The Best of Chess Informant
Garry Kasparov - $55
FOREWORD by Garry Kasparov

CLOSE-UP
   Bio & Facts
   Farewell to Chess at the Peak of His Fame by Aleksandar Matanovic
   Tournaments

GAMES
   1193 published games, 595 annotated by Kasparov
   White/Black repertoire trees
   Stats

CREATIVITY
   Best games
      13 selected by Kasparov himself
      100 best games
      Chess Informant Jury
      The Best Game 1966-1996 - 40/202 (Kasparov audio)
   Most important theoretical novelties
      Novelties
      Chess Informant Jury
      Theoretical surveys (B 80, C 45, E 04, E 92)

PLAY LIKE KASPAROV
   Combinations
   Excellent moves
   Attack
   Storming initiative
   Defense
   Endings
   Rare Blunders & Misconceptions

In 4 different formats (Chess Informant Expert, PGN, ChessBase and Chess Assistant)

Endgames 1 – Basic knowledge for beginners $59.95
Endgame theory constitutes the foundation of chess. You realize this in striking clarity once you obtain a won endgame, but in the end have to be content with a draw in the end because of a lack of necessary know-how. Such accidents can only be prevented by building up a solid endgame technique.
 

This is Karsten Müller's first DVD, and the grandmaster from Hamburg and endgame expert here lays the foundation for acquiring such a technique.

The first part of his training series can be started without any endgame knowledge. Only a knowledge of the rules of chess is assumed. But for a lot of club players this course will be a welcome brush-up, as a glance at the content confirms. The topics range from elementary endings such as mating with the queen, with rook and with two bishops and mating with bishop and knight.

The DVD also teaches the fundamentals of pawn endings, knight vs. pawns endings, bishop vs. knight endings, queen vs. pawns endings plus knight and bishop endings, including endings with bishop of the same and of opposite color. Those who have always felt that studying the endgame from textbooks is too uninspiring and too arduous, will enjoy this DVD and certainly profit from it. Video running time: 5.5 hours. Included on the DVD is a ChessBase 9.0 Reader.

Alexei Shirov: My best games in the Sicilian - $59.95
Since 1992, Alexei Shirov has belonged to the best players in the world. Within a very short period he established himself as one of the absolute top guns, reaching rank 4 in the FIDE rating list and a rating of 2751 Elo. Many of his brilliant games are characterised by his famous uncompromising attacking play, often leading to a finish that comes as a surprise – not only to the opponent, but also the spectators. Now the genius from Riga presents and explains his best games in a series of training DVDs in the Chess Media System. On this DVD, Shirov focuses on his most outstanding achievements in the Sicilian (except the Najdorf which is dealt with on a separate DVD), a peronal selection combining highest chess quality with aesthetic pleasure. His lectures are designed to not only explain the different opening lines, but also to present interesting and sometimes perplexing ideas and sacrifices in the middlegame. On this brilliant training DVD with a total playing time of nearly 4 hours, you will find Shirov play Anand, Kramnik, Leko and other top players.
 

Total playing time: 3h 50 min.

System requirements: Pentium-Processor at 300 Mhz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Media Player 9.0, DVD drive

Alexei Shirov: My best games in the Najdorf - $59.95
Alexei Shirov can look back on an extraordinary chess career. Young Alexei became U-16 World Champion in 1988, and second in the World Junior Championship in 1990. He received his GM title in 1992, at the age of 20. Since then, Shirov has belonged to the absolute top players in the world. In 1998 he defeated Vladimir Kramnik in a ten-game qualification match that was staged to select a challenger for World Champion Garry Kasparov. Unfortunately, that title match never took place. In 2000 Shirov reached the final of the FIDE world championship, losing to Vishy Anand. Now the genius from Riga presents and explains his best games in a series of training DVDs in the Chess Media System. Shirov’s uncompromising style of play is also reflected in his manner of commenting his own games. He is perfectly objective, and in fact sometimes ruthlessly critical of himself. Even when he is dealing with highly acclaimed games, his judgement is unbiased – no glossing over critical positions where he did not find the optimal continuation. Chess fans are treated not just to a portrait of this extraordinary player, but they can also learn a lot about the development of particular opening lines at top level in the course of time. On this 3rd DVD by Shirov, you will find his most brilliant games in the Sicilian Najdorf. Shirov’s duel with van Wely in the Najdorf Keres Attack is for sure one of the highlights on this DVD, just as the presentation of one of his best games against Kasparov. More than 3 hours entertainment and enlightenment, all packed in one.
 

