Grandmaster, two-time Candidate and former World Junior and U.S. Champion Yasser Seirawan has just released his first DVD with ChessBase. It covers his early career, from 1975 (when he defeated his first GM in tournament play) to 1982 (when he played his first game against a sitting world champion; by this point he had already won the World Junior, become a GM and won major tournaments). Over the course of five hours he presents 22 of his games in his characteristically warm and chatty style - he's as much raconteur as analyst in these videos.
I enjoyed his presentations a lot, and think you will too. Does it mean you should fork over the money to buy this DVD? That I can't say. What I can say is this. First, I think most viewers will appreciate his style of presentation, and that will make it a good entertainment value. Further, and this is important, his chess style is very different from most of the top GMs playing today.
Let's start with the openings. On the DVD you won't find any 1.e4 e5 games, there's only one Sicilian, and only two games that could be classified under 1.d4 d5 codes, and then only by transposition. Seirawan mostly plays the English with White in these early games, and with Black you'll get a steady dose of Frenches and Caro-Kanns. If you think you're in for stodge-R-us, however, you're in for a pleasant surprise. His games are very energetic, and Seirawan was as much of a fighting player as anyone else, especially in his ambitious youth. (Example: As a teenager facing Mikhail Tal, rated 2705 at the time, Seirawan turned down a draw in an inferior position!)
It's not only his openings that are distinctive. His ability to maneuver and handle his king in unusual ways will remind some viewers of Nimzowitsch, Larsen and Petrosian (in their different but related ways), and if those three players are members of a distinctive school, I'd say that Seirawan was its Dean in the 1980s and 1990s. Looking at games like the ones he presents on the disc will open up a new world to some viewers, and it's to Seirawan's credit that he does this in a way that generates enthusiasm and a feeling of understanding rather than alienation and bewilderment.
In short, I'm enthusiastic about this disc, and I hope there will be more. (Perhaps that depends on whether anyone buys this one, so I hope that a bunch of my American readers especially will support a man who did quite a lot for chess in the U.S. More info (but no sample, unfortunately) can be found here.