of golf to determine which one gets to marry her.

"The Heel of Achilles" is the story of Vincent Jopp, an American multi-millionaire who seems to be able to do anything he sets his mind to do. When Amelia Merridew agrees to marry him if he wins the Amateur title he sets his mind to do just that. When he appears to have conquered golf just as easily as anything else, she grows desperate as she really wants to marry someone else.

"The Rough Stuff" is the story of Ramsden Waters who has fallen for Eunice Bray. The problem is that every other single male has fallen for her as well, and Ramsden seems unable to form a complete sentence in the presence of women. When a stroke of luck pairs them together for a golf tournament, Ramsden finds the words to propose which Eunice refuses. However, their round of golf together changes many things.

"The Coming of Gowf" is the story of how golf was spread from Scotland to Oom, where golf (or Gowf) becomes a new religion.

One thing that is clear from these stories, especially the last one, is that to P. G. Wodehouse there are two types of people in the world, those who love golf, and those who don't know what it is yet. These stories are fun, but they do lack the many twists and turns that are in the best Wodehouse stories. Thus, I decided to go with a high 3-star rating instead of a low 4-star one.

Probably most famous for his Jeeves and Wooster books, P.G. Wodehouse was an avid golfer. 'The Clicking of Cuthbert' was the first of two books Wodehouse wrote about golf (the other being 'The Heart of a Goof'). It was originally published in the US as "Golf Without Tears" in 1924 - 2 years after the first UK publishing. It's also one of the first books by Wodehouse that I read, back in the days when I did play the game myself. However while I have, just like the Oldest Member, long since retired it's still a book I can pick up and enjoy.

Rather than a straightforward novel, the book is a collection of ten short stories. With the exception of the tenth, each story is 'told' by the club's Oldest Member. There is a common theme throughout the stories the Oldest Member tells - how golf is vital to success in every aspect of life. The last story, however, is my favourite one in the book. It's a historical tale, telling of the coming of a strange new religion called Gowf to the country of Oom.

I think that this book would appeal more to the golfing community than to the uninitiated. There are certain terms and phrases specific to the game, which mightn't make much sense to a non-golfer and could possibly break the flow of the story a little. Furthermore, some of the terminology associated with the game has changed since the book was written. Clubs are referred to in the book as baffies, niblicks and mashies while, at the time Wodehouse wrote the book, the word bogey meant par. On the other hand, it's still a book written by P.G. Wodehouse - he does have a very distinctive style of writing and certainly appears to have a hugely loyal fanbase. If you've read other books by him and enjoyed them, odds are you'll enjoy this - regardless of your expertise on the golf course. If you haven't read any Wodehouse before, I'd probably suggest starting with a Blandings or a Jeeves novel.

Can anyone find new sources of humor in golf? Certainly, it takes a great humorist to do so. P.G. Wodehouse pulled off this feat by combining an obvious love for the game with sense of irony about the humiliations that golfers experience for their sport, a subtle mix of love and how golf can complicate that emotion, and a hilariously overbearing narrator who is obviously the biggest windbag in the golf club.

Be sure to read the book's foreword in which P.G. Wodehouse describes how he was taken by golf.

As the Clicking of Cuthbert opens, a young man is about to give away his clubs and quit golf. The Oldest Member relates to the young man The Clicking of Cuthbert in which an earnest young golfer in love finds the way to his beloved's heart through a most circuitous detour through the drawing room to discuss literature.

A Woman Is Only a Woman explores how falling for the wrong woman (one who doesn't care for golf) can blight life and friendship.

A Mixed Threesome shows how the judicious man is careful to whom he introduces his fiancée . . . while looking at the pleasures of golf compared to the pleasures of marriage. It's very funny.

In Sundered Hearts, a misunderstanding about golf leads to a marriage and a marital mishap.

In The Salvation of George Mackintosh, Wodehouse looks at the awful pest . . . the non-stop-talking golfer.

In Ordeal by Golf, that old tradition of doing business on the course takes a predictable turn as two men fight it out for advancement by playing with the boss.

The Long Hole looks at both the potential for cross-country golf to be an adventure and the trickiness of the rules.

