actually I have only the Gustafsson dvd's and I was asking about them. I didn't want to name them because I didn't want this topic to derail (well maybe it did anyway)

Jan Gustafsson made a couple of good DVD's on 1.e4 e5 for Black.
The one that i own is pretty good as it contains his home analysis (even though i had to organise it myself which took a little while, chessbase; use editors!) but i also enjoyed his character and his presentation.
There is also just enough analysis to get you by in the second one (Which i own, dont own the first one but seen a friends and suffice to say im too shit to play the marshall).

But yea i suppose that you've got to look at which audience the book/DVD appeals to. Obviously a lot less work goes into DVD's, but i mean the general audience (i think) for people who are looking to improve is 1400-2200 which these DVD's are suited for. Do they need/have time to go through lots of variations? I'm not so sure.

And yes, Marin is an extremely good author and etc, and i know thats its the same price as an Andrew Martin DVD which i agree is unfair. But, i suppose there's economics/business studies going into that which i certainly dont understand. Unfortunately thats just the way it is, however opening DVD's aren't all that bad. At least they give us some idea about what a person is actually thinking. 

ANYWAY, honestly i think the best DVD's are this:
-Jan Gustafsson: Marshall and Open Games DVD's
-Daniel King PP 1-15 (although theres a mistake in PP 15 in my thread i think!)
-Karsten Mueller Endgames.

Thats it. Most other opening DVD's dont give more analysis than what they explain (except maybe Bojkov's? Im not sure i dont own it) therefore making it inferior (in my view).

Why not use the best of both worlds? Some DVDs are great as are some of the books. imo the rest is not worth investing your time into.

My only experience with a DVD was quite recently when I took over the Caro-Kann as Black. I first got Schandorff's book which was very nice but rather intimidating for a newcomer. I then got Bologan's DVD which is lean, coherent and to the point.

My chosen repertoire now consists of a mix of Bologan lines, Schandorff lines and certain other discussed with a C-K 'connoisseur'.

One thing I tried and did not particulalry worked for me was to casually look at the DVD to get the ideas. It much better worked for me when I started to use it like a real book, i.e. taking detailed notes, completing the gaps and making my own decisions regarding variations.

Of course if money is an issue then get only books. 

gwnn wrote on 06/16/11 at 12:29:19:

Hey, what did you expect?

Smyslov_Fan wrote on 06/16/11 at 16:01:17:

Neither do I.
That's what I'm afraid of and one reason I don't own a single chess DVD.

Fromper wrote on 06/16/11 at 14:50:32:

That's very much how I study opening books. In fact I select my books on this criterium: can I use it the way Fromper describes? Of course it happens sometimes, but if I read an opening book one time and feel that I've got out of it everything there was I feel very disappointed.
Possibly it's just me, but when I've bought a new chess book it very often happens that I want to compare new information with the book. That recent NID-game Nakamura-Ivanchuk is one example. I immediately looked up what Carsten Hansen had to say.
Looking up the line in a book seems much easier to me than looking it up on a DVD - if it's there, because DVD contain less information.

Don't books have the same problem? I mean you cant always believe what is written either, at the end of the day you have to take a stand and come up with your own opinion of the position looking at it objectively.

fling wrote on 06/16/11 at 15:40:28:


I've watched his DVD twice now. I certainly hasn't put me off the French. But I've not quite been tipped back into playing it again. The Pirc is a difficult mistress