In the 80's, I enjoyed reading Seirawan's column in the swedish magazine "Schacknytt". My father subscribed to it. The analysis were often deep but not off-putting for a weak player as myself. 

I've noticed that there will be a Seirawan book out at Everyman soon. http://www.everymanchess.com/chess/books/Chess_Duels_with_the_Champions

Come to think of it, the old "Schacknytt" was a great magazine. Columns by Larsen and Seirawan. Excerpts from Hort and Jansa's "The Best Move". I have to borrow some issues and read again I think.

DionTheGreek wrote on 02/23/10 at 14:46:17:

Oh dear - my wallet is itching to make another visit down Baker Street

DionTheGreek wrote on 02/23/10 at 14:46:17:


The new Seirawan DVD for Chessbase is one of the most interesting and enjoyable I have watched. Many chess DVDs are just an expensive substitute for counting sheep, but Yasser's presentation (apart from a few hesitations while he consults his notes or corrects a mouse-slip) is first class and his personality really comes across. The games are explained very well indeed, with just enough detail, and there are many fascinating stories along the way. He is proud of his successes but honest about his faults and failures. I recommend it highly.

ok, so....

Opening Series
Most of my DVD’s are on these series and is hard to pick my favorites because I watch them all periodically. Without hesitation I’ll say that my top DVD’s are the following: Kasparov: How to play the Queen's Gambit, Ari Ziegler The French Defense, Sam Collins 1.e4 Repertoire, Rustam Kasimdzhanov  Albin’s Countergambit , Nigel Davies ( 1...d6 Universal,  The Accelerated Dragon, The Queen’s Gambit Declined Exchange Variation),  Sergei Tiviakov  (The Maroczy System,  Sicilian Defense with 2.c3 - Alapin Variation) , Andrew Martin (The ABC of Alekhine,  The ABC of the Czech Benoni), Jacob Aagaard (Queen‘s Indian Defense - The easy way, The Nimzoindian Defense – The easy way)        

I have good feelings about most of the DVD’s made by Alexei Shirov My best games in (Various systems) and are good material because coming from the same player and if you want to be your model player, these DVD’s are a MUST to get on his head and understand more of his analysis.  

I have many more opening DVD’s  that often turn to if I want to learn more about specific lines or to just get the feeling of that opening. I would love to see more presentations from Kasparov and I am very imprested from Ari Ziegler & Sam Collins so far. 
 
Middle game Series
Daniel King Power Play series 1-11 (vol 12 is about the hedgehog opening) are very easy to follow and understand. I like Daniel King as an instructor because he is not only presenting the material with great enthusiasm but because is able to pass the message to you without make it too complicated. He is one my top 3 chessbase presenters and I would like to see more of him. Regarding other DVDs I would suggest the new series by Andian Mikhalchishin (Winning Structures, Power of Exchange, Power of planning, Decision making in chess, The secret Weapons of the champions) that are more advanced material  but a gold mine in my opinion. The worst  purchase I made on these series where the Squares strategy by Bangiev and the peter wells DVD that was not easy to watch because he record the DVD having a cold and it was hard to follow the material listening every other minute to suck up his nose. 
It worth a try to get any of the Jacob Aagaard DVD’s on the middle game that I believe are quite good if you have the extra money. 

End game Series
An absolute must on every chess players library that respect his endgame skills are the Fritz Trainer DVDs from Dr. Karsten Mueller Endgames series 1-4. I watched the roman dvds before on the endgame but are not the same quality of Mr. Mueller. It feels to me that by making these dvds he raised the standards so high that is very unlikely that someone else will be able to compete.

Chess Legend series
My favorites for Pure entertainment are the Viktor Kortchnoi My Life for Chess Vol. 1 & Vol.2,  Vladimir Kramnik: My Path to the Top and last the Viswanathan Anand My Career Vol. 1 & Vol.2. I have a mixed feeling about the Facing the World Champions DVD and want to watch it one more time before make my decision. I am not sure if I want to purchase the new dvd of Yasser Seirawan My best games because my previous experience with his older DVD (Chess Mentor) it used to put me to sleep and it was better than prescriptions drugs!. Maybe the pace of that new DVD is faster and hopefully the presentation is improved. 

Conclusion: I am a chess entuast and collector and love to watch a DVD’s to be inspired and get a feeling about an opening or to learn something more a middle/end game without have to reset pieces on the board. 

Chess is a life trainer!
Dionysios K.

I watched the first 5 lectures of Davies on that new DVD and came down to the conclusion that is really comfortable to watch and follow his recommendations. 

Davies on the first three presentations goes through a game on the Colle, on the Torre Attack and on the London System and presents the problems on staying too long with these systems as white. He suggest how to approach the solution to some of the problematic lines and what to do next.

His main repertoire on most the streamline openings is to approach them by playing when is possible, 1.d4, 2.Nf3 and 3.c4.

So far, I liked his recommendations on the exchange variation and on the Anti-Chigorin line with 3.c3 (1.d4 d5, 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c3).

A DVD presentation will never replace the depth you can get from a book but can give you the pleasure to just watch a lecture from a GM doing all the work for you (setting up/moving the pieces, etc...) and for me a DVD will always be a source of ideas but not the primary source of my repertoire.

My current uscf rating is 1951 and make it that far with white by playing the colle-zuke, berry attack and 150 attack , following recommendations of Summerscale-Lane-Hebden... on various books and with black  based on the Black Knights Tango (following Georgy Olrov excellent book) and my beloved Alekhine (following an old Russian book by Bagirov).

I do want to expend and to make further, I am willing to take Davies advice on that DVD. Even though bellow 1850 I am OK playing my aggressive systems, I notice that above that rating I have some problems getting a comfortable position since my opponents seems to be more prepared.

Since I do have most of the chessbase DVD's, I can rate that DVD so far a 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.

TN wrote on 02/10/10 at 03:23:57:


I'm quite sure that none of the lines in this DVD overlaps with Cox's repertoire, even after reaching the 2.c4 lines. The Palliser d4 book would probably be a better choice with early Nf3 vs many openings. 

Personally, I'm more concerned with the exchange slav being showed in one of the images. Although this is a time saving option, I'm not particularly fond of this variation from either side.

Shallowthought wrote on 02/10/10 at 02:19:38:


2nd paragraph of DionTheGreek's post.

In other words, if I wanted to follow his advice, I would not buy his DVD but instead buy a book on say the Torre Attack, learn the opening, then switch to 2.Nf3 and 3.c4 using Khalifman's series as a guide and ECO/Informant to fill in the gaps. Then I could learn 2.c4 using 'Starting Out: 1.d4' by Cox. 

In my view, even if you buy a DVD on building your 1.d4 repertoire, it still means you have to (read should) buy books on the opening, so following Davies's advice using books instead of the DVD isn't any more expensive than buying the DVD and finding you need to buy a few books along the way to gain significantly from his recommendations. 

@Alias I agree, the danger of being prolific is the variance in quality of each product. 

@LeeRoth I realise that Davies is using system openings as a stepping stone, but I don't see why one can't learn main line 1.d4 openings from scratch. Perhaps in the short-term it will be difficult to memorise the theory, but the game is unlikely to be decided in the opening anyhow. 

@JonathonB Point taken. Sometimes I forget that the target audience of these DVDs are club players and below rather than the higher-rated end of the market. 

TN wrote on 02/08/10 at 21:10:57:


From the point of view of DVD sales I'm not sure this is a problem really.  I play people in the 0-2100 elo range and have found that system openings are much more popular than the mainlines, especially if we allow 1. d4 2. c4 3. 'other' set-ups to be included alongside 1. d4 2. 'other'.