Ender wrote on 07/05/12 at 12:21:43:


Agree, re: Lilov. Awful. Almost comically bad.

Speaking of which:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywEfL3nWyIs
Is this a wind-up? Just can't work it out.
Reminds me of The Day Today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3BO6GP9NMY

I have lots of books. I have lots of DVDs.
I have watched all the DVDs. Some more than once.

I have not read all the books. I still have a far too large number of unread or only flicked through ones. 

The hope is that the mere possession of them will make me a better player 

In terms of learning effectiveness, due to my age, my chess knowledge has really come from books, as the DVDs came along at much much later stage in my chess development. No idea what it would be like to have tried to gain the knowledge at a chess fledgling age from DVDs (plus to a similar effect the many and varied chess material you can get online, either free, or paid for on sites like ICC). A lot of the free 10 min vids are like chess popcorn I can lazily munch through, but are they nutritional for my chess 

I kind of view the DVDs more as an entertainment factor, rather than to gain knowledge. So if I happen to learn something, that's a bonus. I found Kasparov's DVDs on the QDG and Najdorf very interesting, but very probably wouldn't play either. I found Korchnoi's DVD rather entertaining. 

I feel the zeitgeist is very lazy nowadays, and book study feels like hard work, but I think hard work gives the best rewards.

I've bought some opening DVDs just to get a feel for if I might be interesting in playing an opening. If they were all accompanied by analysis files, like e.g. Gustafsson's 1. ...e5 repertoire, this might be the way forward.

I own Gustafsson's Marshall/Anti-Marshall and Open games dvds and they're the best I've ever watched, I wish more presenters would offer the analysis files like he does, this should become standard practice for opening dvds imo. I also found Nick Pert's two Killer Endgame dvds very good as well. Apart from these none of the others dvds I own have impressed me too much, some have been fairly entertaining but haven't really helped my chess improvement much. I think for training study, books are still the best, but for openings if the presenters offer the analysis files I can see these replacing opening books in future.

I own many DVD's and books,  but one cannot really  compare DVD's directly with books. Clearly, the depth of material that can be covered on a DVD will always be paltry compared to the material in a book. 

But are DVD's beneficial? Yes, of course there are. But firstly, it depends on your playing level and knowledge of that particular area covered on each specific DVD. Personally,  I have learnt something from every DVD that I have. They are useful introductions to a variety of topics - opening, middlegame and endgame. And I would say that some opening DVD's are good enough to prepare you to play at a 2000 to 2100 ELO level. (Of course, this is heresy to say this here) 

As with books, the quality of DVD's  varies widely. So you need to read the reviews before buying or  only buy authors who have proven themselves if there are no reviews available. 

In addition, you need to consider your learning style. Some people  learn better by reading, some by  listening. Passively watching a DVD is not an effective way to learn for me. I usually enter the moves from an opening DVD into COW and I create test positions in Chessbase from some endgame DVD's to help remember and absorb what I learn.

In summary, I would say DVD's cannot replace books, but they are a useful supplement.

I have many chess books.

Do ChessPub visitors own instructional chess DVDs (such as the Fritz Trainer series from ChessBase)?

If Yes, do people find the DVDs to be effective?