Looking for a last-minute Christmas present for the chess player in your life? ChessLecture is now producing DVD’s of lectures that appeared on their website. You don’t have to be a subscriber — just order the DVDs of the lectures you want! The DVD’s are collections of three or four or five (or more) thematically related lectures by your favorite lecturers: Jesse Kraai, Eugene Perelshteyn, David Vigorito, etc.
In particular, ChessLecture has released six DVD’s ($19.95 each) of my long-running series “Learn from Your Fellow Amateurs.” You can find them on the new releases page. You can also find them on the US Chess Federation website, which has a whole page for ChessLecture DVD’s. On the USCF website you can also buy the whole six-DVD set of “Learn from Your Fellow Amateurs” for $99.00.
My premise behind these lectures is that amateur players can learn just as much or more by studying amateur games as by studying grandmaster games. The mistakes made in amateur games are more representative of the kind of mistakes typical tournament players (including your opponents!) will make, and they help illuminate typical flaws in many players’ thinking process. By contrast, the mistakes made in grandmaster games are often more subtle and hard for an amateur to learn from.
I shouldn’t dwell only on the mistakes. There is also something quite inspiring about seeing an amateur play a truly master-caliber game. It does happen. You can do it, too. You’ll see some examples on these DVD’s.
Why are there so few books or compilations available of amateur games annotated by masters? First, I think that many masters consider it beneath their dignity to annotate amateur games. Not only that, many masters have not thought deeply about the pedagogy of chess. When they write a book, they often write it for themselves and other masters, not for the average chessplayer. By contrast, in these lectures I have tried to think seriously about what amateur chess players really need to know and how to present it understandably.
Another challenge is finding high-quality amateur games to annotate. The subscribers of ChessLecture have solved that problem for me, by submitting their own games for this series (often with very helpful commentary about what they were thinking about during the game). Without them, the lectures would not have been possible.
All in all, I think you’ll find this series to be a unique addition to your — oops, sorry, I meant your friend’s — chess library!
P.S. While I’m on the subject of ChessLecture, let me pass along some news from the management… Jesse Kraai is coming back! Specifically, I have been told that “Jesse is nearing completion of his novel, and is looking to end his sabbatical and return to chess activity by late spring.” Any of you who have heard his lectures know what great news this is!
