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The best games of November, 2024, and the prizes

Hello ChessMood family, hello champions and future champions! 
Welcome to the "Best games of November, 2024" competition.
Under this post, we invite you to post the best games that you will play this month. 

The Prize fund is 350K MoodCoins which is equal to 350$.  

The 1st prize  - 150K
The 2nd prize - 100K
The 3rd prize-  50K
The 4th prize- 30k
The 5th prize- 20k

Good luck with your games and keep the Right Mood! 
#ChessMood
#Right Mood - Right Move 

P. S.
Here are the winners of October, 2024:

Thomas Maes
Chips Ahoy
Aron Bekesi
Wendy Woodward
Gáspár Veress

Replies

a good ruy lopez. https://lichess.org/eq9ztRIH/white#0

 

https://lichess.org/8iyhA7n4/white
 

Insane Comback

https://lichess.org/HMoVQwcs

 Nice Dutch Attack! 

A complicated Sicilian Taimanov game, transposed from Grand Prix.

18. f5 was a strong intuitive break, as it was a blitz game and I wasn't even close to calculate all the possible lines. I didn't play the most precise moves after that, but the position was good enough to win comfortably anyway. The mate at the end is pretty, too.

https://www.chess.com/game/live/124310988931

 

https://www.chess.com/analysis/library/5eU9y6LMsC

Slaughter in the Vienna Game

https://lichess.org/bp0VYsKU/white#0

https://www.chess.com/live/game/124384750775
 

KIA

https://www.chess.com/live/game/124385336897

 

https://lichess.org/LYF6Q0rj

a game where i managed to defeat an IM whos an expert in caro cann.

Model Games with ChessMood Openings

Hello ChessMood Family! 
Now I'm adding model games in each section of our course, so you have a better understanding of the positions. Some of them, I'll also add in the book, that I'm writing now (later about that.) 

Why did I write this post? :) 
If you played nice and instructive games with our ChessMood openings - please post here. 
I would be happy to add them as well. 

P.S 
The first course, where I'm going to add model games, gonna be the Scotch game. If you want to make a research in your games, start from the Scotch :) 

Replies

I start the ball rolling .. my model Scotch game, just follow the course with the simple f3, g4, h4, g5 attack to open the h-file .. with Qd2-Qh2 followed by checkmate :)

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/5478551153

One request, if possible, add more games for anti sicilian and benko as they are more frequent in nature

Thank you

This game I played yesterday. Scotch game :) Hope I made the right moves.

https://lichess.org/0I9PcNjda2MS


https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/daily/279917930?tab=analysis

So I found a few games, which I will probably share with you and comment.
First game was played in Scotch Classical Variation with surprisingly move from opponent on move 6 so I think that would be even more instructive.
I mean 4.Nxd4 Bc5 5.Nb3 Bb6 6.Nc3 Qf6?!
That move wasn't covered in course so I was a bit confused for a moment. But for me that was a little innacuracy because queen on f6 can be easily attacked by for instance Nd5 or just pushing pawns.
So I did useful Qe2 move and I obviously defend pawn because of threat Qxf2#.
Further that was normally development, opposite castling. So I decided to go on immediately f4,h3,g4 against Nge7 setup how is covered in course.
After my 12.h3 he played tricky Qh4 probably with plan to pushing f5 some day with a nice tactic after moving my bishop from e3 somewhere and playing g4. However I decided to go for this. So I played I think nice positional move 13.Bxb6 making c7 pawn weak and having nice square on b5 for my knight to attack it. The only drawback of it is that the rook on a8 become playing but I think everything was in right time.
So after 13. Bxb6 axb6 as I mentioned earlier I played this agressive move 14.g4 and I have seen that tactic 14.g4 f5 15.exf5 or gxf5 no matter Nxf5! and after capturing the knight Bxb3! with attack on queen and a little bad pawn structure. But that also should be fine for me.
However I have seen very nice and crazy queen sacrifice which even engine can't saw initially :D
14.g4 f5 15.Nb5 (with threat of taking c7) Rac8 16.exf5 Nxf5 17.Qxe6!! Wxe6 18.Bc4 Nfe7 19.Bxe6 Kf8 20.Bxc8 Nxc8 21.Nxc7
And at this point I have strong compensation: two rooks and pawn against the queen and also opponent has three weak pawns on b7,b6,d6
After 21.Nxc7 Qg3 22.f5 he just resigned.

Conclusion:
1. I think that game can be very instructive with unusual idea of taking bishop on b6 and unlucky opening the rook on a8 but getting posibility to attack the c7 pawn.
2. Playing against Qf6 in Bc5 setup(Classical variation) .
3. Amazing queen sacrifice :D

I played this game today. ???? I hope I made the right moves

Here I tried to follow the plans I learned from chess mood scotch course. https://lichess.org/AYFEEwql/white#46.

Won a scotch game(10+5) format trying to follow suggested plans in scotch course.

https://lichess.org/VZo0fEM6FsCZ

I was doing good in this match(3+0) format & kept pressure on higher rated player (250+ point on lichess platform) but due to time out i lost.But it is nice game.

https://lichess.org/Ax11W69KBaqJ

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/daily/280898128


Typical and ilustrative game against 4. ... Qf6.
My opponent decided to go long castle 8. ... O-O-O which is covered in the course how to play against it.
So first eleven moves I was playing almost immediately.
Later is just logical attack, pushing pawns and bringing more pieces to the queenside. Move 16. b6 breakthrough.
And after 21. Bf3 Qe7 I am winning much material or getting his queen like on move 26. Rb7.
And he just resigned.

Here is a game I played with the Accelerated Dragon. I don't know if it's aggressive or complicated enough to be called a model game but here it is:

Here is a game I played with Scotch. It's more aggressive than the Dragon one :) .

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5600625181

Caro kann exchange variation.

Played a scotch game in (3+0) format.

https://lichess.org/UF8ZumoM7a04

Here is a game I played with the Accelerated Dragon. The end of the game was not a resignation, he left the game, obviously disgusted with his position :) 

 

King Hunt in Main Lines of Grand-Prix. He played new move which is not in my pgn. Qc7?! 

https://lichess.org/Fjh0K6bkF5WJ

I know scotch model games has already been updated, but I played this today. Just following basic attacking plans, we get a crushing position!

Here's a dragon game, engine says 99.2% accuracy!  

https://lichess.org/fipHeGa80sXy

Attack Against Caro-Kann!Fantastic idea Qc2-Bg6-Qd3-Ng5-Qh3!and checkmate in very strong GM Mustafa Yilmaz Elo 2630!                                                                                                                                                             https://www.chess.com/live/game/5918369704

Sicilian 2... Nc6 https://www.chess.com/live/game/5990775709

Using a4 to break up the queenside and what happens if Black is foolish enough to leave the kingside without the dark-squared bishop.

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2020.12.17"]
[Round "?"]
[White "WickedUk"]
[Black "moshe090967"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B23"]
[WhiteElo "1748"]
[BlackElo "1778"]
[TimeControl "300+5"]
[EndTime "9:56:01 PST"]
[Termination "WickedUk won by resignation"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. f4 g6 6. d3 Bg7 7. Nf3 e6 8. O-O
Ne7 9. Be3 b6 10. a4 Bb7 11. a5 O-O 12. axb6 Bh6 13. Bxc5 Bxf4 14. Qe1 Bd6 15.
Be3 c5 16. Qh4 Re8 17. Ng5 h5 18. Nxf7 Qxb6 19. Qf6 Kh7 20. Ng5+ 1-0




https://www.chess.com/live/game/6004099658

What happens if you play passive d6, leave your king in the centre and play an unprepared queenside attack in the scotch. *Spoiler* it doesn't last very long.

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2020.12.19"]
[Round "?"]
[White "WickedUk"]
[Black "BigFiddle"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C45"]
[WhiteElo "1732"]
[BlackElo "1618"]
[TimeControl "300+5"]
[EndTime "1:16:43 PST"]
[Termination "WickedUk won by resignation"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 d6 5. Nc3 Bd7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Qd2 a6 8.
O-O-O b5 9. h3 b4 10. Nxc6 Bxc6 11. Nd5 Nxe4 12. Qxb4 Bxd5 13. Rxd5 Qe7 14. Bd3
Nc5 15. Bxc5 dxc5 16. Qa4+ 1-0

Hello All,

Here is a game I played with the Anti-Sicilian Part 2 Qb4! Novelty. By the way, the move 23. Qf3, was sort of a wasted move before realizing that I could trap the Black queen only if my queen was on e2. I could have moved it to e2 right away!

Against Benko, white tries new move and i used a plan of ...Ra6 ....Qa8 and ....Rb8 

https://lichess.org/5xPLaNAiYBnk

I have to say that chessmood openings and videos are really helping. I’m at my highest rapid rating yet. 

Model game (well aside from the last move) in the Nc3 anti-Sicilian 3... a6 line at 60 10 time control.

Would have been a candidate for a prize winning game if only I hadn't blundered at the end in time trouble. As well as not noticing the g1-a7 diagonal was open, I missed Ne6 forking tricks based on Rxf4 Qh8 Qxf8 and Ne6. If only I didn't blunder under pressure I might be dangerous :-)

Also a few show me your cards moments - 9. O-O 10. h3 12. Qf2 - I may have learned something after all.

I just joined ChessMood, this is my first game w/ any of the openings (except accelerated dragon which I already play).  It will take me much longer to learn the Scotch & I'm not sure about switching my black replies to d4 or playing Grand Prix attack (I've spent alot of time on c3-sicilian) but I will still watch the videos, it's good to have multiple weapons.

Nf6 Scandi (I'm white)

https://lichess.org/Z125gNH3qPo0

My first win against the classical Maroczy bind.  Demonstration of White's bad bishop vs a good knight.

