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Chess forum by Grandmasters

Questions regarding Study plan

I have noticed that you in the Study plan write that you use blitz rating when recommending courses and study plane.

First question why blitz and not rapid ?

You have a table with different ratings on some chess sites and how they relate.

Here chesscom rapid rating of 1200 is supposed to correspond to 500 blitz.

That is not true for me. I have around 1200 rapid and only around 500 blitz on chesscom. My current rapid (rather old) at Lichess is 1488 rapid and 1618? classical. 

So which plan for me is best

Below 1000 or

1001-1500

And what is the highest lower limit of course recommended rating for me before it must be considered to difficult

Replies

Hi there!

Chessmood decided to use chess.com blitz rating for recommending their courses, because not everyone has a fide rating. Since you can easily convert your rapid rating to blitz using the Rating Comparision Table, it shouldn't be a problem.

Ratings may vary sometimes. Some people are better at blitz, some are better at rapid. Additionally, some of your ratings might be old.

I would recommend you to go with the study plan for 1000-1500. There is not much difference between the study plans of <1000 and 1000-1500, only the ratio. You can use the ratio 30% study, 60% play, 10% fix. 

Start with the Openings Principles, then go with Tactic Ninja. 

Once you have finished these, you will most probably already be at 1500. 😃

New article: Grandmaster Guide to learn and improve chess tactics

99.9% of players choose wrong approaches and fail, when it comes to learning and improving tactics. 

So what do the 0.1% do differently? 
 

In today’s article, GM Avetik Grigoryan reveals the exact process and break downs a very effective approach to improving your tactics. You’ll learn:
 

✅The 7-step process to learn and improve your tactics from scratch.

✅The 4 mistakes you should avoid

✅Why a lesser-known tactic training software is better for improving tactics than the most popular tactic trainers.

✅How to know if you’re actually getting better at tactics?
 

It’s a very thorough and detailed guide with many stories and deep insights. 

So grab your favorite drink, sit back and enjoy reading!?

https://chessmood.com/blog/improve-chess-tactics

And share your thoughts under this forum thread!

Replies

CT-ART 6 is now CT-ART 10. Is not really a courses but a bunch of tactic courses from the platform learn.chess.King This platform has about 90 courses and summing. I own several courses like GM Panchenko, Total Endings that has 2700 exercises and some 50 Theoretical themes. I use the 300 pawn Endings to practice calculation. When I bought CT-ART 6 the Peshka horrible interface had been changed by a multiplatform enviroment and learn.chess.king has its own web with the +90 courses displayed and my CT-ART 6 was not a software but access to several tactical courses mostly for post-beginners, club and intermediate tacticians . So I concentrated instead in solving Studies and my tactical awarness on chess.com jumped from +2000 to +2800 in a short time. A GM qualified compositions solving as Advanced Tactics and I couldnt agree more. But still once in a weak I train puzzles at chess.com because I am an OTB player and puzzle patterns from games difere from patterns of Study solving.

I just realize I can only do well in fast games(1+0 and 3+0) and fast puzzles mode(3 min puzzle rush/battle and puzzle racer) and hoping to improve in my slow games by solving tactics for a long time ? Thanks for the nice article!

ChessCoach Andras suggests the following to get into good calculation habits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5V8-CBQMBg He suggests doing mates in 3 on lichess (you can select puzzle by type) to get into the right habits of looking at checks, captures and threats roughly in the order of most forceful first. I think it also serves as a good warm-up before a match.

Nice article. It inspired me to give CT-ART another try (CT-ART 4 on Android). I didn't like the UI last time, but now it seems OK. Might be my new phone with a bigger screen, or maybe I just got used to it.

Avetic, there is a very interesting and beneficial book I recommend reading, "Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning". It is about key insights the science of optimal learning has discovered, some surprising. The authors are cognitive scientists at The University of Washington, St. Louis, a top tier university in the U.S.

Hello Avetic, what's your opinion on chesstempo.com free tactics training? To tell you the truth, I'd rather save a bit of money… Thank you!

