Winning Chess the Easy Way with Susan Polgar, Vol. 3: Essential Chess Tactics and Combinations

by ChessCentral

Product Features

• If chess is 99% tactics, then get ready to improve your tactical skills with GM Susan Polgar
• Susan Polgar shows you the essential chess tactics and combinations
• Learn from Susan the most common tactical elements in chess
• Sit back and let one of the Worlds best player train you in chess tactics
• Entertaining, but full of Grandmaster wisdom - a great value

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• ASIN: B0009F610O
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 15, 2005
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,353 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)

Product Description

As the famous saying goes "Chess is 99% tactics. What are chess tactics? Tactics are maneuvers that take advantage of short-term opportunities, often (but not necessarily) involving combinations or sacrifices. In this DVD, Susan will introduce the most common tactical elements in chess. Approximate running time 52 minutes. GM Susan Polgar: 4 time Women World Champion * Only World Triple Crown Winner (World Blitz, Rapid, and Classical World Champion)* 5 time Olympic Champion (5 Gold, 4 Solver, 1 Bronze) * Currently ranked #1 in the US and World for Women * 2003 Grandmaster of the Year and US Open Blitz Champion * Award wining and Best Selling Author * Founder of the Susan Polgar Foundation, a non-profit organization to promote chess for young people

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Buy Vol.6 Instead of Vol.3, December 18, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Winning Chess the Easy Way with Susan Polgar, Vol. 3: Essential Chess Tactics and Combinations (CD-ROM)

The producers of these videos believe they will sell 500,000 to 1,000,000 copies, so they are trying very hard to get you to buy all 6 volumes. YOU DO NOT NEED TO DO THIS.

Video #6 contains tactics and opening principles, so you get more bang for the buck if you buy video #6 instead of #3 (and/or #1.)

I would recommend buying volumes #5 and #6, but not #2, #3, or #4. Furthermore, I would not buy #1, but if you are an absolute beginner, it may be helpful.

Also, the review by Thal Ajoni is an honest and thoughtful criticism of this set of Chess videos. Unfortunately it caught the attention of one or two people to falsly write 5-star reviews for this product (wrongly) thinking that they were championing the name of Polgar or women in Chess (as they did with Jennifer Shahade's very good first effort). By making this mistake, the few people in question merely succeeded in supporting a bad set of videos, which I believe they are producing and pushing for sales. But YOU DO NOT NEED TO BUY THESE VIDEOS TO IMPROVE YOUR CHESS!!!

****

In all fairness, maybe #1 is instructional, but beware, because it is very boring. There is a call and answer session with Paul Truong who seems to run the first video, there is a pause between moves, and black makes some very bad moves, but generally you will have to watch one game at a time, review it again, before moving on to the next game. It is a slow and boring process, and I believe there are better ways to learn this general opening principles. In video #1, one thing I wish Polgar had done was to explain how to get out of a difficulty once a novice mistake is made in the opening. It would have been helpful for Susan to start with a tough situation and ask, "What should white do now? Should white take the pawn, move the knight, develop the bishop, or castles?" These would have been very good drills.

But instead, black makes these awful moves with the knight on the edge of the board, and white makes the classic developing moves...I wish all games could be this simple to understand, development wise.

So that is my criticism for #1, it is boring, and slow, and too "black and white" in terms of learning opening principles. If you are an absolute beginner, maybe this would be helpful.

***

But the #2 video is weird, because I do not know who its advertised to teach. It's title is "How to Make a Plan" but you really don't learn how to make any plan. What is explained is a general theme of various openings (openings are memorized sets of moves that equalize the chess position)...but of course beginners need to know "how to make a plan", not "what are the plans for various openings".

She explains the opening plans several moves deep in each of several opening, for example, King's Indian Defense starts at move 8, (which means that both you and your novice opponent have made the exact 8 moves to follow the King's Indian Defense) and then discusses the variations that follow to about move 12, and what the plans are for the variations.

My criticism is that if you have reached a chess strength and ability, such that you can play such openings to move 8, then you should know what the plans are for the variations, and what it is that you need to do. Why would you play an opening and have no idea what to do? So this video is not for someone who plays these openings. And therefore, they know what the plan is already.

My criticism for her second video is that she never tells you about the process used to make plans, she just tells you what the plan is, and then how the winning side went about to give checkmate. In the endgame section, you are given a position and then GM Polgar states, "White's plan is to play this, and then this. And now promotes the queen and gives checkmate." She does the same thing for the annotated professional games but because these professional games are annotated by a GM this part of video #2 is valuable in itself.