The Alekhine course is missing the refutation to the Mokele Mbembe (2... Ne4). Here is a game that demonstrates why this isn't a great move with some help from Black who decides his knight is better off trapped and then gives the bishop up instead.

The analysis gives Black's better try as: 4...Ne6 5.d5 Nc5 6.Nf3 d6 7.b4 Nca6 8.c3 dxe5 9.Nxe5 - however Black has moved his knight a lot to an awful place, and is White weak at all (other than maybe c3 is in the way)? I guess the twisting and turning of the knight like a water spirit is where it gets its name. Would be good to see whether Chessmood refutes this (not quite a gambit) with d3 or d4.

https://lichess.org/NafTrTAB/white#45

This game has right to be in Model Game section as I followed the basic attacking plans mentioned in the courses. I didn't make the strong possible moves but instaed played simple and logical good moves.

Quick & nice win in (3+2) format using scotch opening.

https://lichess.org/Ie8b6wKUBmmU

Model game in the Scandinavian 2...Nf6 3.Bb5+

Model attack in the Antoshin Philidor when Black wastes time (Nd7->e5->c6). Why couldn't I have had this during the tournament :)

Here is a model game of how we handle the Scandinavian. Tempo, Tempo, Tempo!

GOOD GAMES ♟♟

https://lichess.org/d5KhfCZV

Another nice attack demonstrating why the Philidor is not a safe option as some players think - and at 3 0 too

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2021.03.30"]
[Round "?"]
[White "WickedUk"]
[Black "dmattea"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C41"]
[WhiteElo "1807"]
[BlackElo "1768"]
[TimeControl "180"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Be7 6. g3 O-O 7. Bg2 Nc6 8. Nde2 Ne5 9. O-O Bd7
10. f4 Nc6 11. h3 Ne8 12. g4 f6 13. Ng3 Qc8 14. Nd5 Qd8 15. Nf5 Bxf5 16. exf5 Nb8 17. Nxe7+ Qxe7
18. Bxb7 Nd7 19. Bxa8 Qd8 20. Bd5+ Kh8 21. b3 Qb8 22. Bb2 Nc5 23. g5 fxg5 24. fxg5 Qd8 25. f6 gxf6
26. gxf6 1-0

Some of my online "gems":

 french Bd3

https://www.chess.com/game/live/12075297947

https://www.chess.com/game/live/12069901593

https://www.chess.com/game/live/9225944555

someone finally got his queen trapped :D https://lichess.org/D39P4Un1Nx33 
 
 

against pirc Bf4-Qd2, though i transpose to it via London/Jobava, oponents who want to play KID don't know how to react often.

https://www.chess.com/game/live/12075220253

https://www.chess.com/game/live/9567414917

https://www.chess.com/game/live/8444585457 

https://lichess.org/84loR2gjmVhK

trapping the Ng4 https://lichess.org/vSfsATpQaZLW 
 
 
 

100% percent accuracy, only top 3 stockfish 12 moves, 17 centipawn loss. One of my 10 memorable games with more than 98% accuracy. Antisicilian with attack and king hunt. Hope it can get a nice place on this list as it is the first time for me to post here. Time control 10+0. 

Demonstration of play against in the a6, e6, Nc6 setup in the Nc3 anti-sicilian.

The analysis thinks 13. h3 is better, but I wanted to punish the king being in the centre and didn't want to reason about Nxc2 and Nxa1. Opponent made some minor mistakes during the game before he blundered, and then left his queen en-prise, messed around for a couple of move and disconnected. 'When the Mood gets to your opponent' :-)

Hi this is my favorite game from the scotch that I played my self https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/18604785105?tab=analysis

I really liked 28.Rh7!!

My name is Vedant Garg 

@Chessmood_Odysseus Can we have a pgn for download containing all the great games in this thread please?

Not quite our move order, but effectively deals with Qb6 in the Nc6 anti-sicilian part 2.


I played a really nice game & won against 500+ higher rated player (on Lichess) with ChessMood opening.

https://lichess.org/OMzooV0cdBEV

https://www.chess.com/game/daily/22851684697

This is my first scotch game

https://lichess.org/6UTyRWqV/white


Utter satisfaction :) 0 inaccuracies, 0 mistakes, 0 blunders.
Finally I stop those chaotic moves, crazy never working tactics and try to play understanding of what I am trying to do. 
Thanks chessmood! Just finished scotch and now whenever playing I pray opponent to play scotchhhhh

https://lichess.org/HBgDaXu0/white

Another scoooootch :))
I'm loving  this opening

Hi Avetik and Chessmood family :)

Fantastic job with the French Bd3 course. Have really enjoyed it!

Here is a "daily" chess.com game using that system.

https://www.chess.com/game/daily/358728769

Not sure it qualifies as a model game, but I managed to implement several of the ideas you mentioned, including the "b4 strong move :-)" and a kingside attack.

cheers!

PS: btw Black challenged the center with an early f6, which itself seems quite tricky and does create some challenges for White!

Using the Scotch Endgame idea from the Chess Mood course where you liquidate into a pawn ending using a Kingside pawn majority, whilst Black's Queenside pawn majority is neutralized by a4 and c4

https://lichess.org/e6ulG38ZbZWB


Using the French Chess Mood idea of b5 followed by a4 and Na3 in the following game

https://lichess.org/Ejbo3mTthN3L

Here's an accelerated dragon game played in a classical time-format OTB, where White plays Nf3, Nc3, Bd2, Be2 and d6 - setups similar to this seem to be really common at the lower levels (and with the older plays in chess-clubs who don't know openings), although most don't play this passive.

I got into a position where I was dominating the centre, and later the entire board and the opening was a definitive success, although sadly couldn't break through and things fell apart shortly after, but the opponent made some mistakes in the endgame letting me get into a drawn position (although he refused to draw and lost on time).

May be instructive for the opening and and middle-game at least?

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 g6 4. d3 Bg7 5. Bd2 e6 6. Be2 Nge7 7. O-O O-O 8. Qc1
d5 9. Bh6 b6 10. Bxg7 Kxg7 11. exd5 exd5 12. h3 Bb7 13. a3 Nf5 14. Re1 Re8 15.
b3 Nfd4 16. Nxd4 Nxd4 17. Qd2 Qd7 18. Bg4 Qc6 19. Rxe8 Rxe8 20. Kf1 Qf6 21. Re1
Rxe1+ 22. Kxe1 h5 23. Bd1 Bc6 24. a4 Bd7 25. Nxd5 Qe5+ 26. Ne3 Bc6 27. f3 Nf5
28. Kf2 Qg3+ 29. Kf1 Nd4 30. Qf2 Qe5 31. Nc4 Qf5 32. Nd6 Qd7 33. Ne4 Bb7 34. Qe1
Qf5 35. Nd6 Qd7 36. Nxb7 Qxb7 37. c3 Nf5 38. Kf2 Qd5 39. Qe4 Qd6 40. f4 Qe7 41.
Qe5+ Qf6 42. Qxf6+ Kxf6 43. Kf3 Nh4+ 44. Kf2 Nf5 45. g4 hxg4 46. hxg4 Nd6 47.
Bf3 g5 48. fxg5+ Kxg5 49. Kg3 f5 50. gxf5 Nxf5+ 51. Kf2 Kf4 52. b4 Ke5 53. Bh5
cxb4 54. cxb4 Nd4 55. Ke3 a5 56. bxa5 bxa5 57. Bg6 Nc2+ 58. Kd2 Nd4 59. Kc3 Kd5
60. Bf7+ Kc5 61. Bc4 Ne2+ 62. Kd2 Nd4 63. Kc3 Ne2+ 64. Kb3 Nd4+ Black won on time.

French Schlecter Bd3 vs the Tarrasch's Nf6. Over the board all moves in 75 minutes (most not needed and early exit to the bar). Black rated in the 1600s and left wondering where it all went wrong.

Anti Sicilian best game! Pawn storm and Knight sac!!

https://lichess.org/YPBwRrke/white#37

Another busted Stafford Gambit with a pawn sac on a2 from Black that did not work. Bd2 should be played before h3 on move 6, but it transposed anyway. Is it nice to see how the Stafford gambits players know that they are going down (and they know it) once you play c3, Bd2, h3 and c3... If we could see their faces... ;-) The only mistake according to Stockfish was not playing d4, but I played e5 with the hope that they would take on a2 and trapping the bishop... We will need to add a swindle mode to Stockfish....