Blundering

Hello I am 2361 rated player on lichess and when analyzing my previous 30 lost games, I found that I lost 17/30 of them by missing my opponents tactics and 8/30 as strategical mistakes. Can you please suggest a way to cut these losses? :)  

Thank You!

Replies

Hello,

First of all you are a human, so eliminating the blunders is almost impossible (even GM's blunder), but you can indeed reduce them. I am not the right person to advise you on how to do this, but you can watch the following chessmood courses on this topic.

The blunderproof course on this exact topic: https://chessmood.com/course/blunderproof

The tactic ninja course (as not having a sharp tactical vision is often the problem): https://chessmood.com/course/tactic-ninja

The mating matador course (for even more sharp tactical vision): https://chessmood.com/course/mating-matador

I recomend you to watch the blunderproof course first and if you indeed find out that you need to get better at tactics, then watch the other. Now if you don't have access to the courses, you can read this article about the same topic, in wich the blunderproof course is briefly explained, and don't forget to work on your tactical vision, this is very often the cause of blundering.

Link of the article: https://chessmood.com/blog/stop-blunders-in-chess

Hope this helps

I m too slow ! How to improve that ?

I m 57 yrs old and I always took my time before deciding anything but for chess , with the clock , it‘ s a problem ! How to improve my speed without lowering the quality of my decisions ? I watched the webinar of time management and I think it s a great way to understand this but when I play , I lose time awareness on certain position which are not always critical  ! I did read many articles on the blog and did all courses in the rating booster section . Completing Ninja tactic did improve my calculation speed. I tried playing faster time control to force myself to make quicker decision but the results are not satisfying… 

im 1700 otb , 1850 rapid and 1650 blitz on chesscom ( both are  100 pts under my top on chesscom that I got last month ) . 

Replies

Hi Denis! 

Were'nt you working with a personal coach too?
You should try to play with your coach, or play while he is watching you play. This way he should see where you need to improve to play better, giving you direct insights on your games. 
If you lose time in non critical positions, you already know what you need to do. Just play a move that will allow you to continue, this is a game, not science if you remember… Science starts after the game during the analysis… 
Also it depends a lot if you play tired or not, stamina is not the same, this is very important. Also if you do sport regularly it helps a lot! 
What do you think?😅

Hi Denis,

In order to make decisions better in chess, and even faster Knowledge is required.
How can strong players play 3+0 games with a very high accuracy?
The reason is knowledge behind the years of experience>

You can try to play little longer time controls to avoid time trouble, and the main suggestion is to keep training hard and acquiring knowledge. In the long run that is the key!

Hi Denis, I don't know if this will help, but I wanted to share some thoughts as I have similar tendencies. (I notice them in other parts of my life too, like holiday packing ;-) and I invite you to think about whether that is true of you as well!) 

I had two eureka moments recently on this topic.  1) I performed very strongly in a club rapidplay handicap tournament.  This is where players are handicapped on their starting clock time according to rating, and no increment.  What I noticed was how well I could play against very strong players when they were the ones under chronic time pressure.  This made me think:  the time pressure is really bringing down their rating, by 200-300+ points, to my level, and this is making us equals and I can beat them.  So … logically… when I am playing my more regular OTB games against my rating peers and I get myself into time trouble, I am basically turning myself into a 200-300 point worse player.  I do not want to do this!  If anything, I want THEM to be this weaker player thanks to the time trouble.  

So telling yourself that you are actually choosing to bring a weaker version of yourself to face the opponent may help you.  Like Todd Herman said in the podcast, your opponent deserves to face the strongest version of yourself actually.

2) I have noticed how often I mess up in chronic time trouble, and how rarely I play a best move anyway during the long thinks that got me there.  So basically, I think clock time can be seen like material (it's just another resource).  Use a load of it on a fairly quiet move, and the material count on the board may be the equal, but it's not really.  You've weakened your army badly, because you can't provide a decent command structure any more, and someone is going to get hurt.  I tell myself now that if I'm going to get myself 20-25 minutes behind my opponent's clock, I may as well have just taken off a piece earlier in the game instead of one of those long thinks - it's that impactful.  I wouldn't dream of simply giving away material like that, so I'm not going to simply give away time either.

