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 You play 20 moves of elegant positional chess - but throw the game away by miscalculating. To play a good game of chess you must know how to calculate. The ability to calculate is not something that chessplayers are born with. Calculation is a core skill that can be improved through practice. In this 10th Power Play DVD Grandmaster Daniel King will help you to assess how good you are at calculating, and gives you tips as to how you might sharpen your thought processes at the chessboard. Throughout the DVD, specially selected positions will enable you to test your understanding of the subject. The Power Play series is suitable for anyone looking to improve their chess, but also provides ready-made lessons and exercises for a trainer. Video running time: 4 hours 30 min.

How should systematic chess coaching be structured so that students are able to use their freshly acquired knowledge in their own games? Author Stefan Becker came to an astonishingly simple answer. The solution to every chess problem lies on the board. So it’s quite logical that we should ask our pieces what they think about their future. But what do these discussions sound like, and what happens if the pieces have different or conflicting interests? This DVD provides the answers to these questions and more by working through a number of selected masterpieces. Suddenly it becomes clear how world-class players come up with their brilliant ideas. Stefan Becker illustrates his concept, talking to the pieces, by taking the role of the player in a number of games. German Grandmaster Dr. Karsten Müller lends his voice to the pieces and tries to express their feelings, aims, plans, wishes and fears. Becker then demonstrates how this feedback, together with calculation and new questions, leads to the right decisions over the board. Becker’s didactic concept can also be used by teachers to explain the inner workings of chess to their students. Video length: 4 h 17 min.

Despite the fact that many books have been written on tactics in chess, many players still find it extremely difficult to recognize tactical patterns and calculate ensuing lines. With this disk the author not only gives a large number of examples of the most different kind, trying to cover as many ideas as possible, but also suggests a method which will greatly help you to see various tactical motives and systemize your calculation. Video running time: 4 h15 min.

The theory of the critical moment in the chess game was explained once by GM Iosif Dorfman, who suggested that every game has 5 or 6 “forks” at which the important decisions are made. Accordingly, all major erroneous decisions are made at these moments when there are multiple possible choices. Mikhalchishin describes different critical moments in detail and explains how to react correctly. Understanding the play at such a critical moment is the key to improving one’s results and general understanding of chess. Critical moments are characterized by the presence of between 2 and 4 different possibilities – the exchange of pieces, the calculation of a long variation, a positional solution or transposition into an endgame. Mikhalchishin shows how to perform correctly in the above situations. Video playing time: 3 h 26 min.