Scotch with 8.h4

https://lichess.org/v9jIkz6W

VYK4444 vs. BJBeacon | Analysis - Chess.com

ALMOST PERFECT Grand Prix

I got advantage,and slowly slowly improve the position!

https://lichess.org/JQxVq3tc/white

I've got very nice position after learning how to play against English Opening. https://www.chess.com/a/tQgRL81c2TVjL

https://lichess.org/YhqROmyu/white#67 I play against IM Eric Rosen and He played Stafford Gambit! I play chessmood Stafford Gambit Refutation line, and I got his queen and winning position!! But I used too much time and Rosen flagged me? But I played perfect!!

https://www.chess.com/game/live/40533015549 I played against 1950 player. and I am 1850 player. And I defeated him in 12 movies very badly using chess mood openings(It got converted into alapin 1.e4 c5 2. c3 Nf6 3.e5 Nd5 4.d4 cxd4 5. c5)

?5 min + 3 23/3/22 Voprak v Chris 65 2219 on Lichess 1 Nc3 d6 2 e4 g6 3 d4 Bg7 4 Bf4 Nf6 5 Qd2 O-O 6 O-O-O c6 7 Bh6 Bxh6 8 Qxh6 Qa5 9 h4 b5 10 f3 b4 11 Nb1 Be6 12 h5 Bxa2 13 hg fg 14 Nh3 Rf7 15 e5 Nbd7 16 ef6 Nxf6 17 Ng5 Rg7 18 b3 Bxb1 19 Kxb1 Qf5 Bc4+ 20 d5 21 Bd3 Qd7 22 Rde1 a5 23 Ne6 Rf7 24 Bxg6 1-0. Cheers Mike Waddington

?5 min + 3 23/3/22 Voprak v Chris 65 2219 on Lichess 1 Nc3 d6 2 e4 g6 3 d4 Bg7 4 Bf4 Nf6 5 Qd2 O-O 6 O-O-O c6 7 Bh6 Bxh6 8 Qxh6 Qa5 9 h4 b5 10 f3 b4 11 Nb1 Be6 12 h5 Bxa2 13 hg fg 14 Nh3 Rf7 15 e5 Nbd7 16 ef6 Nxf6 17 Ng5 Rg7 18 b3 Bxb1 19 Kxb1 Qf5 Bc4+ 20 d5 21 Bd3 Qd7 22 Rde1 a5 23 Ne6 Rf7 24 Bxg6 1-0. Cheers Mike Waddington

?5 min + 3 23/3/22 Voprak v Chris 65 2219 on Lichess 1 Nc3 d6 2 e4 g6 3 d4 Bg7 4 Bf4 Nf6 5 Qd2 O-O 6 O-O-O c6 7 Bh6 Bxh6 8 Qxh6 Qa5 9 h4 b5 10 f3 b4 11 Nb1 Be6 12 h5 Bxa2 13 hg fg 14 Nh3 Rf7 15 e5 Nbd7 16 ef6 Nxf6 17 Ng5 Rg7 18 b3 Bxb1 19 Kxb1 Qf5 Bc4+ 20 d5 21 Bd3 Qd7 22 Rde1 a5 23 Ne6 Rf7 24 Bxg6 1-0. Cheers Mike Waddington

?Alapin Sicilian. harmonie5 (2228) v Voprak 5 min + 3. 25/3/22 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 cd 4 c3 Nf6 5 e5 Nd5 6 cd d6 7 Bc4 Nb6 8 Bb3 de 9 d5 Na5 10 Nc3 f6 11 Nxe5 !? not mentioned by Mister Gaby in his survey but dangerous. fe 12 Qh5+ g6 13 Qxe5 Nxb3 (expecting Qxh8 when I intended Nxc1 without allowing Bh6) but 14 ab and now both of my rooks are in trouble. Rg8 15 Nb5 Bg7 16 Nc7+ Kf7( Kd7?? Qe6+) 17 Qf4+ Bf6 18 Nxa8 Nxd5!? 19 Qb8 ( Qc4 Be6) a6 20 O-O Be6 21 Qxb7 Qxa8 22 Qxa6 Qxa6 23 Rxa6 leaving an unclear endgame Rb8 24 Re1 Bf5 25 h3 h5 26 Rd1 Nb4 27 Ra7 Nd3 28 Be3 Nxb2 29 Rd2 Rxb3 30 Bd4 Nc4 31 Rd1 Ne5 32 Re1? hoping to get to the e7 pawn but overlooking Nc6 33 Bxf6 Nxa7 34 Bxe7 Nc6 35 Bg5 Rb1 with best play a draw should be reached but defending is no fun. 36 Rxb1 Bxb1 37 g3?! Be4 38 h4 Bf3 39 Kf1 Ne5! 40 Be3 Nd3 41 Bd4 Ke6 42 Be3 Kd5 43 Bg5 Kf4 44 Bd2 Kb3 45 Bg5 Kc2 46 Bh6 Kd1 47 Be3 Ne5 48 Bf4 Ng4 49 Bg5 Be2+ 50 Kg2 Ke1 51 Bf4 Ba6 (Nxf2) 52 f3 Bb7 53 Bg5 Ke2 54 Bf4 Bxf3+ 0-1

?Alapin Sicilian. harmonie5 (2228) v Voprak 5 min + 3. 25/3/22 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 cd 4 c3 Nf6 5 e5 Nd5 6 cd d6 7 Bc4 Nb6 8 Bb3 de 9 d5 Na5 10 Nc3 f6 11 Nxe5 !? not mentioned by Mister Gaby in his survey but dangerous. fe 12 Qh5+ g6 13 Qxe5 Nxb3 (expecting Qxh8 when I intended Nxc1 without allowing Bh6) but 14 ab and now both of my rooks are in trouble. Rg8 15 Nb5 Bg7 16 Nc7+ Kf7( Kd7?? Qe6+) 17 Qf4+ Bf6 18 Nxa8 Nxd5!? 19 Qb8 ( Qc4 Be6) a6 20 O-O Be6 21 Qxb7 Qxa8 22 Qxa6 Qxa6 23 Rxa6 leaving an unclear endgame Rb8 24 Re1 Bf5 25 h3 h5 26 Rd1 Nb4 27 Ra7 Nd3 28 Be3 Nxb2 29 Rd2 Rxb3 30 Bd4 Nc4 31 Rd1 Ne5 32 Re1? hoping to get to the e7 pawn but overlooking Nc6 33 Bxf6 Nxa7 34 Bxe7 Nc6 35 Bg5 Rb1 with best play a draw should be reached but defending is no fun. 36 Rxb1 Bxb1 37 g3?! Be4 38 h4 Bf3 39 Kf1 Ne5! 40 Be3 Nd3 41 Bd4 Ke6 42 Be3 Kd5 43 Bg5 Kf4 44 Bd2 Kb3 45 Bg5 Kc2 46 Bh6 Kd1 47 Be3 Ne5 48 Bf4 Ng4 49 Bg5 Be2+ 50 Kg2 Ke1 51 Bf4 Ba6 (Nxf2) 52 f3 Bb7 53 Bg5 Ke2 54 Bf4 Bxf3+ 0-1

I just played a game that I think deserves the description of a model game. :) It's in the model Sicilian 2.. a6 variation, and since I've thus far had problems there, I'm particularly proud. I picked up the idea of pushing f4-f5 in spite of the e5 pawn hanging from GM Gabuzyan. 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 { B23 Sicilian Defense: Closed } a6 3. g3 Qc7?! { (0.17 → 0.89) Inaccuracy. b5 was best. } (3... b5 4. Bg2 Bb7 5. Nge2 e6 6. d4 cxd4 7. Nxd4 Nf6 8. Qe2) 4. Bg2 b5?! { (0.38 → 1.31) Inaccuracy. e6 was best. } (4... e6 5. Nf3 d6 6. O-O Nf6 7. Re1 Nc6 8. d4 cxd4 9. Nxd4) 5. Nh3? { (1.31 → -0.02) Mistake. a4 was best. } (5. a4 b4) 5... e6 6. O-O Bb7 7. d3 Nf6 8. f4 d5? { (0.38 → 2.08) Mistake. b4 was best. } (8... b4 9. Na4) 9. e5 Nfd7? { (2.10 → 4.12) Mistake. d4 was best. } (9... d4) 10. f5 b4 11. Ne2?? { (5.21 → 2.36) Blunder. fxe6 was best. } (11. fxe6 fxe6) 11... Nxe5?! { (2.36 → 3.65) Inaccuracy. exf5 was best. } (11... exf5 12. e6 Ne5 13. Nef4 f6 14. a3 d4 15. Nd5 Bxd5 16. Bxd5 Nbc6 17. Rxf5 O-O-O 18. Bg2) 12. fxe6 fxe6?! { (3.08 → 4.02) Inaccuracy. f6 was best. } (12... f6 13. Nef4 Be7 14. Qh5+ g6 15. Qe2 Qb6 16. Nxd5 Bxd5 17. Bxd5 Nbc6 18. Qg2 O-O-O 19. Bf4) 13. Nef4 Qd7? { (3.94 → 7.12) Mistake. Bc8 was best. } (13... Bc8) 14. Ng5 Bd6 15. Ngxe6 g6 16. Qe2 d4 17. Nxc5 Bxc5 18. Qxe5+ Kd8 19. Qxh8+ Kc7 20. Qe5+ Kb6 21. Nd5+ Ka7 22. Nf6 Qb5 23. Bxb7 Kxb7 24. Bf4 a5 25. Qc7+ Ka6 26. Rae1 Nc6 27. Re6 Bb6?! { (19.98 → Mate in 9) Checkmate is now unavoidable. Qb7 was best. } (27... Qb7 28. Rxc6+) 28. Qxc6?! { (Mate in 9 → 14.08) Lost forced checkmate sequence. Rxc6 was best. } (28. Rxc6 Ra7 29. Qc8+ Rb7 30. Nd7 a4 31. Bb8 b3 32. Rxb6+ Qxb6 33. Nxb6 bxa2 34. Nc4 a1=Q) 28... Qxc6 29. Rxc6 Kb5 30. Re6 Rc8 31. Rf2 Bd8 32. Nd5 Rc5 33. Nf6 Rf5 34. Be5 Rg5 35. h3 Bxf6 36. Bxf6 Rd5 37. Re5 Kc6 38. Rxd5 Kxd5 39. Bg7 Ke6 40. Rf8 { Black resigns. } 1-0

Also posted for game of the month, Grand Prix Attack :) https://www.chess.com/game/live/54629918539

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/32426413275?tab=review I played just as Avetik sir told me in the course to play

I played this game nicely but it was one of the last rounds so I took the draw [Event "National schools Under-11"] [Site "?"] [Date "2022.05.19"] [Round "8"] [White "Vandan Alankar Sawai"] [Black "Reyan Md"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ECO "B38"] [WhiteElo "1428"] [BlackElo "1590"] [PlyCount "52"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. c4 Nf6 6. Nc3 Bg7 7. Be3 O-O 8. Be2 d6 9. O-O Bd7 10. Qd2 Nxd4 11. Bxd4 Bc6 12. f3 a5 13. b3 Nd7 14. Be3 Nc5 15. Rac1 Be5 16. Rfd1 e6 17. Bf1 Qe7 18. Ne2 f5 19. exf5 Rxf5 20. Ng3 Qh4 21. Bd4 Bf4 22. Be3 Be5 23. Bd4 Bf4 24. Be3 Be5 25. Bd4 Bf4 26. Be3 Be5 1/2-1/2

