by Alexei Shirov, Video running time: 8 hours

For Shirov the Slav and the Semi-Slav form one huge and common opening. Of course it is a mighty opening complex and the DVD cannot give a complete picture of it, but in the areas he chooses to highlight our author is an absolute expert and capable of giving the deepest possible insights into the secrets of this extremely solid opening.

First, Shirov deals with the pure Slav. A lot of his time is spent on the modern treatment of it with 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 e6, which Kramnik brought back into fashion and which since then has been employed by several world class players. In the second part the author turns to the Semi- Slav. In his intro he explains the latest discoveries in the Shirov/Shabalov Attack with 7.g4. Then come some games with a quiet setup for White (6.Qc2 or 6.Bd3), before at the close he presents three games in the Botvinnik System, a setup which obviously suits Shirov since in his great success in Sofia 2009 he was able to stand fast against Carlsen and Topalov with it.

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 90ies, 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.

System requirements: Pentium-Processor at 300 Mhz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows Vista, DVD drive, mouse, soundcard