System Requirements Windows 98/2000/Me/XP CPU 233mhz or higher (1GHz recommended) RAM 32MB (256 recommended) DVD-ROM drive This can also be played using a TV and DVD player

Have you ever wanted to learn something from the ultimate master? This is your opportunity to learn the ins and outs of a popular chess opening from the champion grandmaster Garry Kasparov himself! I will warn you that this is pretty high level and he flies through chess notation quite quickly. But if you know a person who really enjoys chess, this would make a great gift.

What will I learn?

There is over 3 hours of video and you will go over the opening theory, popular variations and even go through a couple popular games that used this opening. There are twenty videos varying from a minute long to 20 minutes each. There is a chess board and you will see all the moves made as he mentions them. This title is fully compatible with Fritz and it uses the Fritz engine. If you have Fritz 8 installed you can use the nice 3D boards and can toggle the games from one software to the other.

What resources are at my fingertips?

If it?s not cool enough to have Garry Kasparov describing games in detail there are other features to this title as well. Here are a few worth mentioning:

• Deep Position Analysis Engine: want to see what would happen if a different move was made? Use this!
• Comprehensive Opening Book: check the statistics of every move!
• 100,000 games database including some Queen\'s Gambit games
• Free 3 Month membership to playchess.com

Graphics

The default 2D chessboards aren?t anything special and the only 3D board (if you do not have Fritz installed) is pretty bland. If you want stunning 3D chessboards install Frtiz 8. The videos are good and look decent using a TV too. I was impressed with how well the board movements were coordinated with the teaching videos.

Sound

This game is all about teaching and learning from video. It does a good job in the sound department.

Stability

The only problem I had was accessing a video or two because the DVD got some marks on it. If you treat yours better than I did you?ll be fine.

Appropriateness

Chess is a pretty clean game and I can?t complain about the Queen being the most powerful piece. If you use the playchess.com your online experience may vary but the people on there that I have played against were very friendly.

Final Thoughts

This is a pretty thorough teaching tool for chess enthusiasts. Being a beginner chess player much of this was over my head. I highly recommend being familiar with chess notation before watching the videos. I like the option of being able to watch it on my TV too.