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MACA Book Review
Attacking the King – for Experts Attacking the King – for Experts
by: Rustam Kasimdzhanov

Price: $39.95
ISBN:
Format: CD/DVD Four hours
Publisher: ChessBase

Reviewed by: Chess Horizons Editor Mark Donlan
Recommendation: Recommended

Rustam Kasimdzhanov captured the chess world’s attention when he won the 2004 FIDE knock-out world chess championship by defeating players such as Ivanchuk, Grischuk, Topalov, and Adams. Since then he has shown himself to be an eloquent and engaging personality with a wry sense of humor. On this new DVD in fritztrainer video format he offers an entertaining outline of historical and modern attacking chess.

The fritztrainer video format works by showing a video of the presenter in one window, a chessboard in another, along with a notation window for the moves. All the windows are resizable and the moves and variations on the board are synchronized with the video. Moreover, the format allows the presenter to highlight important squares or use colored arrows to further clarify exactly what’s happening on the board.
 
The grandmaster from Uzbekistan has a fine command of the English language and states that his goal is to share his experiences and to provide a systematic explanation of the way he learned to attack the opponent’s king. In the first part of the DVD he looks at one exemplary game or fragment from each of the first thirteen world champions indicative of their individual approach to conducting an attack. On the second part of the DVD he comments on the decisive stages of the attack in eight of his own games (or fragments), explaining which specific train of thought led him to success, while trying to present as many diverse games as possible. There are introductory and wrap-up segments bringing the running time to about four hours.
 
This is not the way to learn about basic tactics and the “for Experts” in the title really holds no meaning in regard to rating, rather this is a chance to have a former world champion demonstrate a number of nice games and positions that captured his imagination. Thus, it works best as a form of chess entertainment.
 
The DVD also contains the whole training course in audio-format for Pocket Fritz 3. No additional software is needed to run this DVD as it comes equipped with the ChessBase 9 Reader that installs onto your hard disk. If you already have CB9 or one of the Fritz family playing programs, then you do not need to install the reader. The system requirements are Pentium-Processor at 300 MHz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows XP, Windows Vista, DVD drive, mouse, soundcard.

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