Just my two cents worth , and I wish you luck in becoming an even more lethal adversary in 2024!

what to write about blunders and should I include positional blunders?

Note that by positional blunders I include moves that I understand they were blunders during the games and not something that the engine is telling me.

I also wonder if not noticing an important  capture is not a blunder even if it did not cause tactical mistakes.

I will give the last bad blitz game that I played today with my comments here
making the comments take more time then playing the game and as you can see most of them are about my thoughts and not about engine evaluations.

https://lichess.org/BlloFElq/black

1)8…0-0 was a positional blunders and in the game after my opponent played d4 I understood that I blundered by not preventing it or by allowing white to play it with a tempo by playing Bc5

2)when I played 15…Qf6 I missed Qd3 and when the engine may not consider 

Qf6 to be a blunder even when it is not the best me from my point of view missing Qd3 is a blunder that I will probably not do at long time control.

3)I needed to play 17….Be6 and not 17…Bh5
I can understand why the engine say that 18.f4 gives a clear advantage for white because of the idea f5 against Bg6 but I did not think about it during the game.
I am not sure if to consider it as a blunder
4)when I played 20…Rxe3 I calculated the line 21.fxe3 Qg3 22.Ne5 Qxe3+ 23.Kh1 and thought in the worst case I can win another pawn by 23…Bxe5 24.dxe5 Qxe5 and missed 25.Rf5
I wonder if to consider it as a blunder because the engine does not consider 20…Rxe3 as a blunder even if it is not the best move.

5)I think 21…Qg3 is a mistake but not a blunder.

6)23…b5 is a blunder based on the engine
I saw the opponent threat 24.Nxf7 and hoped to get some chances after 23….b5 24.Qxc6 Rc8 25.Qxd6 Rxc2 when I did not see in my calculation that the rook at c8 is not protected(of course I could see it in the analysis without an engine).

7)I think that 25…f6 is a blunder and I simply did not see 26.Nxc6 otherwise I could play the better 26…Bxe5 when I still have knight and a pawn for the rook(engine say that it is also losing but I did not understand it and I think it was my best hope)
8)I consider 26…Ne6 to be a blunder even if the engine does not agree and I needed to play 26…a6(did not see capturing b5 pawn and thought that I need to activate my pieces)
Note that I already had less than 40 seconds on my clock when I played f6 and Ne6 and time pressure(inspite of having an increment of 3 seconds) caused me to blunder from my point of view

9)when I played 33…Bf4 I blundered by not seeing the fact that I lose a pawn by 34.Re7+ and Rxa7
It could be an excellent idea in SLP mode but it was not and I saw that I can capture the rook at a7 during the game only at the time my opponent played 37.Kh2 and I wonder if I need to consider the fact that I did not see Bxa7 earlier as a blunder.

37…Bxa7 does not save the game but it was my best chance and I missed a  draw later in the game

10)42…Ke6 was not a mistake(stockfish prefers Ke8 but I ignore it espacielly when a weak engine like fruit2.1 that has a better human style from my point of view without the nnue evaluation and not a positional monster like stockfish  likes Ke6)

11)44…Rxd6 was the last mistake or blunder(not sure what to say about it).  I thought the pawn endgame is probably losing but I was not sure and I did not believe that a move like g6 Rd7 or Kd7 can save me because it seems to me I get no progress with it when the opponent can make progress(of course without time pressure I could avoid going to losing pawn endgame because I would not play a move that I am sure to be losing even if I believe that other moves are also losing and I will probably see that g6 45.b5 Rxd6 46.Rxd6+ is good for me because g6 prevents the opponent king the move Kf5). 

Replies

I played a second blitz game that was relatively better and again the question is what to comment about blunders.

https://lichess.org/i505zdFU/black#36

comments:
1)I could get the advantage with 15…Nb4 but I will ignore it because not playing it is not a blunder that I understand easily(I will only mention that I considered Nb4 during the game but did not think that it is better.