I played this in an online tournament. It was a pretty good Caro Kann defense. I was with the white pieces. My opponent and I both could have learned something from this game. 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. h4 h5 5. c3 e6 6. Nf3 c5 7. Bg5 f6 8. exf6 gxf6 9. Bf4 cxd4 10. Nxd4 Ne7 11. Nxf5 Nxf5 12. c4 Bb5+ 13. Bd2 Bxd2+ 14. Nxd2 Nc6 15. Be2 Ng7 16. Qc2 Kf7 17. g4 Nd4 18. Qd3 Nxe2 19. Qxe2 hxg4 20. Qxg4 Qa5 21. h5 Rag8 22. Qg6+ Ke7 23. cxd5 Nf5 24. d6+ Nxd6 25. Qd3 Qe5+ 26. Qe2 Qxe2+ 27. Kxe2 Rg5 28. h6 Rg6 29. h7 Rg7 30. Rc1 Kd7 31. Nc4 Nxc4 32. Rxc4 Rhxh7 33. Rd1+ Ke8 34. Rc8+ Kf7 35. Rc7+ Kg6 36. Rg1+ Kh6 37. Rh1+ Kg6 38. Rg1+ Kh6 39. Rh1+ Kg6 1/2-1/2. We agreed to a draw.

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. Bf4 d5 4. c3 c5 5. 6. Bb5 a6 7. Ba4 b5 8. Bb3 c4 9. Bc2 Bd6 10. Bg3 Nh5 11. Ne5 Nxg3 12. Nxc6 Qc7 13. hxg3 Qxc6 14. Rxh7 Rxh7 15. Bxh7 g6 16. Qg4 Kf8 17. Qh3 Kg7 18. Nd2 e5 19. Qh2 exd4 20. exd4 Bf5 21. Bxg6 Bxg6 22. O-O-O Rh8 23. Qg1 b4 24. Nb1 Qa4 25. Qe1 Qc2# 0-1 https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/55914878905?tab=analysis I was with the black pieces. An Indian game: London system opening. ( according to chess.com )

Win Morphy style with 2 pieces sacrifice with a bad account with the French when White takes with the Queen on d4. https://www.chess.com/live#g=57485783179 Love the attacking courses and Chessmood variations!!!

a good game in scotch. my opponent played some weird moves [Link "https://www.chess.com/game/live/57199045999"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Bc5 5. Nb3 Bb6 6. Nc3 Nf6 7. Qe2 d6 8. Be3 O-O 9. O-O-O Qe7 10. f3 Re8 11. g4 Bxe3+ 12. Qxe3 Nd7 13. Nd5 Qd8 14. h4 Nce5 15. g5 c6 16. Nc3 f6 17. Rxd6 fxg5 18. hxg5 Nf7 19. Bc4 Qe7 20. g6 Qxd6 21. gxf7+ Kf8 22. fxe8=Q+ Kxe8 23. Rxh7 Qf8 24. Qg5 Qe7 25. Qxe7+ Kxe7 26. Rxg7+ Kf6 27. Rg8 b5 28. Bd3 Kf7 29. Rh8 Kg7 30. Rd8 Nb6 31. Na5 b4 32. Ne2 c5 33. c3 Rb8 34. cxb4 cxb4 35. Nc6 Rb7 36. Ba6 Rc7 37. Nd4 Bxa6 38. Ne6+ 1-0

Hello, This is Aravindakshan here. I played an offline Open event in Bangalore, India recently and scored 7.0/9.0 points. I played ChessMood Opening Scotch in 4 of my 5 white games. This is the link to my Lichess study of my games:- https://lichess.org/study/kwAaXOvc This is the link to my performance:- http://chess-results.com/tnr673076.aspx?lan=1&art=9&fed=IND&snr=49

Below is the link to an online blitz game(3+0) in the Schlecter French where I felt comfortable throughout the game. I used to play Tarrasch and I can see so many patterns recurring but better versions of them. In my opinion(I may be wrong) Schlechter feels like an improved Tarrasch in most lines. With respect to this game, against stronger opposition I would have faced better resistance and I cannot miss chances like I did in this game but on the bright side I was never worse. https://lichess.org/jmIihtDE/white#0

I won this game last month after following a Chessmood Caro-Kann line , with a rook sac and royal fork in the end : https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/56749224873?tab=review

Beautiful Scotch game with ChessMood lines that got me to 1900 in blitz on chess.com :) https://www.chess.com/game/live/64408898665

I have idea for common "Mistakes" in Scotch from my game in tournament over the board (Rapid game and Blitz game followed next day with the same opponent). I am ~ 1900 in Rapid and Blitz, my ELO is 2000, however, I made this mistake. The idea for black was mentioned in course, but not in this particular move order. This mistake was not covered in the course or is it?! I would found it in classical control, but in rapid - missed, because this is just one of my first tournament games in Scotch. https://lichess.org/study/oO7yjp5w/gwxJPssl

https://www.chess.com/game/live/65109123343 Beautiful French Defense Dream variation in action! Bet opponent was like how do I get that king so safe in the middle of the board?! 😀

Caro Kann exchange, unfourtunately misplayed endgame in time pressure with piece up. Opponent was polish WFM. I was not prepared for this game, I played what I remembered from video, this variation I watched only once about a month ago. However, I remembered there were two variations - to grab a pawn or not to grab... See Second chapter in this study: https://lichess.org/study/3Q73OCzx/cWP7KUpf

This is me playing white in the Pasini variation against the Modern Defense on Chess.Com, 3+2. I checked the game afterwards on Lichess and the evaluation indicated that white had played pure-as-snow-perfect. Had I been my opponent, I would have filed a complaint. :) 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 d6 4. Be3 a6 5. g4 b5 6. Bg2 Bb7 7. h4 h5 8. gxh5 Rxh5 9. Bf3 Rh8 10. h5 e6 11. e5 Nc6 12. hxg6 fxg6 13. Rxh8 Bxh8 14. exd6 cxd6 15. Qd2 Qf6 16. O-O-O O-O-O 17. Bg5 Qxd4 18. Bxd8 Kxd8 19. Qg5+ Qf6 20. Rxd6+ Kc7 21. Qxf6 Bxf6 22. Rxe6 Bg5+ 23. Kb1 Nd4 24. Rxg6 Nxf3 25. Nxf3 Bxf3 26. Rxg5 Nf6 27. Rf5 1-0

Beautiful Dutch Attack game (2100 blitz). Almost all theory, all from the course material. I didn't do much myself :D https://www.chess.com/game/live/65680991793

https://www.chess.com/game/live/65684587771 2. Nc3 vs e6+d5 2400 fell into the trap:)

https://www.chess.com/game/live/66213046485

Nice game started with Philidor Defense from Black and turned towards Scotch idea. In the end Rook sacrifice helps to finish the game faster. https://lichess.org/8x7UsX4v

[Event "2023 \"Druskininkai Rapid Open \""] [Date "2023.01.08"] [Round "7"] [White "Renate"] [Black "Misiuk, Martynas"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B23"] [WhiteElo "1926"] [BlackElo "1907"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 g6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Qxd4 Nf6 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. Qa4 d6 7. e5 dxe5 8. Nxe5 Bd7 9. Nxd7 Nxd7 10. Be3 (10. Bb5 Bg7) 10... Bg7 11. Rd1 O-O 12. g3 Qc8 13. Bg2 Nb6 14. Qb5 Qe6 15. O-O Qc4 16. Bxb6 (16. a4 Qd4) 16... Qxb5 17. Nxb5 axb6 18. Rd7 Rxa2 19. Rxb7 Na5 20. Rxe7 Rxb2 21. Nd6 Rxc2 22. Bd5 Rd2 23. Bxf7+ Kh8 24. Ne4 Re2 25. Bd5 Bd4 26. Rd7 b5 27. Ng5 Bg7 28. Ne6 1-0 Move 9...Nxd7 is not covered in the course or I missed it.

https://www.chess.com/game/live/68013813743 Just wanted to share the nice Petrov trap mate thanks to chessmood.

Like to add one game played against Sicilian line. Opponent can't have any time to attack the White. https://lichess.org/jhXthUha

https://www.chess.com/game/live/68472838505 Oponnent play diffrently than in the course, but this game show, how powerful french defence/attack can be, when oponnent is a beginner and have not much time to think.

