The problem with dvd's is that they lack depth.
They are good to get an introduction, but to really understand the themes, you have to play the moves on a real board *yourself* (not just clicking the "next move"-button). I often even do the moves in a variation of a game I replay, although I see the position in my imagination, just because I hope that my memory saves this pattern better this way (I have not read any scientifical research on this, it is just a feeling I have that it is a better to do the moves of a variation by hand even if you see it in your imagination (if there is an interesting motif I like)).
Yes DVD's are nice, but compared to a book they just lack depth.
I could think of a DVD as a good supplement to a book,
but DVD's alone are too superficial for me.
This is just an economical thought, if I can get everything from a book that I can get out of a DVD, and there is even much more content in the book, why shouldn't I just skip the DVD. Nevertheless DVD's have a still a right to exist, they are more entertaining and probably achieve better than a book to give you an introduction and an overview over a certain topic. So they can be a good supplement to a book, the only question that remains is if you should spend your money on this supplement or not. The Input/Output factor (Input = Money/Output = Knowledge) is much better for a book, and since the book contains probably most of the data of the dvd, it's like buying something you already have, almost like buying a 2nd toaster. But of course if you do earn a lot of money, and chess is very important for you, there is no reason not to buy chess dvd's as a supplement to a book.
Bonsai wrote on 02/19/09 at 20:14:41:
Quote:Avoid em all.
Chess is no TV Show.
That's a bit excessive, there are some very good ones (depending on what you are looking for). The endgame series is nice if you want to improve your endgames, the Aagaard NID/cyronix6 repetoire series is good, the Andy Martin Czech Benoni one is good and at least some of King's Powerplay series is nice. Of course you could question whether you get enough value for money given that the contents are of course less than what you would get with a book or one of the "old-fashioned" Chessbase opening CDs. On the other hand the good ones are a bit like a series of lectures by strong players, which is of course beneficial. I find that in the Shirov and Kazim DVDs that I have seen the presentation was quite dry and unengaging (a problem you never have with Andy Martin, but in exchange on some of his works his analysis is just too light, maybe the target audience is much weaker than me, or it's just trying to get something out quickly).
In fact some of the old opening CDs (without multimedia) were very poor lacking explanations, structure, organzation or any sort of guidance (even the content wise very, very good CD by Marin on the Catalan suffered somewhat by the organsiation of the material).
Coming back to books, I just looked at my bookshelf and discovered "Flank Openings" by Ray Keene and "How to Play the Caro-Kann defense" by Ray Keene and Shaun Taulbut, two books that I think are very bad and did not help me, at all. On the other hand next to that (just ot be fair to Keene), there's "The English Defence ...e6, ...b6, ...Bb7" by Keene, Plaskett and Tisdall, which is a really good book with a lot of useful analysis, interesting ideas, which I keep checking when someone has proposed yet another supposed refutation of the English Defence.
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What is the worst chess book ever ? (Read 148458 times)