System requirements: Pentium-Processor at 300 Mhz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Media Player 9.0, DVD drive

Alexei Shirov: My best games the Spanish - $59.95
There are not many top grandmasters who enjoy such a great popularity among chess fans all over the world like Alexei Shirov. Thanks to his aggressive and ingenious playing style, commentators often compare him with the former world champion Mikhail Tal. He often sacrifices material easily in return for initiative and complications where he always seems to be just one step ahead of his opponent – following Shirov’s games is like watching “fire on the board”. Now the genius from Riga presents and explains his best games in a series of training DVDs in the Chess Media System. This first DVD is dedicated to his most brilliant games in the Ruy Lopez. Let Shirov show you how to break down the super-solid Berlin Defence or how he managed to achieve promising counterplay against Garry Kasparov in the open Ruy Lopez. Follow this top player through one of his most famous lines in the Ruy Lopez, the Anti-Marshall with 8.h3.
 

More than 4.5 hours private tuition with one of the most exciting top-class players in the world!

System requirements: Pentium-Processor at 300 Mhz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Media Player 9.0, DVD drive


Zap!Chess - $99
Zap!Chess is the commercial version of Zappa, the 2005 World Computer Chess Champion. The CD contains two versions: “Paderborn” and “Reykjavik”. Reyjavik is the version that won the World Championship; Paderborn includes some ideas from my work at Illinois. I myself do not know which one is better; you‘ll have to find that out for yourself.
 

The style of the program reflects my background as a computer engineer. Rather than developing clever search tricks that may or may not work, I concentrated on getting the most out of modern hardware. Zap!Chess contains one of the best parallel implementations in the world to run efficiently on multiple CPU systems, and it also uses 64-bit machines to their full potential. The program contains large amounts of chess knowledge, and like most modern programs it is tuned fairly aggressively – it knows where the opponent‘s king lives. This gives it an exciting style without being unsound. While the program is optimized for long time controls and big hardware, don‘t despair if you own a smaller system. Both versions come with an implementation of Singular Extensions, the famous Deep Blue search algorithm. They are disabled by default, but they increase the tactical strength of the program at the cost of positional strength.

Enjoy,
Anthony Cozzie

About the author: Zap!Chess programmer Anthony Cozzie (MS ECE, CMU 2003) is currently a PhD student in Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He divides his time between cutting edge research, computer chess, basketball, and shepherding his hapless flock of undergraduates through basic computer science.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Minimum: Pentium II 300 MHz, 64 MB RAM, Windows Me, 2000, XP, DVD ROM drive, Windows Media Player 9. Recommended: Pentium IV 2.2 GHz or more, 256 MB RAM, Windows XP, GeForce5 graphics card (or equivalent) with 128 MB RAM or more 100% compatible with DirectX, sound card, Windows Media Player 9, DVD ROM drive.

An Opening Repertoire for Black - $55

A few years ago, IM Bangiev published a CD with a Repertoire for White. Since then the author has developed a new method of training – his squares strategy – and already three CDs have been published based on it. Consequently, Bangiev has now prepared his long planned CD with a Repertoire for Black along the lines of the terminology and methodology of the squares strategy. The unified system which he suggests is based on a setup with g6, Bg7 and c5, which can easily be applied as a reply to the main white openings.
 

The author has years of experience with this setup, the benefit of which he now passes on to his students.

The author’s work occupies three databases:

The CD is suitable for club players and contains the ChessBase Reader based on ChessBase 9.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS / SYSTEMVORAUSSETZUNGEN: Pentium, 32 MB RAM, Windows 98 SE/2000/Me/XP

Opening Encyclopedia 2006 - $199.95
The ChessBase Opening Encyclopaedia 2006 features the complete coverage of all opening sectors, offering an optimal start for opening training. Many well-known specialists have made contributions in their field of expertise, such as Anand, Bareev, Dautov, Dr Huebner, Jussupow, Kortschnoj, Krasenkow, Nunn and Ribli. For each of 500 opening sectors according to ECO standard there is at least one opening survey, so that the database is the ideal tool for building up a complete opening repertoire. The game database includes 2.5 million games, about 77,000 of them with annotations. Furthermore, the DVD contains a big opening key with 109,000 singles keys and a seperate directory with 221 special theory databases from the ChessBase Magazine.
 

System requirements: Pentium Prozessor 300 MHz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000, Windows XP, DVD-ROM drive, mouse, sound card