2)I missed 27…Bxa4 that the engine only consider as a mistake but missing a capture by myself can be also considered as a blunder.
I thought initially to capture back with the queen when playing 27…Nc4 but saw even before the opponent move that I need to capture with the pawn not to lose my queen and I wonder if to consider the fact that I did not see the fact that 27…Nc4 28.Bxc4 Qxc4 lose the queen at the time of playing Nc4 as a blunder.

3)The engine considers 32…Bb5 as a blunder and claims 32…Rd8 or 32…Kb8 as better but at time trouble I prefer to trade pieces and I saw that I cannot protect c2 and did not consider the fact that the opponent has problems after Nxc2 because the knight is pinned.

Note that my opponent does not have to capture c2 immediately and could also avoid the endgame.

4)35…Re8 was a positional mistake but I did not like exd5 Nxd5 when I cannot play Rc8 and did not see that I have Rc8 and thought that it is losing a pawn because of not calculating Nxc8 but calculating Kxc8 and had to play a move so I played non blundering different move with the rook.

5)I played the endgame later perfectly 

Middlegame Roadmap

Hi Chessmood Team,

First of all I wanted to say Merry Christmas to you all CM Team and all members of the CM champions. 

 

I have been struggling quite a bit during my game in the middlegame part. I get good position from the CM position, I feel like I know my line but I am having a hard time converting the advantage. 

 

I was wondering when will the course middlegame roadmap be ready on your end? I feel I could benefit from it. 

 

Thanks again for the great courses!!

 

Kamel 

 

Replies

Merry Christmas Kamel! 🎉

Chessmood is working on the middlegame roadmap course along with other courses.  

For now, you have 2 options:

You can just go through the “Rating Booster” section, you will learn the most important skills you need in the middlegame (good tactical vision, know how to attack/defend, SLP and WWP, etc.

or

You go through the “Middlegame Mastery” section, where you will master all the middlegame concepts.

Whether you chose option 1 or 2, depends on your rating. Please check out the study plan ( https://chessmood.com/chess-study-plans )

for more information about this. 

I hope this helps you! 😃

French attack as black

I am reviewing the chessmood openings as black the French attack. In the first 3 options black wants to play Ne7 and the Nf5. What is the proper response if white plays Bg5 after Ne7 to prevent Nf5 and pin it? 

Replies

In the advance and the exchange, I have had good results with h6, g5 and going queenside or keeping the king in the center, as we get to launch a pawn storm with tempo. Could be completely wrong though. 

Just f6 Henry, to start the King side attack at the same time.

Benko Gambit

Is it okay to play benko gambit during classical game? 

Replies

Gabuzyan played it in the Armenian championship, so I think it is probably OK.

1.e5 c5 2. Mf3 Nc6 3.c3

Hai Champions.

Is there any cover for c3 line as below in Chessmood course

1.e5 c5 2. Mf3 Nc6 3.c3

Thanks in advance

Replies

Hi,

yes, here:

https://chessmood.com/course/counter-sicilian-alapin/episode/4040

My goal was 1000 by New Year and now I've got blunderitis

I was 969 and for some odd reason I'm just terrible lately and dropped to 880. What do I do? Anything I can do to defrag my brain?

Replies

Hi there,

It's frustrating, isn't it?!  Have you had a chance to read Avo's article about ‘How to stop blunders’?  Or studied the BlunderProof course? Links below:

https://chessmood.com/blog/stop-blunders-in-chess

https://chessmood.com/course/blunderproof

Just keep going friend its a journey the key is to never give up, i've been trying for nearly 3 years

🙂

The Blunderproof course you did you should go through again, many chess players make the mistake of studying for a long time and accumulating chess knowledge which doesn't help them to play better. Chess knowledge isn't the only thing needed to become a better chess player, you also need to work on your thinking process, there is a big difference between knowing something and being able to apply it in practice. Young chess players today are winning GrandMasters who have been studying chess for many more years, this is not because they know more it's because they can use everything they know in every game. Going through courses and forgetting most of what you learn is a waste of time, I should know I did it for a long time, you should go through the Blunderproof course again and make it part of your thinking process. I use something called mind maps which a GrandMaster introduced to me to help me remember my thinking process.
Here's a link to a free mind map website I use or you could just use pen and paper.

