GM Alex Lenderman's Essential Chess Pack

Chess Openings for Beginners

GM Alex Lenderman starts with an introductory lecture on chess openings for beginners.  What do you need to know? The king needs to be safe with all the pieces in the game, controlling squares and doing something useful. We need to play the opening logically and try to control the center.  Follow along as Alex guides you through the important stages of any good chess opening and annotates moves upon the board for play-by-play action.

Alex on the Smith Morra

The Smith Morra Gambit is a sound and very dangerous weapon against the Sicilian - and fun to play! Alex Lenderman teaches you all the nuances, tricks and newly discovered secrets of the Smith Morra Gambit. Contrary to common belief, the Smith Morra Gambit is a sound and very dangerous weapon against the Sicilian - and fun to play! Alex Lenderman teaches you all the nuances, tricks and newly discovered secrets of the Smith Morra Gambit.

Alex on the Caro-Kann

The Caro has a reputation of being positional, but wild, complicated games do arise from it - and mainly from the Advance variation favored by aggressive players such as Vishy Anand, Alexei Shirov, Nigel Short and John Nunn. Alex teaches you all the nuances and tricks in his favorite line against the Caro.

Alex on the Slav

The solid Slav Defence with 1 d4 d5 2 c4 c6 is enjoying a renaissance these days thanks to its extreme solidity and abundant possibilities for dynamic counterplay. Many masters of Slavic descent helped develop its theory in the 1920s, but its popularity increased dramatically after two exhaustive trials during the Alekhine-Euwe World Championship encounters of 1935 and 1937. It had a lengthy hiatus thereafter - but now, thanks to a modern-day re-evaluation of its theory, the Slav is back in vogue again both at grandmaster and club level. In this three-part opening video series, GM Lenderman provides an ideal primer for anyone looking to learn the nuances of this perennial favorite.

Chess Endings for Beginners

To complete the series from opening to end, Alex provides a two-part, instructive introductory lecture on chess endings. Listen along as he annotates play-by-play action on the board, and you can pick up invaluable tips on how to rapidly improve your rating by these simple endgame tips.

Title: GM Alex Lenderman's Essential Chess Pack
Presenter: GM Alex Lenderman
Run Time: 6 hours, 18 minutes