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John Watson wrote that MCO-13 "really isn't up to modern expectations", but called MCO-14 "a vast improvement over its predecessor No. Since 1980, there have been other one-volume opening encyclopedias to rival MCO: Batsford Chess Openings ( BCO) in 19, Nunn's Chess Openings ( NCO) in 1999, and Paul van der Sterren's Fundamental Chess Openings in 2009. As Practical Chess Openings was not revised in any further editions, MCO remained the most popular English language opening reference. Fine was not able to work on subsequent editions of MCO, so in 1948 he wrote Practical Chess Openings. In 1939, Reuben Fine, who had won the AVRO tournament the year before, edited MCO. Sergeant and Maurice Edward Goldstein providing revisions starting with the fourth edition in 1925. Editions through at least 1946 continued to be attributed to Griffith and White, with P. The first three editions (1911, 1913, and 1916) were the work of Griffith (who won the 1912 British Championship) and White, with an introduction by Henry Ernest Atkins. In 1977, Harry Golombek said "The work became popular at once and for over forty years was regarded as the main book on the openings throughout the world." Early editions were small enough to fit in a pocket (the first edition was 190 pages), but later editions grew and the fifteenth and most recent version is 768 pages. MCO was popular with English-speaking players and has continued to be updated throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, with fifteen editions from 1911 through 2008. Although Bilguer's Handbuch des Schachspiels was more authoritative at the time MCO was first published, it was last published between 19, and was becoming outdated by the 1930s.
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