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Dejan
Bojkov: Chess HighwaysWilliam John Donaldson, 53, has been an IM since 1983, with two GM norms under his belt. He is also an author, organizer, journalist and six-time captain of the US team at chess Olympiads. In 2006 he was named USA Zone President in FIDE. He is constantly writing and producing chess books, mostly biographies of historical chess figures.
Bulgarian Grandmaster Dejan Bojkov’s third DVD for ChessBase differs considerably from his first two which were devoted to teaching openings (the Kalashnikov Variation of the Sicilian and the King’s Indian). This time around, with Chess Highways, he aims to instruct amateur players on the power of queens, rooks and bishops in both the middle and endgame.
The medium for teaching this material is 48 carefully selected games and positions which are thoroughly explained. The mini-lessons run from roughly five to ten minutes (running time for the DVD is 5 hours 38 minutes). Bojkov is well-prepared and familiar with his material. Although English is not his native language he is easy to understand and pleasant to listen to.
The examples are divided between classics and more recent games. Those of a certain age are likely to remember the famous game Karpov-Unzicker, Nice (ol) 1974, which is featured here. The soon-to-be World Champion won a beautiful encounter in which his control of the only open file played a pivotal role in deciding the game.
The following example from the author’s practice, which is also featured, drew inspiration from Karpov’s gem. Note this accompanying game replay is an abridgement of the audio commentary.
Chess Highways should prove useful to two groups of amateur players. The first is those who are starting, particularly young players who need a solid grounding in the fundamentals. The second group who would benefit from the work are experienced adult players who do better learning from DVDs than books.
The System requirements for this DVD are : Pentium-Processor at 300 Mhz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, DVD drive, mouse, soundcard. It does not require Chess Base to run, instead using ChessBase Reader which is provided.
The price of $39.95 might seem steep compared to a book but cheap for a 5½ hour lesson with a Grandmaster.
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About the authorBorn in 1977, Dejan Bojkov is a Bulgarian GM who qualified from the Sports Academy of Sofia as a trainer, a profession which he has followed in various countries. After his work as a trainer in Kavala (Greece), he was employed ba ex Women's World Champion Antoaneta Stefanova as her trainer. Bojkov was champion of Bulgaria in 2009 and was a member of the Bulgarian team at the European championships in 2009. In cooperation with Vladimir Georgiev he has written "A Course in Chess Tactics" which appeared as a Gambit publication in 2010. GM Bojkov has also written more than 30 reports for the news pages chessbase.com and chessbase.de. He has also produced a number of training DVDs, which you will find here. |
