Customer Reviews

Chess Lessons for Beginners

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I started to watch this DVD and was forced to abandon it after about ten minutes. The reason- the presentation made my head swim. Instead of presenting the material in a calm, slow, comprehensible and intelligible manner, the narrator, a Mr. Sam Sloan, starts out talking a million miles an hour and doesn't even introduce himself to the viewer. I am not a beginner at chess and have been involved in it for a good many years. But I enjoy viewing programs that deal with basic concepts because I figure I could always learn something new or see a familiar theme presented in a novel format. But the presentation in this program is guaranteed to make you dizzy. Mr. Sloan talks so fast that it's hard to see how anyone could absorb what he's saying, especially a raw beginner. He's all over the place. He doesn't appear to have a sense of his audience and seems to be speaking only to himself, reiterating concepts to himself that he already knows. He reminded me of that Russian chessplayer in the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" who sat in Washington Square Park having a conversation with himself. Another criticism that I must level is that the visual angle of the chessboard in this DVD is very disconcerting. The viewer is actually looking down at the board from above and the individual chessmen are hard to discern since we're looking at their tops. A wall-mounted demonstration board or a computer graphics chessboard would have been much better. Mr. Sloan's hands fly all over the board, moving pawns and pieces with such rapidity that it's hard to keep track of what he's doing. He seems to be in a speed contest with himself. After ten minutes I couldn't take it anymore. This is a sloppy, disorganized, poorly thought out DVD.

Very well explained. The content ranges from Beginner learning the pieces to helping someone that already know the pieces.
Has enough information in there that you would need to take noted and watch it several times over.

There is a big step between learning all of the chess pieces, to knowing how to even play checkmate.
Watching this DVD i did not feel frustrated.

What a relief.