Dutch Attack Vs. London System Checkmate in 19 Moves with 94% Accuracy 😙 https://lichess.org/ZlTnTIBT1Ybt

https://lichess.org/VVMeIjnY#45 & https://lichess.org/iojWn1dd#63 These are, perhaps my best games I have ever played against caro-kann & sicilian(without watching the course) with pressure 😅

https://lichess.org/zt3PKJ5B Hi Avetik, this is my game from a OTB tournament a few days ago. According to stockfish I hit a 96% accuracy playing the French Attack Tarrasch variation. The opening worked great-it destroyed his pawn structure so I was delighted to go into a winning endgame "and the rest was technique" or so they say. 😉

https://www.chess.com/game/live/71092655099 - Schlechter variation https://www.chess.com/game/live/69247092545 - Anti-Sicilian 2.Nc6 https://www.chess.com/game/live/70563169081 - Anti-Sicilian 2.e6 https://www.chess.com/game/live/67393235807 - Anti-Sicilian 2.d6 https://www.chess.com/game/live/62686135723 - Anti-Sicilian 2.g6 https://www.chess.com/game/live/64089245861 - Anti-Sicilian 2.a6 https://www.chess.com/game/live/70298076875 - Scotch game https://www.chess.com/game/live/70157657025 - Alekhine defense https://www.chess.com/game/live/69003302489 - Philidor defense https://www.chess.com/game/live/59693487751 - Caro-Kann defense https://www.chess.com/game/live/65474486631 - Pirc defense

French attack - exchange variation https://lichess.org/ggSyEoJPLsVd

French attack - Knight/Exchange variation vs. higher rated player https://lichess.org/8ab4234eTLte

Hello GM Avetik and Chessmood. Firstly a BIG thanks - I took the plunge and subscribed to take advantage before the prices went up. I am so pleased I did - it's been great to refresh Tactics and Mating patterns first off. But I think the biggest difference has been taking a fresh look at my openings - I have suspected for a while that many of my variations with white (I play 1. e4) were becoming tricker to get an advantage with at my level. With black I played 1. ... e5 against e4, following a Ginger GM course, which again were trappy and relied on surprise, but harder to win with against an opponent that knew what they were doing. Against anything else with black I played KID. Anyway - I started going through the chessmood openings 2 weeks ago and it has been enough to FINALLY break the 1800 chesscom blitz rating. I had my first FIDE rated OTB tournament ever this weekend. I know, NOT the time to try out new openings, right? But round 1 I saw myself paired against someone 200 points higher. He played 1. d4 -- I hadn't watched those chapters yet so I had to play my old stuff. Managed to get a draw there, so a good start. Round 2 I had white, against the highest rated (1985) in the under 2000s bracket. He played Scandinavian - I hadn't watched that chapter yet either, so played my usual stuff again! Was heading for a draw until he blundered a queen trade that gave me two unstoppable passed pawns. My best win ever! Round 3 I had white against a young girl again 1975 rated (I am about 1750). I played Scotch and we got the romantic variation. She looked thrown when I played h4! But little did she know I didn't know what I was doing with it yet either. I played Rh3 too early, I blocked the path off my dark squared bishop, and she forked my queen and rook. Round 4 I had ANOTHER 1950 opponent. He again played 1. d4, again my usual stuff, again a draw. Which brings my to my final round, which I played yesterday against someone similar rating to me. He played 1. e4, and I played 1. e6 -- apart from 2 blitz games, the first time I have ever played the French. Would you believe he played 2. d4 and 3. Bd3! and I thought "He is a chessmood student"! Anyway - the position got super crazy after 4. c3 e5 - neither of us really knew what to do. I was worse nearly all of the game. Fought back to a 3 vs 2 pawn endgame in my favour but with the structure split. We both thought it was a dead draw, but engine says it was winning for me! Many instructive moments - clearly I need to do more work on my endgames next (and yes, he is a Chessmood student, and we are going to try and meet up for some training games). https://www.chess.com/a/iRqUrq1YFaPQ?tab=analysis

elo 1200-1300 chess.com rapid vs Stafford gambit https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/74839923283?tab=review PS I just learned it 2 days ago from the courses, after losing to this annoying gambit a few times, so I'm happy with this win :D

Thank you so much. Not a perfect game (expecially in analysis...) but so fun! https://lichess.org/cXLFfaOS/black#88

https://lichess.org/study/YGTKETx8/P1DrseeY My game with white, Scotch with Qh4. I am playing Nc3 (and Nb5 later)

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/76034382051?tab=review I just posted it for the best game contest . Do I have to put it here also as it could be a good model game for stafford gambit for my level of play ?

I finally got to play a good attack in the Scotch! Opponent played 6...a5 the advanced move which I seem to be facing more nowadays. https://lichess.org/65kURKmnbqRC

https://lichess.org/zi0MIMDr/black#50 french defense with e5

I just played the basic white mood line against Alekhine . I didnt find model games of it . It was a 90 min +30 sec online game . I got a good position after dubious moves by him but then I got fancy with e6 to keep his king side locked. I tried to make it work in middle game , keeping the pieces especially my bishop pair but he finally untangled himself and got a better endgame . I tried all I could but I was losing and at the end , I got lucky in time pressure as he blundered his queen ! I m studying the bishop pair course ( first quarter of it ) and usually it influence too much how I play ..this game is a good example as I should have give away a bishop many times in the games but held on too long on them..https://www.chess.com/game/live/76869012173

Got a nice Grandprix attack with the rook sacrifice AND exchange sac [Event "?"] [Site "Chess.com iPhone"] [Date "2023.05.05"] [Round "?"] [White "richard_mark"] [Black "anesheim"] [Result "1-0"] [FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"] [WhiteElo "1628"] [BlackElo "1734"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 d6 3. f4 Nf6 4. Nf3 g6 5. Bc4 Bg7 6. d3 O-O 7. O-O a6 8. a3 b5 9. Ba2 Bb7 10. Qe1 Nc6 11. Qh4 Nd4 12. f5 Nxc2 13. fxg6 Nxa1 14. Ng5 h6 15. Nxf7 Rxf7 16. Bxf7+ Kf8 17. Bxh6 Nc2 18. Bxg7+ (18. Rxf6 exf6 19. Bxg7+ Ke7 20. Bxf6+ Kd7 21. Bxd8 ) Kxg7 19. Rxf6 exf6 20. Qh7+ Kf8 21. Bb3 Bd5 22. Bxd5 (22. Nxd5 22... Ke8 (22... Qe8 23. Qh8# ) ) {1-0}

Classical game, Caro Kann, not the best play, but for model game could be useful. [Event "Round 9 National championship, women"] [Date "2023.05.05"] [Round "9"] [White "Chessmood member"] [Black "G.L."] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B13"] [PlyCount "91"] 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. Bd3 Nf6 5. c3 Nc6 6. Bf4 e6 7. Qe2 Bd6 8. Bxd6 Qxd6 9. Nf3 O-O 10. Ne5 Nd7 11. f4 f6 12. Qh5 f5 13. Nd2 Nf6 14. Qh4 Ne4 15. g4 Nxe5 16. fxe5 Qd8 17. Qxd8 Rxd8 18. gxf5 exf5 19. Nf3 Be6 20. Rg1 h6 21. Ke2 Kf7 22. h4 g6 23. Ke3 Rg8 24. c4 dxc4 25. Bxe4 fxe4 26. Nd2 Ke7 27. Nxe4 Raf8 28. Rad1 Bd5 29. Nf6 Rxf6 30. exf6+ Kxf6 31. Rdf1+ Kg7 32. Kf4 Re8 33. Re1 Rf8+ 34. Ke5 Rf5+ 35. Kd6 Bf7 36. Re5 Rf6+ 37. Kc7 Rc6+ 38. Kxb7 Rb6+ 39. Kc7 Rxb2 40. Rf1 Bg8 41. d5 c3 42. d6 c2 43. Re7+ Kh8 44. d7 Rb1 45. d8=Q Rd1 46. Rxd1 1-0 Real names hidden and link to live game in lichess available upon request.

Accelerated Dragon model game with lower rated opponent, who played incorrectly

Wow.  🤩🤩🤩

What a game. 
You all pieces played actively. Great job!

Especially I liked Ra3 move! 👍

french attack 1.e4 , e6 2. c4 d5 https://lichess.org/tvSNSzZ3XYBo

Nice game. 👍
How to punish, if opponent plays many moves with a piece. 

After Qa4+ you could also cover the check Bb5 or just b5, as they can't take b4 bishop, because of Nc2+ 

french attack exchange variation with 4.C4 https://lichess.org/OI4aj1o6/black#7

https://lichess.org/Xn4URsOa/black french defense: advance variation

A 75min+30s game I played yesterday in the Schlechter French. My opponent was an old man who actually used to be around 2100 national some 5-10 years ago, but dropped to 1900. I just felt like I was in control the entire game.

Well played. It is nice to see your opponent blunder at the end. I am 150 points weaker and it is nice to see that people still can drop pieces under pressure. GG :)

Here is a Sicilian Nc3 Nc6 game I just played as white.

https://lichess.org/NpcC8rkB/white#17

It says I'm not allowed to upload PGN files, so I can't upload the game as others have.

Punishing a mistake with the Scotch: https://www.chess.com/game/live/82495200427 😀

Here is another Sicilian. This one is from the Nc3 d6 line. I made at least one opening prep error and one late middlegame error, but I had enough pressure on Black to win anyway.

https://lichess.org/tUUez7VE/white#21

Lost Exchange Caro Kann, positionally was a bit better, but lost in complications in time trouble.

The opening move is whether to play 12.Bb5 or 12.Bc2 here. 

And after 12.Bb5 Qb6 whether to play a4 or Bc6-b4 (not Nb3 as it was in the game).

https://lichess.org/lXAxvk7X#53

Caro-Kann, Exchange variation

This was a crazy game I played online in the Sicilian.

https://lichess.org/pkmanonu

Scotch Game against 4…Bc5

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/84502981909?tab=review - A nice game, winning out of the opening, and converting it.

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/84486877981?tab=review - A good game in the opening, getting a winning advantage against an FM with 3250 rating performance!!

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/84254391621?tab=review - A nice game in the Schlechter!

Not my own game, but in the Womens championship, Eline Roebers played the Scotch with longcastle and attacking on the kingside. Its a really nice game to learn from imo

https://www.chess.com/events/2023-fide-womens-world-cup/01-01/Roebers_Eline-Al_Fayyadh_Yamama_Asif_Abdula

https://lichess.org/study/ooIQWCmJ/VSIzKaGh

Exchange Caro Kan with early e6, good attack with white, unfortunately lost in time trouble.

