After one viewing i noticed one big mistake in Martin's presentation. After 6.Bc4 Martin advises an immediate b5 to gain tempo on the bishop. In fact in the introductory chapter Martin gives
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd6 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 a6 6.Bc4 b5 7.Bb3 e6 8.O-O
Bb7 9.Re1 Nbd7?
when 10.d5 is very good (+1.30 or so) for white.
In the very next chapter, Martin retracts this line, saying that a ChessBase employee in the studio noticed that 10.d5 wins for White. Martin says 9...Be7 would have been better. But black still has some difficulty in that line.
Much better is the advice of James Plaskett in his Batsford book , The Scandinavian Defence, to follow up 6.Bc4 with 6...e6 FIRST, and then get on with the b5-Bb7 plan the following move. This is a good idea to avoid the trainwreck disaster that occurred in Ponomariov-Fressinet 1999:
[Event "EU-chT (Men)"]
[Site "Batumi"]
[Date "1999.11.06"]
[EventDate "?"]
[Round "3"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Ruslan Ponomariov"]
[Black "Laurent Fressinet"]
[ECO "B01"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "42"]
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd6 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.d4 a6 6.Bc4 Nbd7 7.O-O b5 8.Bb3 Bb7
9.Ng5 e6 10.Re1 Be7 11.Nxe6 fxe6 12.Rxe6 Qb4 13.a3 Qa5 14.Bd2 b4 15.axb4 Qf5 16.Qe2 Ng8
17.Ra5 Qf8 18.Nd5 Kd8 19.b5 Bd6 20.bxa6 Bc6 21.Nb4 Nb8 1-0
In my opinion the DVD is ok, but probably not worth $30 when you can get Plaskett's Scandinavian book (about 40 pages of coverage), Gary Lane's "Ideas behind modern openings: black" (about 30 pages of coverage), or the Melts book (tons of pages, but dense & little prose) for $14 or $15 online.
For a basic working knowledge, clearly spelt out, I would also point to my own blog posting about this variation:
http://chessforblood.blogspot.com/2006/03/10-minute-guide-to-qd6-scandinavian.ht... I wrote that post before viewing Martin's DVD, but Martin actually does not go in much more depth than my blog posting.
I must reveal my that rating is rather low, but my analysis in my blogpost is based on my books so hopefully can be trusted. I am an underrated 1701 player.
http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlTnmtHst.php?13314232 In lines with Bg4 and Nc6, the line is an improved version of Chigorin QGD-- the fact that white's pawn is on c2 behind the c3knight instead of on the e-file makes the d4 pawn harder to defend. In the lines with b5 and Bb7, the line resembles a sort of Sicilian defense with black getting queenside space and good diagonals to the white's kingside for the bishops.
Pages: 
Martin's Scandinavian (Easy Way DVD) (Read 31572 times)
