On his third DVD on the Spanish Opening Alexei Shirov pursues new ways, analysing not only his own games but also the works of other world-class players.

In his quest to deal with topical developments and present the latest opening concepts, he examines for example the Jaenisch Gambit (3...f5) which was revived by Teimour Radjabov on top tournament level. Furthermore, very interesting new ideas are to be found in the games of Gata Kamsky – here the author depicts examples from the Closed Spanish (Breyer System and Zaitzev System) as well as the Open Ruy Lopez. As far as his own games are concerned, this time Shirov puts the main emphasis on the accepted Marshall Gambit (more than 2 hours of analysis) – a system which has got him good results recently and which he considers a promising attempt to fight this popular opening line. To round off the DVD, there are two videos featuring games with the Anti-Marshall System, as well as the Berlin Defence.

Alexei Shirov was born in Riga just like world champion Mihail Tal, and also his playing style reminds many chess fans of the young Tal. In the beginning of the 90s, a comet-like rise brought the young Latvian to the world top within the shortest of time. Being no older than 22 years, he already had an Elo rating of nearly 2750 and belonged to the absolute elite. Since then Shirov has been one of the best players in the world, delighting all chess fans with original and amazing ideas on the board.

 

Playing time: 5:51

 

System requirements: Pentium-Processor at 300 Mhz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows XP or Vista, DVD drive, mouse, soundcard