The Heel of Achilles looks at the role of confidence in building up the golfer.

The Rough Stuff returns to an old theme of Wodehouse's, the need to let your emotions go to make contact with the heart of the one you love.

The Coming of Gowf is a writer's fantasy about creating a fanciful golf story. Anyone who has ever struggled with an editor will be laughing for days.

Fore!!

Many of these golf stories are not above average Wodehouse humor--but that's funny enough! The title story alone is worth the price; it's very clever, very funny, and one of his best little gems. Cuthbert is having trouble competing with a local literary light for the attention of a fair maid, until a bigger foreign literary light comes to put the local novelist in the shade. Vladimir Brusiloff's character is a marvelous caricature of the deep, dark, dismal Russian novelist; his systematic self-promotion by tearing down the reputations of other literary lights with lightning-bolt rapier thrusts (which at the same time humiliate Cuthbert's local rival) is ingeniously funny. In the end, an unexpected enthusiam proclaimed pontifically by the visiting literary lion enables Cuthbert's prowess in the great game of golf to trump the literary pretensions of his local rival in the great game of love.

The elegant, inexpensive Overlook Press hardback edition is a "best buy."

Why doesn't the publisher get someone with new funny material instead of rehashing the same old Far Side toons. How many times can you listen to the same "toons" before your nerves are shot.
Please get someone with new material in there!... The bookstore humor section is the same over and over again. I want a single-panel cartoon like Speedbump, Reynolds Unwrapped, or Reality Check ...These are the 3 best cartoons on the market that I've seen

...

Just like how barbara phillips of NC hates seeing the same old things from Larson, I hate seeing the same old reviews from the same old people. Makes you wonder what is going on when someone writes two similar reviews for the same book, slightly different in languge, but promoting other authors. Does this person work for another publishing company or is she related to the other people? I don't know, but I do warn people to think twice about basing your decision to buy on customer reviews. You never know who is writing them. Maybe even this review will get posted.

This is a classic Far Side delight. The calendar is a great gift for friends and family and for yourself. I highly recommend!

Larson is a genius, no doubt. He gave us great work. BUT I'm so sick and tired of seeing the same cartoons over and over and over again just packaged differently. Do we cartoon lovers look like idiots? If Larson is done doing cartoons, that's fine, BUT get NEW material in there.
I've seen other cartoonists who can fill this bill quite nicely. Dana Summers' Bound and Gagged is good. Put some of this stuff out. A new cartoon that I really like a lot, Reynolds Unwrapped by Dan Reynolds, is as good or better than The Far Side. Surely, your company can come up with some new material instead of selling us the same thing over and over.

I have always enjoyed the Far Side cartoons and every year
purchased the wall calendar and Engagement book. Unfortunately,
this year's engagement book is very disappointing. The cartoons
are not amusing. In fact, I found the book as a whole to be very
depressing. I will not use this calendar this year because it is
such a "downer" and plan to buy a different engagement book.

This book has become one of my all-time favorites. The photos are beautiful and the book offers helpful advice on how to maximize space in a room without sacrificing style.
Even the tiniest of spaces provides an opportunity for storage, display or utility with no wasted space to spare.

If you are a small-home owner, as I am, this book should delight you. I've kept it handy and have referred to it on quite a few occasions to spark my creativity or stimulate ideas that I could (and still can) easily implement in my home. Unlike many other decorating books, this was a great read as well. I enjoyed it from cover-to-cover.
Renters, this book is geared more toward home owners so I would suggest seeking it out from a library to enjoy the ideas without spending the extra cash.

This is, by far, the best book I've found on decorating small spaces. I pick it up again and again, and it always inspires me. It illustrates different techniques you can use to create the illusion of more space, maximize space, or create a cozy space. Although the styles are expensive, many of the techniques can be used even with a small budget, i.e., using mirrors, patterned wallpaper, furniture you can see through, hanging curtains above window frames, etc.

My husband and I don't have a lot of money. We live in a one-bedroom apartment in Cincinnati. But if you're accustomed to making expensive ideas work for a miniscule budget, it's a perfect book. True, most of the designers featured in the book live in Manhattan (which is woefully expensive; those great apartments you see in movies or on TV are actually more in the price range of folks making near six figures), and some of the ideas really weren't my style, but if you do a little reading between the lines, you get good basic ideas on how to maximize your space.

