Or is it??

Longtime blog Readers may know that I used to do a lot of writing for the now very, very quiet Chessville site: lots of short fiction, lots of book reviews. It was a great "neighborhood" to hang out in.

Often when a new book came out, especially if it covered an unorthodox chess opening or was a self-published effort, I got a review copy as fast as possible and shared my impressions with Readers.

I have been able to do only a few reviews here at jeromegambit.blogspot.com. (I plan to review Eric Jego's English-language book on the Blackmar Diemer Gambit as soon as it arrives!)

Imagine my excitement today when I was wandering through Amazon.com and discovered Chess Openings: New Theory, by James Alan Riechel. I was ready to send off for a review copy in an instant!

I mean, who would not be thrilled by

Ten -- count them: ten! -- chapters of brand-spanking new opening theory in the game of chess, including -- believe it or not! -- three brand-new openings in chess never seen before in the long history of the game! (That's hundreds of years, folks!) Also, major contributions -- and all brand-spanking new theory, by the way -- are made in the Benko Gambit, Queen's Gambit Accepted, Center-Counter, Danish Gambit, Scotch Opening, French Defense, and Bird Opening. Major, major, major -- three times over! -- contributions are made in the French Defense. Two difficult lines for Black are repaired, and I offer the world the French Gambit! Each chapter has a one-page introduction, and each chapter has at least one section of brand-spanking new opening theory!

Whoa...!

Of course, one eyebrow went up when I checked out the author's USCF rating (class B, like me) and read his Amazon bio

The author lives in Pasadena, California, and is employed as a math instructor at Mathnasium in South Pasadena, California. He hopes to complete a PhD in computer science at Caltech, with a dissertation in linear-time partial sorting algorithms, and algorithms for searching partially sorted data. On the weekends, he gets to visit his cat, Mr. T-Rex, a purebred Cornish Rex, at his family’s house in Glendale, California. In his spare time, the author works on research, and writes chess books!

The other eyebrow climbed a bit when I learned that the book has all of 30 pages. You do not need a PhD in computer science to figure out that that is, on the average, 3 pages per chapter, with one of those pages being, as advertised, an introduction.

Still, it's tempting, isn't it?

Or is it??