Starting Out: The Caro-Kann (Starting Out - Everyman Chess)

If you're looking for a good introduction to the Caro-Kann, this is the book for you. It's not a repertoire book for either side. Gallagher presents the main lines and gives ideas for both sides. As with other books in the Starting Out series, this book avoids deep theory as much as possible. The idea is to give the reader a good foundation off of which to build. This book serves its purpose well, but if you want to be a C-K expert, your reading can't end here. As good as the book is, I must give it one criticism. The author's bias for the White side of the Fantasy variation is quite obvious. He gives Black's basic ideas in the theory sections, but the example games could have been chosen better. A repeated theme seems to be Black does something stupid in the opening and then gets crushed. I understand that no chess game is perfect and that mistakes are made in every game, but I do think that it would have been more useful to include games with more accurate play by Black. So, while you may want something else for the Fantasy Variation, and you will want something else if you intend to go far into the Caro-Kann, this book serves its purpose quite well. It will give you a good introduction to the Caro-Kann.