https://app.wisemapping.com/

Going by what you replied to Well, I shouldveStuckToPoker, maybe all you need is a (short) break from chess and come back when you're hungry for playing. You give yourself way too much pressure. There's still 7 days left so even if you take 2 days break you got 5 days to achieve the goal. :) 

[Also forgive me, teacher speaking 😇 focus on improving and the rating will come - focus on rating and you won't improve as much (or at all).] 

Keep us updated on how it went! Good luck to you.

Friend, I hear you! I have put myself in the same situation so many times. Let me share one of my favorite movie scenes, and how it is helping me rethink my attitude when playing chess.

Dennis Quaid was the lead actor in “The Rookie” - the story is that he is a high school teacher who once was on track to be a star baseball player, but that ended because of an injury. He coaches the HS team, and as a 39-year old he goes to a try-out and gets drafted. He starts playing in minor league baseball which isn't very glamorous and doesn't pay well. He is feeling depressed because he isn't going to succeed. Then one evening he wanders over to a Little League field (this is baseball for young kids) and watches the game and it brings back to him the memories of how he loved the game earlier in life.

The next day he goes to his Minor League team game, and grabs his best friend on the team and says: “Guess what we get to do today???  Play baseball!”. He has a huge grin, because he remembers the love of the game and he just wants to go out and play. This is the attitude that I am trying to build now. Every game is an adventure. Each opportunity to play is fun! I want to win, but regardless I'm going to enjoy it.

Let me leave some final suggestions that might help you:

** Only play the game in front of you (Avo has advice like this). Don't worry about ratings, or whether this game is important for you ranking in a tournament, or anything else. Just play this game.

**During the game, play the move in front of you. The struggle is to find the best move to play at this move. Worrying about how you made a mistake earlier doesn't help. Just keep searching for the best move.

** Remember to smile!  (Okay, it's not mandatory. But it works for me!)

The best of luck to you, friend. Do be sure to share your successes.

Just to add to Jeff Hensley's reply, more games are lost through somebody making a mistake, so if you can't find the best move all of the time like a computer, it's ok to play an ok move, it's more important to blunder-check your moves before you make them to avoid mistakes.

I think this is the best way. https://chessmood.com/blog/golden-method-to-increase-rating-in-chess

But, IMPORTANT-keep in mind that this won't raise your chess skills. So, if you want to raise your rating, either do this or learn some new and unique opening, but than you must learn it REALLY good, and since you don't have much time left untill New Year, I don't suggest that. Or, if you don't want to try them because you don't have much time left, than you'll have to rellax and play. Or, tell yourself that you will buy a cake if you do it 'till next year, so you have a good reason to do it ;)

I think this article will help: https://chessmood.com/blog/raise-your-chess-rating-by-cutting-your-losses

Good luck in making the goal!

How to recover from a loosing streak in classical OTB Chess

Hey there,

 

I started playing OTB Chess at Club-level this sommer, i have played 5 classical games so far. 

After i won the first 2 games, ii unfortunately lost the last 3 games with the last one the most painfull since i blew a +5 Advantage out of the window and eventually lost with the white pieces:

 

1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Bc4 O-O 6. O-O c6 7. Re1 Nbd7 8. Bg5 b5 9. Bd3 Nb6 10. Qd2 Bg4 11. Qe3 Bxf3 12. Qxf3 Qc7 13. Rad1 b4 14. Ne2 Nbd7 15. Bc4 e5 16. Bb3 exd4 17. Nxd4 Ne5 18. Qf4 Nfd7 19. Bh6 Nc5 20. Bxg7 Kxg7 21. h4 h5 22. Qd2 a5 23. Qe2 Rad8 24. a3 Nxb3 25. Nxb3 f5 26. axb4 axb4 27. Nd4 Rde8 28. exf5 Qa7 29. Ne6+ Rxe6 30. fxe6 Qe7 31. Qe4 c5 32. Re3 Qxe6 33. f4 Qg4 34. Rde1?? (Rdf1 would have hold the advantage) Rxf4 35. Qb7+ Rf7 36. Qd5 Qf4 37. Qe4 Qf2+ 38. Kh1 Rf4 39. Qb7+ Kh6 40. Qe7 Rxh4+ 0-1