Truth be told, not all of the ideas used were that expensive. Slipcovers for chairs and sofas abounded, old furniture was given new life with decorative painting. Remember two things as you go through the beautiful settings: 1) these were done by artistic designers and certainly a good portion of these things were done by hand as opposed to bought, and 2) gorgeous, tasteful items don't have to cost an arm and a leg if you look in the right places.

After reading the last review, I decided to look at this book in the bookstore before ordering. I'm glad I did, because I will NOT be ordering the book after all. What a waste. Nothing there. A bunch of pretty little pictures of places that don't relate to my home or life or "stuff" at all. And I live in a pricey suburb.

This book contains many stunning photos and presents a lot of intriguing ideas. But it also brings out the final question: If you can afford that much on design why not move to a bigger space? A more appropriate title would be: Decorating Small Spaces in Expensive Cities (where you are too tired to move).

Is it just me or does the author seem to take special delight in seeing black come out on top in many of the lines he provides? He seems to be cheering everytime black is doing well and shaking his head with disdain every time white tries to create some fun and magic with the King's Gambit. I think if we pin McDonald down we can get a confession out of him "okay okay, I admit it, I hate the king's gambit! It has the giant balls that I'll never have!" Gallagher's book is much better, more complete from a guy who plays it regularly because he believes in it and it doesn't come with all the heavy cynicism.

This book is pretty brief in the lines it covers and it doesn't even cover many lines. McDonald makes the presented material clearly legible, but should have considered making an "Accepted" book and a "Declined" book. I bought this with book with the intentions of learning an opening that would stun my opponents right off the bat, but McDonald almost convinces one to try a different opening. The King's Gambit is meant to be an all out aggressive win or lose approach to chess and McDonald fails to emphasize this. At the end of most of his variations he gives unclear positions where it looks to me like black might even be better. If you are considering taking up the King's Gambit I suggest that you learn the Bishops Gambit (3.Bc4). This is an ultra aggressive variation that Neil reluctantly mentions in his book. If you don't mind sacrificing material for development then this opening is for you. I have used the King's Gambit successfully on several occasions and those wins remain as my most exciting. I suggest taking up the King's Gambit if you like exciting chess but do not recommend that you start here. This book is mostly for a player who is looking for a little more on a specific variation. This is not a good book to try to get an overall feel for the King's Gambit.

I agree with the other reviewers...McDonald simply didn't seem to find much excitement about playing/discussing the opening. His basic assessments were usually favorable towards black in the critical lines - even in some of the lines that Joe Gallagher judged good for white. A few times in these spots he would only leave a "I prefer black" backed by no analysis.

What's also disappointing is that when white did reach a difficult position, McDonald offered no real possibilities for improvement. It's as if he had given up long ago, and was merely documenting his reasons to abandon the opening.

It was fun seeing some of Gallagher's opinion about the new lines for black in Nunn's Chess Openings. In fact, there were more new ideas for white in three pages of numbers (albeit with no analysis) than there were in the whole of McDonald's book.

That said (and I'm obviously biased as a proponent of white in this opening), there was some decent analysis and some enjoyable games used. McDonald also resisted the temptation to copy many games from Gallagher's earlier book so it does get a rating of 3 stars from me. It probably deserves fewer, but I eat up anything about this opening.

Well, there are some good things here; the explanation of the ideas behind Shirov's 5. . .d6 in the Kieseritsky gambit sticks out in my mind as very helpful. But McDonald just isn't a romantic; he's one of those guys who, if he's playing say a Modern defense, erects a light-square blockade, trades off the QB for a N, and hangs on for dear life. This book betrays similar instincts. Far from stirring up your enthusiasm, it is actually in danger of convincing readers that the KG is unplayable! And it isn't. Oh ye of litle faith!

This provides an interesting update on the opening. Contains reasonably good descriptions of various lines as illustrated by latest games played by top players, but still cannot remove the general doubt that the King' Gambit is quite over-ambitious and risky in modern times.