Garry's Story

Is there any instructional material by GMs that can equal or exceed the quality that I highlighted in Improve Your Chess with the Master Game? It's a tall order, but in the 30 years since the BBC's legendary Master Game series aired, there must have been some other chess instruction in video format that was both exceptionally interesting and exceptionally entertaining.

Like many players, I'm constantly on the watch for any such video material that I haven't seen before. Last month I was happy to find on YouTube a series of clips taken from Kasparov's 'My Story', a set of DVDs released in 2000. The first clip in the series, on the EpicChess channel, is at

• Kasparov - From The Start To The End - Episode 1

Unfortunately, the series did not seem to be complete, meaning it was probably under construction. I had the feeling I had seen the introduction on YouTube before and quickly located a similar series on the NorthernUnion channel starting with

• Kasparov, My story, part 1

This second version seemed to be complete, which I confirmed by watching all 36(!) parts in my spare time. The first 34 parts are each about 10 minutes long, while the last two parts are around 90 minutes each, totaling more than eight hours of viewing. Each part is chained to the next by the 'related' mechanism.

If you'd rather have your own real (and legal) copy of the same video, you can find it on Amazon.com: "kasparov my story", and elsewhere. The original set of five DVDs carried the following titles:-

Complete Set, Volumes 1-5
Part 1 - Teenage Prodigy
Part 2 - Joining the Elite
Part 3 - Rebels and Renegades
Part 4 - Hitting the Wall
Part 5 - Rite of Passage

I'll have more to say about this resource in future posts.