A crushing game in the Nc3 Sicilian. https://lichess.org/2zxTCD9E

A collection of some of my best Benko Gambit games:

https://lichess.org/QCeSB4nb/black#54

https://lichess.org/4UZpb2oK/black#78

https://lichess.org/AG3cyqtN/black#48 - Uncommon lines

https://lichess.org/Pu7NVlXk/black#21

Destroying Stafford Gambit: https://www.chess.com/game/live/86455791415

Proof that the benko works against high rated opposition https://lichess.org/KLsasZYnb3ld

https://lichess.org/study/hmOBMuUf/XVTfbqSK

Sicilian Alapin with black. Could play better, I mixed multiple variation, but this was first game in Alapin and I watched CM course for first time just a day before this game … so a bit mixed everything, but ideas were correct in general :)

Beautiful positional torture in Sicilian Accelerated Dragon - Maroczy structure endgame

https://lichess.org/AJoaTLzC/black#41.    Pretty easy but good game in Dutch with many main ideas, especially I like b5 move. And sorry I'm always forgetting that I should change bishops to c3 without waiting…

C'est ce qu'on appelle un chef d'oeuvre (French Attack)

I thought this was interest line of the French, Vistaneckis Variation  Hope you think so as well.

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/daily/565420913?tab=review  Hope I link it correctly

Let me know how you like it

[Event "?"]
[Site "Chess.com iPhone"]
[Date "2023.10.10"]
[Round "?"]
[White "sqallir1"]
[Black "defensivefredy"]
[Result "1-0"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
[WhiteElo "1977"]
[BlackElo "1996"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Bd3 dxe4 4. Bxe4 Nf6 5. Bf3 Be7 6. Ne2 O-O 7. O-O c5 8. c3 Nc6 9. Be3 cxd4 10. Nxd4 Nxd4 11. Qxd4 Qxd4 12. Bxd4 a6 13. Re1 Rb8 14. Be5 Ra8 15. Nd2 Rd8 16. Nc4 Bc5 17. Rad1 Nd7 18. Bc7 Re8 19. b4 Ba7 20. Nd6 Rf8 21. Nxb7  {1-0}

https://lichess.org/eLxk40o8/white

Chessmood prep untill move 12, and destruction after that :).

Thank you GM Gabuzyan for the wonderful stream games that lead to this victory!

Chessmood openings are SO POWERFUL! Here is a game where I CRUSHED the Sicilian with the WhiteMood Grand Prix Attack IN 15 MOVES WITH 99% accuracy!

https://lichess.org/AksAGyaA8fu3

I'm white.

I won with a novelty in the following game based on the starter black opening.

https://lichess.org/1AyP6YhlJOMm

Searching lichess database I found that only 2 games continued 11.Qd2 and in both of them black played Qxd2+ that was also the move I planned to play but before playing I thought few seconds and found Bb4.

I played all the correct moves after the opening based on stockfish.  Stockfish considers 6….Nxe4 as slightly better than 6…fxe4(I remembered that both of them are possible and decided that I prefer to trade pieces by 6…Nxe4). 

ARMANDAS_130 vs Bortsyn: Sicilian Defense: Closed, Traditional • lichess.org

Lovely game, showing how to play with development lead!

A game of King's Gambit full of pressure both mental and time which I won

https://lichess.org/i6tboh26/white#85

A game of French defence advance variation where tactic ninja helped a little bit

https://lichess.org/V1P6GXBF/black#71

a game of french defence which I think ended up with a dirty trick

https://lichess.org/E1xjTGiz/black

a game where I think my slp skills work due to time pressure

https://lichess.org/bxqSnUF4/black

French Attack - Advance Variation

https://lichess.org/xON1ROvJ/black

An attacking masterclass in the Rossolimo, provided with some notes!

Enjoy!

https://lichess.org/study/kMT0ZBbB

https://lichess.org/f6Prcwai/white#0

classic grand prix attack

A nice game in the scotch game with a brilliant double rook sac

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/99999223057?tab=review&move=48

Hi, chessmood family! Yesterday I played an OTB game with French attack. It was an exchange variation with a  strange move order, with Cc3 on the 2nd move. It was as follows:

1.e4 e6 2. Cc3 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. d4

With the exchange variation I like to play Bd6, Nd7, Bg4 and so on. However, with the white knight on c3 I cannot play Bd6, since I would interrupt the defense of the queen on the d5 pawn. So I just went on with 4…Nc6 (attacking the pawn on d4) and 5. Nf3 (protecting d4) Bg4 (pinning the knight).

Is this correct or should I've played something better? Unfortunately, the whitemood openning does not cover the move Nc3

By the way, I ended up losing the game, if you want to know. I finished the opening  with equality of slight advantage, but my opponent was way better than me and recovered in the middlegame. But I'm happy, cause I managed to oppose resistance thanks to the excellent withemood repertoir

Thanks for your comments

https://www.chess.com/game/live/101050931667

https://lichess.org/N8iMhiEE

 

Awesome sacrifice that tore his King wide open which then led to a cool mate. Total domination.

Scotch Game

https://lichess.org/mUqQS6Yq/white#0

Sicilian, I am white.

https://lichess.org/h1db6Wmn/white
 

Paul

https://lichess.org/rrSZkv2n

 

Hello chess community!

I played a scotch game as white.

Black played 5..bc5

And 6..a5?! An interesting variation I didn't know.

In the game I responded by a4 but I'd like to get your advice on the move: 7 Nd5 witch is probably more secure?

I felt bad about 7 a4 because I gave the nice b4 square to the knight, 

Thanks 

blackmood french, 4. nc3 and …bb4

https://lichess.org/2Yt3lbok

Whitemood exchange Caro:

https://www.chess.com/game/live/105457847481

model game in the scotch against the 4…Qh4 coffehouse move:

a perfect game according the engine:

https://lichess.org/qAtUwbvR

A model game (at least a typical good try) against the trompovsky: https://lichess.org/1f2It8u4/black

French Steinitz, with 4…. Ng8

https://lichess.org/3XbG4K4Y/white#15

Quick question I played our French opponent played a5 stopped my plan has any one else encountered that move? what should we do thanks 

Hi, chessmood family!. This is my first game and first victory against Caro-Kann defence. I played with White and used the exchange variation as suggested in the whitemood openings. Thanks for the tips!

 

https://lichess.org/xsq9IquX/white#46

My first Benko gambit game, 98,4% accuracy: https://www.chess.com/game/live/107346793319

Philidor Defense transposed into Scotch position

Been watching model games and how to attack and I was proud to have 2 brilliant rook sacrifices to checkmate. Also proud I found it so fast (3+2 blitz :D) 
https://www.chess.com/game/live/107629508521

https://www.chess.com/game/live/107464994495

attacking french game

Punishing the jobava d4 sideline:

 

https://lichess.org/cnG52Lm4/black

Model Philidor defense againsy Bg4

I was possessed by the soul of the great Paul Morphy in this game! For a moment, I thought I was going to reproduce move by move his famous game at the Paris opera, but it was still faster!

 

https://lichess.org/XPRsJRwS/white

https://www.chess.com/game/live/107860157793

https://lichess.org/ZtrNiubSGFUk

https://lichess.org/ZyPsY1ROGRIL

A Scotch Game

https://lichess.org/AaksHX0MNztT

https://lichess.org/DrtGrqq0OL7y

https://lichess.org/CTQcBu9W9jg4

An excellent Scotch game.

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/108235268561?tab=review

Advanced French Attack

Not sure if this would be qualified for a “model game”, since the engine analysis says my accuracy was only 69%. Seems I missed some ideas, but the funny thing is I was almost playing automatically according to the model game strategies, so my time never dropped below 3 mins (3+2 blitz). The game ended up in a checkmate and the opponent seemed completely confused. Was quite funny haha 

https://lichess.org/gPucH8a6/white

 

👍

I love the Scotch opening. Thank you.

French Attack Exchange Variation

 

I struggle quite a bit with exchange variation, even after studying the theory and model games. There's a lot of positions to learn on our own, and after finishing Blunderproof course, I've realized some tactical weaknesses I have (even after doing tactical ninja course), and the tactics here killed the game! 

I do feel it would be useful to see more games from Exchange variation. It's very common < 1500 elo blitz cc. 

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/108448824617?tab=review 

https://lichess.org/vyJUjiCIOdsi

French -Exchange variation

https://lichess.org/BFw72YKdnz7F

Sicilian game

my Lichess id Anuraghav

my game: Play Boucan • lichess.org

I am with white and played English opening

Thank you

Model game with Philidor Defense. Black played 3….ed4

https://lichess.org/r4eglYVe

best regards

Joachim

https://lichess.org/9ocNG0azUzaM

A scotch game

 

https://lichess.org/ZGg0TFow?color=black

99% accuracy in the accelerated dragon with nice exchange sac

https://lichess.org/LnhJqBU9?color=white
Scotch Game 4..Nxd4 against a Human-Like Bot. Note the 12. g4 move on why it is a blunder. This seems to be a common theme on my games so i'd like to share this with you. Good thing the bot missed it LMAO😆😆
 

https://www.chess.com/game/live/109842114515 

French Attack Exchange Variation 

I think contrary to what the courses teach about advanced variation being the most popular, exchange variation is far more popular at lower levels (<1500 elo cc blitz level). I think based off what the coaches have said and my experiences with climbing the ladder, many players don't know enough theory vs French, so they just take the pawn in the middle and 80% of the time it transposes into an exchange variation game. I think we could use more model games with commentary about this since it's so popular! 

https://www.chess.com/game/live/109873915031

Another French Attack Exchange Variation - this time when they go 5.Bb5 and pin our knight to our king. Another coach told us the the practical response to this before in another thread, which I tried to execute in this game, but before I found that thread, I struggled with this move a lot in the past, as it prevented our typical opposite side castle attack plan. I feel this would be useful to be put in a model game as well (if this game is good enough of course!) 

https://lichess.org/Wc6niMF5/black#1

French game against random moves. Also proud of my middlegame attacks and the checkmate

https://www.chess.com/game/live/112334431445

 

Nf6 c5 variation for black  in queen gambit, wanna enter benko gambit line, but opponent avoid it. The game up and down, however the black is material advantage after Rxe3 !!

