The genius from Riga presents and explains his best games in the Spanish.

Volume 1: is dedicated to his most brilliant games in the Ruy Lopez. Let Shirov show you how to break down the super-solid Berlin Defence or how he managed to achieve promising counterplay against Garry Kasparov in the open Ruy Lopez.

Follow this top player through one of his most famous lines in the Ruy Lopez, the Anti-Marshall with 8.h3.

Introduction (09:04)
Steinitz Variation (41:10)
Berlin Defence (37:04)
Open Spanish (42:08)
Moeller and Archangelsk Defence (26:22)
Anti-Marshall- System 1 (32:05)
Anti-Marshall-System 2 (15:50)
Marshall Gambit (20:42)
Modern Chigorin Defence (34:55)
Flohr / Saitzev Variation (34:06) 

Volume 2: Alexei Shirov continues his presentation – with topical games of his own, starting in October 2006.

At the high-class tournaments of last year and also during the candidate matches in Elista (versus Adams and Aronian), Shirov was trusting the Spanish Opening both with the white and the black pieces.

As Black, he most successfully returned to the system 5. ... b5 6.Bb3 Bc5 (5 games).

As White, he had to face the difficult question how to deal best with the popular Marshall Attack (8. ... d5) (3 games).

Further topics of discussion are the Berlin Defence as well as so important systems of the Closed Ruy Lopez like the Breyer, the Flohr-Saitzev or the Chigorin.

Volume 3: Opening Alexei Shirov pursues new ways, analyzing 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 Saitzev 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.

Alexej 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 XP, Windows Vista, DVD drive, mouse, soundcard.

More Shirov product here.