Beginners look here first!
Susan Polgar is not only a women's grand master (GM), but is also a fantastic teacher. I have about two months of intense studying/playing under my belt, so I am a beginner who is knowledgeable to some extent about tactics, center control, pawn structure, etc. My estimated OTB rating (i.e. currently not rated yet by the USCF) is only about 1200-1250 on my best day.
She talks about the basics right off the bat, and then (surprisingly) dives right into GM level games, analyzing and annotating as she goes. This was a great surprise for me because I feel this is the best way to learn (tactics practice and studying GM games). The reason why I brought up my rating is I think someone brand new to the game will have some difficulty following along as she discusses high-level games. In any case, they are a great help to someone at my level. I would recommend that the absolute beginner at least learn the moves of the game, try some tactics puzzles, and even play some online games,...
Videos in wrong order
The video consists of a series of games with Polgar on the right side of the screen, with a board in front of her, and on the left side of the screen is a digital representation of that board (slightly stretched, but one gets used to that pretty quickly). A man off-camera lists the moves, she makes them and analyses them. After each game a set of bullet points with the main lessons appears. Good stuff.
However:
The DVD->AmazonVideo transformation has left the order all completely wrong. So the video jumps from very basic games to pretty advanced games with Polgar exploring two or three six-move variations before going back to the actual game pretty quickly. And then we go back to easy games again. Worse, the bullet points with the main lessons don't match the games, making the video pretty hard to follow. Renting this is probably worth it, but I would most definitely not buy this on Amazon Video - better to get a DVD on ebay instead.
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