Karsten Müller's Chess Endgames, Volume 7
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 at 7:29PM
Dennis Monokroussos in DVD Reviews, Müller, endgames

German Grandmaster Karsten Müller has been known for a long time as an endgame authority; indeed, one might call him the Yuri Averbakh of our generation. He has written some useful endgame books, and over the last few years he has released a series of DVDs with ChessBase covering the last phase of the game. The early volumes in the series focused on theoretical endings, while more recent disks have turned to principles and concepts.

Volume 7 is a bit of a grab bag, in that the contents are extremely diverse. The chapters are numbered in the broad context of the series, and on this disk you'll find chapters 10-16, which are as follows:

Chapter 10: Weaknesses (14 clips)

Chapter 11: The Art of Pawn Play (15 clips)

Chapter 12: Converting an Advantage (11 clips)

Chapter 13: Stalemate (8 clips)

Chapter 14: Fortresses (12 clips)

Chapter 15: The Art of Defense (6 clips)

Chapter 16: Typical Mistakes (7 clips)

That makes 73 clips in all, which suggests that this is either the longest DVD in history, with a compression algorithm many years ahead of its time, or else the clips are fairly short. As you've guessed, it's the latter: they typically run in the neighborhood of 4-8 minutes, with a total running time of 5 hours and 40 minutes.

Because the disk treats general topics, it's not some sort of manual. The clips, and the game fragments discussed therein, are not intended to be exhaustive treatments or material to memorize. If anything is to be memorized, it is at the level of principles like "do not hurry" and the "principle of two weaknesses". That said, it would be just as wrong to take a passive attitude towards the videos, letting them wash over one's head like water from a shower. The best way to go at it is to stop the clips at the start (Müller generally prompts the viewer at the right time) and try - really try - to solve the position before going on. To attack the clips in that way will give the viewer the maximum benefit, not only for really grasping the particular lesson of the video, but also as just good old-fashion exercise. Chess is about calculating and solving problems, and Müller's material is well-suited to that end. It doesn't hurt, either, that the clips are all bite-sized, so there's no need to invest an hour going through a single exercise.

Müller is a good pedagogue, the topics are important and the examples are well-chosen. Accordingly, this disk is recommended - at least to viewers who will use it patiently!

Article originally appeared on The Chess Mind (http://www.thechessmind.net/).
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