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This is not a good book. It is a bad book.
Most of the discussion of basic concepts and theory (like pip
counting, take points, doubling points, etc.) is pretty good.
The positions that he uses to illustrate the concepts are very
often misanalyzed. Apparently no one associated with the book
checked the positions with a bot, or even showed the positions
to a strong player. It's really ridiculously bad. There are
positions called too good that are beavers, and vice versa. Or
perhaps just very close to this -- my notes are at home.
The novel contributions, like the blitz count and so forth, are
too simplistic to be of use. I am all in favor of developing
models, but these models are probably worse than useless. A
strong player can do much better than the models; a weak player
might place too much faith in the models and fail to realize
the limits on their applicability. A player who believes Bell's
analyses and models and who plays props would be a gold mine.
I recommend this book as an excellent gift to give to weaker
players that you play for money.
David Montgomery
monty@cs.umd.edu
monty on FIBS and GG
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