My Second Recommendation

Enough dilly-dalling, it is time for me to let you know what I think is one of the best all time documentation available for the non-expert player.

The title is the The Scandinavian the Easy Way, by IM Andrew Martin. Published by Chessbase. It sells for about 29.99 and you can find it at many places including Wholesalechess.com. Chessbase has a review as well.

I also ordered the ABC's of Chess Openings by IM Andrew Martin as well. As excited by the Scandinavian disk, I am horribly disappointed by the this one, so it isn't all peaches and cream.

Both of these titles use the Chess Media System. They are essentially databases of AVI files. How much you get out of them depends on how you view the material. You can open the AVI files and watch them just fine in Quicktime on a Mac. (This might be due to the fact that I have flip4mac installed. But if you are ever online you really need this to be installed anyways). But they do not have any of the board demonstrations, and since the author assumes there will be board demonstrations you get lost.

It can also run under something called Chess Reader which is available for install on the disk, so that you can see the board demonstrations as well.

But they can also be run under the Fritz Family interface. I run under here because you get the additional benefit of having the board being watched by your own personal grandmaster who is providing constant feedback. You can see the lines, the options and stop if you wish and run some of your own lines and ideas and restart.

This is, simply a fantastic way of obtaining and learning chess information. When done well. Chessbase, unfortunately doesn't always do well. But this disk is done extraordinarily well.

Andrew Martin is exceptionally good at this. He has a nice sing-song english accent and an incredibly expressive face. This allows him to keep the user interested and provide terrific emotion to his distaste and joy of various different lines. You just know when things are horrible and why things are good. He also runs the equipment very well, and at a non-fumbling speed that allows him to zip and zoom through material so you can see why something is a good idea, or a bad idea.

He often will illustrate things that other mediums would just say... Bad idea, or "a win for white". He will show you in a quick one off various traps that might lay, and why someone eventually just resigned.

He often demonstrates lines by focusing on the history of the lines and attempting to find demonstrative and yet recent games that demonstrate the point. And then he will interrupt games to show you the interesting side variations, and why the experts have gotten where they are at. This is the best version of the recommended following a master's game I have seen.

And... And THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT... He discusses the theme and means of the opening. What black is trying to do if essentially unmolested, the goals of the opening, where he is attempting to put his pieces, why his pieces are there. Then he goes over several attempts that the other has tried over time to interrupt those plans. And what happens if tries to overplay those plans.

At the end of the first viewing of the disk, which takes about three hours, you not only have an understanding of the opening, you have a deeper understanding of chess. And an aching hunger for more. This in any measure, should be what chess education is about,

Takchess had published a Scandinavian game using the same Qd3 system that is espoused on this disk. It unfortunately didn't go well for him, but as a general ol' patzer who had just watched the disk, you could just see where he had lost clarity of the opening, and reasons why it didn't go as well as it should.

If you didn't get how profound that last paragraph was. It is a very different way for the likes of me to look at a game. I don't know how a GM looks at a game, but it sounds like this. In a single 3 hour disk, Andrew Martin has provided me a framework of looking at an opening that I had always desired but couldn't express because I didn't know what to ask for.

I will get flack for this. But so what. If there was a single purchase you should make and you're a knight, get PCT. If there is a second purchase, get the Scandinavian the Easy Way. Even if you don't play the Scandinavian, it will help you with a different perspective on how to see the board during the opening.

(PS... On the recommendations of the Knights I am getting the Idiot's Guide to Chess. I have high hopes! I hope to review this by next week).