 

https://www.chess.com/game/live/112333792443

 

turning game in Marozy bind setup for black vs white English opening .

The game goes to a chaotic position, but blacks have good pawn structure and active pieces. 

 

The games start black to win after 22. Rf1 f5 for black, close the only counterattack move for white (threatening Qf6 Qg7#) . After black play f5, whites are more dangerous in Kingside, and lead to lose queen and eventually get checkmate by black. 

https://lichess.org/9GgJFMyF/black

very good dutch model game

https://lichess.org/UBeehHnybJuS Model game illustrating how easy it is to play with the scotch game. 

Nicolussi, Hieronymus - Turel, Tugrul • lichess.org

I won against a 2000 elo player in an OTB tournament in the Scotch with a strong atack.

Line: 4.Nf6 …. 8.d6

Here is a win with the dutch defense.

https://www.chess.com/game/live/118967965425

https://lichess.org/huzLIzMI/black#0

Nice attack vs the sicilian closed systems with 99% accuracy!

Nimzowitch defense 

 

https://www.chess.com/game/daily/697053543

https://lichess.org/BAC2rzOJ Grand Prix Attack

Carp kann exchange

 

https://www.chess.com/live/game/119425788085

 

Double rook sacrifices to crush black king lead to checkmates.

 

Here is a nice Scotch game win for me!

https://www.chess.com/game/live/119916001619

 

Actually IDK how 2 send a link.

 

Sir, How to play against white's stonewall set up as black ? which chessood opening will crush that?

https://lichess.org/NCby2MxtZEh0

The French with White, disabling the French bishop and the rook, leaving no chance of counterplay.

Refutation of the Polish, mate in move 7!

https://lichess.org/6FgRXf9jGL4o

Puzzle-Fixing

Dear ChessMood Family, 

We have over 10,000 quizzes on the website, and we're adding hundreds of new. We try to be as careful as possible, but there is still the human factor… 

If you notice a mistake in any of the quizzes, and you share the link and details with us, that will be much appreciated! 

Thanks! 
ChessMood team 

Replies

Maybe this is not about positions itself, but I do not understand why we have the same puzzle, but with different colors. I do not think it makes sense when these puzzle comes one after another. Second thing is that in Tactics Ninja for instance I think it would be better to have one quiz after each section rather then small quizzes (with just 2 puzzles, sometimes the same puzzle with opposite colors and sometimes the same puzzle as just discussed in example) :)

In general I agree on the puzzles with opposite colors feeling a bit pointless. In addition Puzzle 4 in "The Endgame Roadmap - Section 7 Weak Squares" marks Bd4 as a Mistake expecting a5 instead while the Puzzle 1 (reversed Colors) expected Be4 before playing h4. https://chessmood.com/course/chess-endgame-roadmap/episode/5070/811

Endgame Roadmap, Queen Wanted, Protected Passed Pawn. In the first puzzle after 1.a4 Kc5 there are a bunch of winning moves. I played 2.Kf3 which is fine but was marked incorrect. Only 2.Kh3 g5 3.Kg4 is given as correct. I think it'd be reasonable to allow 2.Kf3 g5 3.Kg4 as well. The same puzzle is repeated immediately afterwards with colors reversed so should be fixed there as well.

Dear Chessmood team, I would like to report 2 mistakes in the Endgame Roadmap (I think so ;-): Section 10, first Quiz, third task: After 1. h5 there is ... e5 with the idea a5-a4-a3-a2-a1 and/or Lg8 totally equalizing. So 1. h5 is good, but not winning. Section 10, third Quiz, fifth task: 1. g4 is at least as good as 1. Nf3 (isn't?)

BlunderProof, Section 9, 4th problem. If White to move, I think Be2 is correct. Perhaps you intended it to be Black to move, with ...Qxe3.

Hi. The Troitzky daily puzzle of today, 4/20/23, has a cook (dual). 1.Rd4 Bc2+ and here gives 2.Kf6! like wrong, that is precisely what I played. The right answer is Kh6 but if you check with an engine you will see that both, Kf6 and Kh6 lead to a draw. Kh6 stalemates but 2.Kf6 e2 3. Rd5 e1Q 4. Re5+ Qxe5 5. Kxe5 and is a draw because of insufficient material on the board. TYVM and expecting to be fixed (and my 500 Moodcoins of course) 😜 Llorenc Boldu Zabih

In Tactic Ninja (btw:excellent!!) in Section 20, Nr. 4, last example Avetik gives a Game Carlsen-Ivanchuk and the hint, what could happen, if there was no pawn d4. But Nd4 would not win a piece as said because black can rescue it after... Bxf6 exf6 Qe5!

In the 7Q course, the quizzes for Question #2 appear to be repeats of the quizzes for Question #1.

Tactic ninja puzzle 3 : not sure how sacrificing the Bishop on e5 before sacrificing the Q on h8 is better than immediately Qh8 with the same forking trick.

Hello chessmood family .I have a question regarding puzzle racer.I want to improve at it .How can I acheive it ?

tactic ninja puzzle 83.  If I promote the first pawn(e7) to a rook it is still an easy win because if the rook escape the second pawn can promote to queen with check but it is marked wrong and I need to promote only the second pawn to a rook.

I think all underpromotions of the e pawn are winning easily including e8=B because the trick Kh6 g8=Q Rb3+ does not work because of Qxb3

Note that for me uninteresting are winning moves that do not win easily based on human calculation but only based on engine analysis but in this case the underpromotions of e7 win easily also based on human calculation.

100 Strategic Masterpieces game 1 quiz 3.

solution is 1.Qd4 Ree8 2.Bf1 Rec8 3.e3
I think 2.e3 with the idea of 3.Bf1should be also a correct solution and I do not think the order between e3 and Bf1 is important.  

https://chessmood.com/course/chess-classical-games/episode/6721/2484

Tactic Ninja Test puzzle #96. The sequence being played is:

  1.  …  Qb5  2. Rb1 Nxc3  3. f8  but the puzzle hangs here with the pawn sitting on f8 and not being promoted.

    Poor pawn. Gets all the way to the 8th rank and doesn't get the glory of being promoted. Short lived, as White mates on the next move :D

    mating metador

    https://chessmood.com/course/mating-matador/episode/3980/762

    Qxg7+ Kxg7 Nb5 that is not mentioned as an alternative is also correct and same for black.

    https://chessmood.com/course/mating-matador/episode/3995

    The solution is 1.Rg8+ Kh7 2.Rh8+ Kg6 3.Qxg5+ hxg5 4.h5# but I found an alternative winning move for 3.Qxg5+ and I planned 3.Rxh6+ Kxh6 4.Qxg5+ Kh7 5.Qh5+ Kg8 6.Qh8#

    Sacrificing a rook with a forcing check is something that I tend to calculate before sacrificing my queen and after I found fast a forced mate in this line I thought maybe the idea to mate with a pawn is with a different line and only analyzed to check that I do not blunder in the calculation of this line or different lines that I calculated.

    I think it is better to analyze the positions with an engine to find alternatives(there may be some alternatives that you can consider wrong because it is not logical for humans to consider them but not all of them as this example showed).

    Here is my calculations for the problem when I calculating until being sure it is winning and did not care to write obvious alternatives for black like 1…Rg7 that I saw but did not write(I usually do not write my solution but this time decided to write them after not seeing mate with a pawn and double checking my calculations that I did not do mistakes).

    line A:1.Rg8+ Kh7 2.Rh8+ Kg6 3.Rxh6+ Kxh6 4.Qxg5+ Kh7 5.Qh5+ Kg8 6.Qh8#
    line B:1.Rg8+ Kh5 2.Rxg5+ Kxh4 3.Qf4+ Bg4 4.Rxg4+

    4.Rxg4+ in line B is not the best move that you mention 4.Bf2# but it is obviously winning and I saw the line 4…Qxg4 5.Qxg4 mate that I did not write and also that after 4…Kh5 white has a decive attack(there is mate in 1 by 5.Qh2# that I did not see in my calculation but there are many ways to mate the opponent king)

    Tactic Ninja: Promotion Decoy Quiz #5: https://chessmood.com/course/tactic-ninja/episode/3255/516

    There are two available options to win but only one is accepted. The cheeky underpromotion c1B is considered to be wrong despite winning exactly the same way as does c1Q (unless of course white just would not take the Queen with Kxc1)

    mating metador quiz 212 the last move of the problem.
    Black can choose between all moves with the rook at the g file except Rg1+  that lead to the same mate when but Rg4+ is marked wrong unlike other last move of the problem with rook in the g file.

    https://chessmood.com/quiz/mating-matador#238

    In this puzzle there are 2 winning alternatives to Qb6+

    Qd1+ lead also to mate in 9 based on the engine that I did not try and Qb2+ that I tried based on the calculation that Kc5 lead to Qb6+ Kd5 Qd5# and Kd5 Ra5+ is enough at least to win the queen(note that in many problems there is even not a forced mate that the engine see but only mate in the main line)

    I think that both of them should be alternatives not because the engine claims it is winning(because there may be wins that are too hard for humans to see) but because humans may find a win with them.

    Tactic Ninja Quiz #356

    https://chessmood.com/quiz/the-tactic-ninja#356

    1. … Nxg3+ 2. hxg3 Qe4+ is the solution that is accepted.  However 2. … Bxe4 works as well, but this is not accepted as a solution.

     

    tactics ninja puzzle 248

    for some reason 1.Qxc6+ Qxc6 2.Rb8+ Rxb8 cxb8=Q does not work and it expect me only to make a rook promotion.