But the title is "How to make a plan." Not "What's the plan."

***

The #3 video is a list of the basic tactics, she providing 14 of these. You can learn about this list from the internet, at jeremysilman or chessville, or chesscafe dot coms, or just run google searches. There are also tactics and combinations provided on the second DVD in video #6, so if you buy this video instead of #3, then you've saved some time and money.

Tactics are moves that enable you to win a piece, usually because they do two things at once and force your opponent to make a concilation. This is what is contained on this video:
1 Fork
2 Pin
3 Skewer
4 Discovered Attack/Check
5 Double Check
6 Trapping Pieces
7 Removing the Guard
8 Intermediate Move
9 Pawn Promotions
10 Back Rank Problem
11 Smothered Mate
12 Stalemate
13 Perpetual Checks
14 Pattern Recognition

So she covering these 14 subjects in 50 minutes, with 35 seconds timed music at the beginning and end of each chapter. So is very little time taken to explain the tactics. You won't learn much from this video.

Look at the last chapter on Pattern Recognition. This means that you must repeat and practice the different tactics using software preferably. In this manner will you improve.

Why even have a video that says, "GO PRACTICE TACTICS ON SOFTWARE" ?

Read the review that was attacked, it was written by Thal Ajoni, and it's title is "Tactics takes practice, not videos". It will tell you what software to buy in lieu of this video, and has recommendations for improving you chess playing ability. Your chess playing ability is dependent about 90% on tactics, so you need good software to practice your tactical ability.

***

The #4 video is just a typical video on traps, and it's really unfortunate because:
You should learn traps after you know the openings,
You should learn openings after you understand tactics,
You should learn tactics after you understand the endgame.
This is what all GMs say is the way to learn chess.

But this video feeds into the beginner's lust for a quick win, unfortunately, only beginner's fall for the types of traps that are shown in this video. And in fact, the chapter on How to Avoid Scholar's Mate is just ridiculous, how does knowing this add to anyone's ability to play chess? It doesn't. Instead of showing the chapters on some mates, she should show a video on how to mate. So #4 is not good for improving your chess, but if you're beginning, you won't listen and you'll try to learn these traps anyway. If you are like that, then please, at least save your money and get the traps off the internet. Because everyone knows them, they aren't secrets.

***

Summary: I paid over a hundred dollars for four of these videos, and I regret it. So I do not want others to do the same mistake I did and buy these videos without a thoughtful review to fall back on, and I do not want them to fall for producers' December reviews that try to force them to buy all the videos as a set. What I want, is to let others know what content they are going to buy, even if they disagree with my recommendations.So my summary is:

I think the #5, and #6 videos should be extremely valuable. They are annotations of instructional games by this GM, and are a Strong Buy.

Do not buy #3, instead read and follow Thal Ajoni's advice for improving tactics.

Whether or not to buy #2...this video doesn't tell you "how to make a plan" it simply tells you what the plans are. However, this video does contain some professional games that are annotated by the GM Polgar, so this part of the video is valuable. I would not recommend buying this video, but you may wish to add it to your collection if you find the annotated games on #5 and #6 are good for improving your chess ability.

I also am advising against the purchase of #1 because it is boring for children. Thal Ajoni's review recommends buying Danny King, Andrew Martin, and Yasser Seirwann videos.

Final Review:
Polgar Videos:
#1=2 stars
#2=1 star
#3=1 star
#4=1 star
#5=5 stars
#6=5+ stars

Notes:
The ProChess DVD by Yasser Seirawann contains all the information that is on these first 4 CDs for under 20 bucks.

Andrew Martins "Basics of Winning Chess" and "The ABC's of Chess Openings" are the most entertaining for parental-guidance. Danny King has a set of videos, which would be useful for a stronger player.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars every minute useful, April 19, 2005

By 

Bobby Newman (Long Beach, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Winning Chess the Easy Way with Susan Polgar, Vol. 3: Essential Chess Tactics and Combinations (CD-ROM)

Susan Polgar is a genius of chess. This DVD is nothing but practical, with each chapter giving a powerful tool. The tactics may be well-known, but they are demonstrated and explained in such a way that all but the most experienced should get something out of it to improve their game. One to watch again and again.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very enjoyable, December 13, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Winning Chess the Easy Way with Susan Polgar, Vol. 3: Essential Chess Tactics and Combinations (CD-ROM)

Very enjoyable DVD. Excellent instruction on chess planning. Easy to understand. Obviously there are some people who can't stand the fact that women like Polgar and Shahade are better than them so they go around writing bogus bad 1 star review. This is the highest quality chess DVD on the market.