Customer Reviews

Chess Starts Here [VHS]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My son is nine years old and just starting to play chess. Although I have played chess for decades, both tournament and just for fun, I have not pushed him into. Now that he is interested, I checked out the current spread of books, videos and software.

Many of the books are either too simple or too difficult. Most of the computer software is much too difficult to beat (even on simple levels) and / or does not have adequate training abilities (if they have any at all). Some of the now-obsolete dedicated handhelds or tabletops with 64 LEDs would be ideal, but they are hard to find. The next stop was videos.

One of the great things about videos (or personal training from chess coaches) is that someone else is doing the coaching. The good part is NOT that someone ELSE is doing it, but the fact that almost all kids are quick to believe anyone else but their parents are the experts (i.e., parents know nothing, but for some mysterious reason, someone else's parents know everything).

In this case, the chess coaches are great. They are the "real deal" behind the excellent movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer". That alone is a great draw for this video. The fact that the wise-old-master and the young-tiger both do very well is an added bonus.

My son greatly improved his knowledge in just one viewing. His "chess vision" is already a leap ahead of where he was just before seeing the video. Probably the best thing taught in the video is Josh reinforcing the idea of not to react in fear -- take a deep breath and look for a good move, better moves and then find the best move. Don't react in fear. My son got that point and I was pleased.

Overall, I am very happy with this video and recommend it to all beginning players. Even more advanced players will like Bruce and Josh giving a "personal" lesson.

As a scholastic chess coach, I was extremely impressed with this instructional video. The professional graphics, along with their well organized approach, makes this video a great instructional tool. Rather than just covering the basics of chess, it emphasizes the importance of thinking prior to moving. In addition, it's designed to motivate players to learn and play our great game!! Mark D. Harrington

Before I saw this video, I could never beat Dad at chess. And I lost to my friends at school. Josh Waizkin, who I saw in "Searching for Bobby Fisher" explains the basics very clearly. I keep looking at the video and I learn different things every time. I don't like to share the video with my friends. I want to keep my secrets to myself.

I thought this was a great video introduction to chess, and it makes a nice complement to the outstanding movie/book, "Searching for Bobby Fischer." After seeing the movie and reading Fred Waitzkin's wonderful book, my interest in chess has been rekindled. I got this video so that I could "relearn" the basic chess moves along with my little cousins (for example, I was only vaguely familiar with the intricacies of "castling" and never even knew about the pawn's "en passant"), and I've enjoyed playing this enjoyable and challenging game. I thought the soft-spoken Bruce Pandolfini (don't confuse him with the character played by Ben Kingsley) and the dynamic and always charismatic Josh Waitzkin provided easy-to-understand instructions with some nice strategies to get started in chess. Their love and enthusiasm for the game are contagious.

If I knew nothing about chess, then this would be an excellent tool to learn basic moves and rules of the games. However, I was mistaken in the level of chess instruction that this tape offered. The expectation of a slightly higher level of chess instruction left me disappointed. I would suggest that you only buy this tape if the viewer of it will know nothing about chess before viewing; otherwise, disappointment and boredom will be the result.

Last Fall I used this video to help teach chess to a group of kids in a poor community rural Louisiana. Several took an interest in this video and began to play chess among themselves. The video is a quality production and lacks the cheesy camera work, bad sound, and stiff presenters so common to instructional videos. Overall this is a great example of education via video.

I like to play chess. This video helped me develop more
strategy and I think it's good because there are some
strategies that I never even knew about such as en passant.

I used to check this video out of the library to show to 4th graders who knew a little bit about chess already...can't find it anymore, so I'm going to break down and purchase a copy. I liked the interaction of the two chess players and it was easy for the kids to understand. I just show a bit of it at a time. This video explains strategies much better than I can!

We received our video a few days ago. I was immediately disappointed. The video was a cheaply made copy. The label was cut out of everyday copy paper (crooked, no less) and then glued on. The glue job was sloppy and crooked as well. The cover was the same plain cover that comes with every video one purchases from Wal-Mart.

Once I put the video in the player, I thought the content was first rate. The two men "teaching" on the video were superb. My five year old even enjoyed watching them.

The biggest downside, however, is that in their rush to save a buck, the company that did such a poor job making this copy forgot to remove the tabs from the Fuji T-60 videotape. We rewound the video and left it in the VCR with the intention of viewing it again after dinner. Well, someone sat on the remote or something and the Record button was pushed. We now have a very expensive tape of whatever it was that was on tv at the time.

I paid for a professional product and I was given a poorly made copy. I believe that the customer should at least be warned that the videos are copies and not originals. And the least they could have done was remove the tabs so they can't be taped over!

This was a good video for beginners. My 4 year old daughter learned a little from it. My 9 year old son refreshed his learning. Perhaps some more opening moves or a simple game would have been good.