Openings for Amateurs: Theory vs. Practice

🏆 Winner of CJA's 'Best Instructional Book of the Year 2025'!

The final volume in Pete Tamburro’s trilogy is finally here! Chock-full of practical advice aimed at the average-to-advancing club player, Openings for Amateurs – Theory vs Practice rounds off this acclaimed series with discussions of sharp and sneaky openings you will often face in tournaments and cautionary tales of the opening traps that people still fall into. And since you’ve advanced this far, there are 38 carefully annotated games on key themes in positional chess, including a close look at isolated queen pawn openings; what to know about the Minority Attack; learning why “equal” doesn’t always mean “drawn”; and a deeper dive into the Ruy López, where you will learn some grand strategies – one of them going back all the way to Alexander the Great.

The final section is a special feature, rarely seen in the chess literature: a collection of nearly two dozen games from the biggest amateur team tournament in the world, where Pete illustrates what he’s been talking about in all three volumes. It’s a chess feast of 85 games explained to amateurs the way they should be!

Award-winning chess writer Pete Tamburro has been a regular columnist for American Chess Magazine, Chess Life, Chess Life for Kids, The Atlantic Chess News, and British Chess Magazine. The author of Learn Chess from the Greats and of the first two volumes in the Openings for Amateurs series, he is also a highly successful chess teacher.