Chess Expertise Step by Step Vol. 3: Rook Handling

Rook handling and generally speaking endings constitute one of the most fascinating elements in chess. Rich in both tactical and strategic possibilities, they offer us the opportunity to marvel at its endless creative potential and unique ideas. Of all chess endings (pawn, queen, rook, bishop and knight), rook endings are the ones encountered most frequently. Like all aspects of chess technique, rook endings (and in in general the correct handling of rooks) encompass a significant amount of theoretical and repeated motifs, which we have to be aware of - just like our openings. In this way we will be able to make correct decisions at important junctures of the game, decisions that will either promise us victory or allow us to secure the draw. This DVD, called ‘Rook Handling’, tries to cover important parts of this field and help you to assimilate knowledge and to understand in depth the proper handling of rooks in certain cases. We shall examine how to keep our rook active, how to trap a rook, how not to lose a drawn rook ending, how to handle technical rook endings, how to successfully transfer our rook, how to enhance cooperation between rook & knight and finally how to defend against a knight & 3 pawns. To be honest, this is just a small amount of the huge quantity of material that one has to learn about rooks, but in any case it is a good start!

Video running time: 4 hours

Efstratios Grivas is a Grandmaster and highly experienced chess trainer and chess author. He lives in Athens, and he is also a FIDE Senior Trainer (Secretary of the FIDE Trainers’ Commission), an International FIDE Chess Arbiter and an International FIDE Chess Organizer. He has represented his country on a great many occasions, winning the 4th position in the World Junior Championship 1985, an individual gold medal at the 1989 European Team Championship and an individual silver medal at the 1998 Olympiad. In 2010 he was awarded the worldwide highly important FIDE TRG Awards - Boleslavsky Medal (best author) for 2009.

System requirements: Pentium-Processor at 300 Mhz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows Vista, DVD drive, mouse, soundcard