Replies

Hi there,

I know how you feel - a loss when you potentially had an opportunity to win is particularly painful (because you think that the loss was your fault rather than due to the superior ability of your opponent).

Game of the month

 

Is there a contest for Chessmood game of the month for Dec 23? If yes, please send me the link. Thank You

Replies

Hello, yes there is, this is the link of the forum page.

https://chessmood.com/forum/main-channel/the-best-games-of-december-2023-and-the-prizes

checking chessmood games with stockfish

In model game 4 of the french attack I analyzed the game with stockfish.

I found that 18.Be2 was the decisive mistake and stockfish prefers 18.Re3(evaluation is near 0.00 after 18.Re3 and near +3 for black after 18.Be2 based on many minutes of analysis).  

I can understand 18.Re3 also from human point of view and white brings the rook to defend with the idea Rg3.  

14.h4 is mentioned as a mistake but I am not convinced that it is a mistake.  If you think that 14.h4 is a mistake from practical point of view(even if objectively it is not a mistake) then I think that you should explain which move is better for white from practical point of view and why.

Maybe it is not easy to find the correct defending moves for white but I also do not think that it is easy to find the correct attacking moves for black.

I thought about earning money by adding comments like this to courses so you can improve your courses but I am not sure that it is what you meant in the link at the end of this post(note that the idea is not to comment about every case the engine believes that a move is not accurate and I do not give importance to cases when the evaluation of the engine for the game move is 0.2 or 0.3 worse than the best move and there is no comment).

https://chessmood.com/refer-a-friend#refer-register

Replies

Uri, we think you are taking a very wrong approach to learning and improving chess. 

Checking engines all the time will not make you stronger, but weaker. It will destroy your self steem and it will make it impossible for you to enjoy chess because the engines will find always better moves.
Please see this article:
https://chessmood.com/blog/vishnu-prasanna-coach-of-gukesh

Also we do not see the utility in having the 5 min games from the streams, played live while teaching in the webinar and selected by GMs for their instructive value to be analyzed by an engine.

First, when we do the courses we check the important variations with cloud engines that cost lots of money every time, and we do that when we believe is needed based on our long experience as GMs, teachers and coaches.

We appreciate your intentions, but PLEASE refrain from doing this since it has no teaching value and of course it will provide no money or extra income as you were hoping for.

The affiliate program is a complete different topic. Please check below for all the info. 
https://chessmood.com/refer-a-friend


Thanks for your understanding.

Request for Game Analysis and Improvement Tips from ChessMood Strong Players

Hi ChessMood Community,

I'm looking for advice to improve my chess play. I've completed ChessMood courses including Tactics Ninja, Mating Matador, SLP, Blunderproof, and Opening Principles. Below are links to three classical tournaments I've played. Please review them and suggest what I should focus on to prepare for upcoming important tournaments.

Any tips on my weaknesses or mistakes would be very helpful.

Tournament Links:

  1. https://lichess.org/study/mTMuXuva
  2. https://lichess.org/study/LjAJSrx8
  3. https://lichess.org/study/LawI2yDo
  4.  

Thank you for your time and assistance!

Stephane

Replies

Will there still be a monthly option for sign up?

Hello just wondering if there will still be a monthly option for sign up I am not seeing. Thanks

Happy holidays. 

