SO MUCH GOOD STUFF IN SUCH A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME

"Churn 'em out" must be ChessBase's motto when it comes to DVDs. Fortunately, they are good ones.

Today and yesterday I got a stack of good stuff and from what I have seen my DVD prices are the best anywhere I have looked (there may be some guy in Karachi selling at a loss (and if you believe that, you do not understand piracy!!))

I own Deep Rybka for a multi-core processor CPU but I have also heard some good things about Deep Fritz 12. One thing that IS nice about the basic Fritz model is that it moves through plies much more quickly than Rybka and it's not unusual for them to arrive at a similar evaluation. It's Elo has been bumped a 100 points I've been told, but how can I prove it? I know a friend who is using Deep Shredder. If it's "Deep" it's probably way good enough for us (and I also saw someone using Deep Hiarcs).

Anyway, here is what I got from Fedex: I haven't worked up the prices yet, but you can bet they will beat Amazon.com -- the co-conspirator with Wal-Mart to eliminate competition whenever and however they can. So if you write and want to know the prices I will stop what I am doing and get on that and whip them out to you.

In the meantime, it's back to listening to Roy Orbison while working on some publishing projects.

Yasser Seirwan's "My Best Games" -- a very, very good DVD. Ret. $43

Nigel Davies' "Build a 1.d4 repertoire." While beginning with the London, Torre, and Colle he builds on these as he gets into 3. c4! Then he goes into middlegame structures. 5 hrs. Ret. $36

Deep Fritz 12. Ret. $124.95. Deeper, faster + 12 Hours of video + (this one is a monster) free access to LIVE events streamed by ChessBase!

Nigel Davies' "French Defence Strategy." 4 hours. Guess what I will be watching this weekend? Ret. $40. As he discusses all the motifs behind the French, this DVD, visually will be worth $300 worth of "training time," you can take that to the bank.

Lawrence Trent's "Two Knight's Defence." If you've never played the Two Knights when starting out you just didn't know what you were missing. I will be watching this one just for fun and maybe using in some blitz events. 4 hrs. 45 min. I'm excited already! Ret. $36.00.

By the way, thanks for reading this Blog which mixes business, chess, and commercial products and reviews. Recently I was directed to a chess blog by a fellow Iowan, Kurt Godden on chess.com -- excellent historical stuff. I decided to read some of the other blogs... wow. People are running to catch the clueless train aren't they? If I had THEIR extra time I would be taking a vacation! To me an essential blog must contain new stuff, not the recycling of something seen on ChessBase.com or worse, another blog post. Give me the vacation, I can spare the egoistic "me too."

You can contact me at: bob@thinkerspressinc.com