Roman Review

"I'm not a chess teacher! I have only worked with professional players." -
Roman Dzindzichashvili

I found that quote in an old book, "How to Get Better at Chess", published in 1991.

Those interviews are even older, most taking place in the late 70's and early 80's.

Fortunately times change, and today the Roman series of 36 instructional videos fills a bookcase.

This was my very first experience in watching an instructional chess video.

For this experiment, I selected Roman's Lab, Volume 7, "Think and Play Like a Grandmaster"

In my living room, I settle comfortably in my chair, and begin to analyze.

This video contrasts greatly with Kotov's similarly-named works, which emphazise the methodical selection of candidate moves, followed by a disciplined examination of those moves.

Rather than exemplifying moves, Roman expounds the simplicity of following strategical plans, based on positional evaluation.

As for the moves, Roman demonstrates there is often more than one move with which to execute a winning plan.

The video is in split-screen format. On the right, Roman sits behind a DGT board, explaining and moving pieces. On the left, a computer diagram is updated as he moves the pieces.

Sometimes the diagram gets out of sync with Roman's board and explanations. Usually this happens after exploring a subvariation, then returning to the main continuation.

At the beginning, Roman reinforces his professional resume, repeating that he has worked with Karpov, Kamsky, and Kortchnoi.

Roman shows 22 games. Almost every game is one-sided. White crushes black.

Half of the games are Karpov wins. The others are by Kortchnoi, Kamsky, Dzindzi himself, and one game from his student Eugene Perelshteyn.

The presentation follows a pattern.

He plays quickly through the opening, usually mentioning that the moves are well-known theory.

Reaching the middlegame he pauses, "Let's look at this position." Then he explains the various features of the position, bad bishops, weak squares, powerfully placed pieces, dangerous open lines, etc.

Next he reveals the winning plan such as, pawn advances opening lines, piece attacks on a weak square, kingside assault with pieces instead of pawns.

Finally he announces there's a winning combination, executes it, then contends that all the moves of the game were very simple.

Here are many of the games covered in the video.

Anatoli Karpov vs Lubomir Kavalek (1974)
Anatoli Karpov vs Henrique Mecking (1971)
Roman Dzindzichashvili vs Walter Shawn Browne (1984)
Roman Dzindzichashvili vs Bozidar Ivanovic (1973)
Viktor Korchnoi vs Artur Yusupov (1990)
Gata Kamsky vs Jon Gardar Vidarsson (1990)
David Bronstein vs Roman Dzindzichashvili (1973)
Anatoli Karpov vs Eldis Cobo Arteaga (1972)
Anatoli Karpov vs Dan Uddenfeldt (1972)
Anatoli Karpov vs A Ofiesh (1990)
Anatoli Karpov vs Lars Bo Hansen (1988)
Anatoli Karpov vs S Cabrera (1977)
Anatoli Karpov vs Judit Polgar (1994)
Anatoli Karpov vs Vlastimil Hort (1978)
Roman Dzindzichashvili vs Lev Alburt (1984)
Anatoli Karpov vs Klaus Wockenfuss (1977)