Replies

Yes, there is. 😃

You can find it here: https://chessmood.com/become-a-pro#pro-payment

If you look carefully , there is a tab for yearly and one for monthly in the upper part . You just have to click monthly to see the plan 

gambito escandinavo

me gustaria un estudio del gambito escandinavo e4-d5 2. exd5 -c6  saludos gran trabajo

Replies

Hello, I don't speak Spanish or whatever is the language this post is on 😀, but as far as I understood you want a study on how to refute the Scandinavian gambit (e4 d5 exd5 c6). I recomend you to check out this course:

Whitemood openings simplified, Section 18: https://chessmood.com/course/whitemood-openings

If you are looking for a complete guide against the Scandinavian Gambit, I think there is not a main course on that.

Hope this helps

My chess improvement journey: week 2

Hi everyone!
This is the end of week 2 of my chess improvement journey. This week I haven't played much because I wasn't half sick, so I decided not to force myself into playing. However it was still a productive week.
The first major change was I stopped (as I mentioned last week) playing blitz, focusing for now on rapid games to improve. An important thing I've done is making order when I analyze games. I made myself clear about what to look for (real blunders) and how to categorize my mistakes. The result is that now I know where to improve and what are the blunders I make the most. The only challenge is remember to check these things in game, but I think I will hang a sticky note to my pc so I don't get distracted and always remember to check the things (this until I do that unconsciously). If you have other ideas to help me, I'm glad to hear.
Last but not least, a small episode that made me feel good. Yesterday I started study a line in the Caro-Kann, learning ideas and moves. Well, that night I went to the local chess club, and I played that line otb against my friend, which is as strong as me, ending up in a won endgame with 2 pawns up!
Well, that's all for the week, see you next, and keep studying!

Replies

You were right to prioritise your health - if you didn't you could have ended up being more sick and missed more chess!

I also think you were right to stop Blitz and focus on Rapid - learn the moves first, then learn how to make them more quickly.  And catching blunders is a vital skill - I'm slowly getting better at it but once I finish the WhiteMood and BlackMood opening courses I'll be taking a look at the BlunderProof course! ;-)

Yes, prioritize health. I had just recently taken a full couple da break from chess, for my health, and my playing. It helps tremendously!

I m glad to read about your journey , few members share details . I think it’s a good motivation for you and the ones following it . 

Thank you everyone for reading and support! It means a lot to me

Hi I like to practice the core default chess skills the skills that happen in every game, it makes sense because if it happens in every game I want to be great at it, here's a list of some of these skills i'm trying to master:
1. Calculation Skills
2. Evaluation Skills
3. Tactical Skills all Patterns
4. Checkmating Skills and all Checkmating Patterns
5. Visualization skills

Personally I'm not a fan of memorizing opening theory when the position might not even turn up. It's much more fun for me playing the systems like the london system or Larsen Attack avoiding the opening theory, then spending my time on these core skills and middlegame and endgame practice. Hope this helps thanks

study plan

i have 6 hours in a day . im  a 14 year old boy want to be a good chess player

right now my chess.com elo 1600 but idk what should be the study plan for me

and where to get??

 

Replies

https://chessmood.com/chess-study-plans/for-advanced-players

This should help you!

What would be the best approach to paly against an engine?

While I play against a human opponent whether on the internet or over the board, I can assess him by his ratings and the moves he makes on the board. AND sometimes he may make a mistake or even a blunder that may result in a loss in the game. But the situation may be almost different if there is a computer to make moves against me because if the machine doesn't have any technological issue at hand, it will make no error that is quite a challenging situation because whatever the moves I make I can't win. I have to suffer paramount and no hope of winning remains there.

Replies

You can usually change to level of the computer opponent. On chess.com, there is an entire collection of computer opponents (with estimated rating levels) and personalities (some are aggressive and want to attack, some are defensive). The computer bots can be “dumbed down” so that they are definitely beatable.

Mating Matador Quiz Question

🙂

Does anyone know who played the game in puzzle 31 of the Mating Matador Quiz? Tip the game looks like it was reversed and it was played in 1938

Replies

Koch vs Nowarra - 1938 the game goes slightly different the Queen is not taken on h5 and white forces the same Blackburne mate a few moves later.

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