    In the past I promoted to a queen and there was no mistake and it seems instead of adding promotion to a rook as another solution you replaced the solution.  

    https://chessmood.com/course/blackmood-openings/episode/3900/1964

     

    Video before the quiz is about what to do when white castles short instead of taking the bishop on b5. Puzzle has white taking b5, which isn't what was covered in the video. Better would be two puzzles, one for each of the options Avetik talks about if white castles short: 6. O-O Bxd3 7. Qxd3 c5 OR 6. O-O Bxd3 7. Qxd3 Ne7

    I noticed you added puzzles for all (?) of the Tactic Ninja videos. Thanks a lot, I like it.

     

    Puzzle 3 in the Windmill Tactics section (https://chessmood.com/course/tactic-ninja/episode/3077/2260) expects 9… Bg1+ 10… B6+ 11… Bxc7+ while one could also play 9… Bxc7+ directly.

     

    Puzzle 5 in the same section probably also deserves another look, is this really meant to be black to play?

    And another one: https://chessmood.com/course/tactic-ninja/episode/3121/2293

    The puzzle “hangs” after Rh6+

    Please see

    Tactic Ninja, “destroying” section. In the new training puzzles, 2/20 we are playing the wrong side of the tactic and end up being checkmated!

     

    Today puzzles I think is have no sense…All of white peaces must sacrafice and then you solve in good way … ;/ but when you do it you have no chance to win … https://chessmood.com/daily-puzzle date 23.02.2024

    On https://chessmood.com/course/tactic-ninja/episode/3193/2336 Puzzle 4 after Kf2 the puzzle seems to confuse two possible lines, expecting …Bf4 instead of …Kxf7 after Kf2, where …Bf4 would have been the correct move after Kh1

     

    And on https://chessmood.com/course/tactic-ninja/episode/3211/3027 puzzle 3 after … c4 Qxc4 I would have expected …Nhf6 to be correct, however it is shown as wrong and the hint button isn't showing any moves.

     

    https://chessmood.com/course/tactic-ninja/episode/3234/3035 puzzle 7 probably shouldn't be B to play.

     

    https://chessmood.com/course/tactic-ninja/episode/3255/3041 puzzle 7 probably should be W to play as well.

     

    https://chessmood.com/course/tactic-ninja/episode/3339/2443 puzzle 3 is another puzzle for Example 2.

    https://chessmood.com/quiz/the-tactic-ninja#548

     

    I don't see why after 1. Qf3 1.. Bxf1 would be forced. After ie. 1. Qf3 ..Rf7 Black seems fine.

    Tactic Ninja - 16. Counter-threats

     

    (https://chessmood.com/course/tactic-ninja/episode/3248/3078)

     

    14. Conclusion, Training: level 2, puzzle 9

     

    Answer seems to be in wrong move-order, 1.Nd4 cd 2.Bb4 should be correct I think, but it says 1.Nd4 cd 2.Qc8+ is right.

    Tactic Ninja - 10 windmill - 7. Windmill + Draw - Puzzle 1:

    https://chessmood.com/course/tactic-ninja/episode/3076/2259

     

    Although in the example Avetik shows capturing the bishop in front of the rook, he mentions this is not necessary. Rxc2+ is the only accepted answer, but it is a slower way to draw the game than just immediately going Rg2+ again. I think the puzzle should accept both the additional move shown as a demonstration and the quicker draw as correct answers.

     

    Hi, 

    it seems todays puzzle (6.5.24)  has 2 solutions after 

    c7 Kd7   (2)  Kb7 Re8  (3) Ne7  RxNe7 c8D 

                                           or            Kxe7  (or any other move) and c8D Rxc8 Kxc8 

    or the one solution given as correct ..  

    with Stalemate (i agree nicer one)   

    (2) Ne7 Rxe7 and c8 Kxc8   

     

    anyway .. as I saw the first one (well was sure but surprised to be wrong. as I could not see why, had to ask for help!?) .  

    https://chessmood.com/course/tactic-ninja/episode/3328

    After white plays Be4 in the video, Bxe4 or an immediate g4 are correctly given as winning continuations. In the following quiz the immediate pawn move (g5 as colours are reversed) is flagged as incorrect.

     

    This might not be a mistake per se, but in Annihilation, after Conclusion, Training: level 2, puzzle number 1 - After 1.Rg5 g6 2. Rxh5 isn't there the counter-sac 1…Rxd5? I feel that is important and should be included.

    Discovered Check - Training: level 1, puzzle 3 - it seems both knight jumps win, but …Nb3+ is marked as incorrect.

    https://chessmood.com/course/tactic-ninja/episode/3202/3330

    Interference: Training Level 1: #13

    Move 3.Qxb6 is given as correct. Move 3.Nxg5+ is even better! I suggest both moves should flag as correct.

Study/Sparring partner

Hello, champions. 
Here you can find sparring partners. 
You can write, for example, 

"Hey guys, my name is Bob, I'm from the USA, my rating is 2000 I'm looking for a sparring partner." 

Or even more specific like "I just finished the Caro-Kann course and I'm looking someone to play a friendly sparring games". 

Good luck! 
Hopefully, you'll find good friends too. 

Replies

Hello! My name is Banh.My Fide rating is 1703 and my chess.com blitz rating is around 2100.I want to find a playing partner to help me practice openings.Also we can share our theoretical knowledge, books, and be each other’s friend!

Hi

I am Devansh Shah, from India, my fide rating is 1628, I have completed all courses except Maroczy and Sicilian sidelines

Looking forward for a practice partner

Hi I am Tanmoy. My chess.com nickname is Tanmoy1402chessmood. My Blitz rating is around 1700. I am from India. I usually play from 12:0 - 2:0 pm GMT ( 5 pm - 7pm IST). I am looking for sparring partner.

I created a chess.com club CM_buddies for those looking for practice.  Welcome to join!
 

Hi Friends, my name is Amit , I am from the India & FIDE unrated. I am rated 1481 ( Lichess--Rapid) & 1465 (Lichess-Blitz). I finished the Scotch & Anti-Sicilian course part 3 (2.... e6). I am not a PRO member but looking for a sparring partner. So I don’t know that is it possible or not?

What is your chess.com or lichess id @ skipper chess? Tanmoy1402chessmood at chess.com and Tanmoy1402 at liches is mine. 

Hey guys

I am Jamie from UK. Looking for partner to practice chess mood openings. Just finishing scotch game course as my 1st chess mood course. Also applied to chess.com club (buffyslayer1 is nick)

Hi, my chess.com username is karlstrohmaier, and my lichens username is kstrohmaier.  Happy to play anyone, feel free to friend me

Hello, ChessMood family.

I already found my sparring partner @WIM_Siranush_Ghukasyan :D 

We're kind of on the same level and very close friends from childhood, now we watch courses together, then we're playing and trying memorize lines.

I wish you'll find your partner, good luck ! :)


Hi All! I’m Sean from Midwestern America. I don’t have a rating. I just signed up for USCF and an actual tournament in late October. I’ve been playing for a while but never worked on my game so to speak.  I’d imagine I’m a 1200-1500 really. Some days better than others. I like to play 10 minutes or Classical. I could use a pal! I don’t care how good or bad you’re eating is. I can work on courses with you too. The structure of that would help me move along.

Hi all - I am Pablo. My fide rating is around 2000-2100. I play blitz on lichess where I have a rating of around 2200. I am looking for a training partner of around my level for doing opening, tactics, games, whatever really. So let me know if any of you is interested! I am living in Germany now, so even when time difference can be an issue I am sure we can manage somehow-

All the best!

Hey guys, my name is Tamojit Chakraborty, I'm from the India, my rating is 1890(lichess 2326 and chess.com 2336) I'm looking for a sparring partner around 1800 to 2100 level. I am interested in playing long games and studies. Anybody interested please let me know

Hi My name is Mark. My Fide  rating  is 1307 and my  chess .com  blitz rating is around 1800 .I want to find a playing partner to help me practice openings. Also  we can share our theoretical knowledge, books, and be each others friend ! 

Hello

I am Wilson, based on US east coast. USCF 1380 Chess.com 1590 username nephrol

Looking for sparring / study partner, long games preferred

Thank you

Hi. My name is Ben, and I’m looking for a training partner to play 1-2 games per week. 

My USCF rating is 2240, FIDE is about 2100.

Hi

My name is Tina, 41 years ( oh my..) and I am also seaching for a studypartner. I have about 1820 in Elo and on Chess.com I have 1850-1900 in blitz after switching to ChessMood openings. Before that I had about 2000. 

I am seaching for a study partner with whom I Can practice and remember What to play in the ChessMood openings. We could play the different openings for instance. If we can share  more that is great too. Because I work during the day it could be some evenings during the week we could practice I imagine. But let me hear from you.

Hello,

My name is Hugo, I'm 34 years old from Argentina. I'm looking for a study parter to improve together. I'm 1628 in lichess classical, I'm recently started to actually studing chess (I play since I was a kid, but I never studied the game before) so I have a lot to learn. I want to clarify I play and study chess for fun so although I'm pretty serious about it, this is a hobby for me, I have a full time job so I can mainly play at night or over the weekends.  I'm looking for someone to play with, discuss books, puzzles, whatever we can do to learn and improve together.

My lichess user is PracticalSound.

Thanks!

Hello Benjamin. We Can play if you want. Do you also play on Chess.com? Oh I see you do. I Will ad you haha

Hi , my fide elo is 2063 at the moment ( my peak was 2124 ) . Online rating about 2400 . looking for a partner with +2000 fide elo . let me know guys !

Hi, I'm Saul from Mexico, but I can speak with you in English. I have 1783 official rating in my country, in lichess I Have around  2100 blitz. I would like play classical games with you or positions training. Also, we can train about openings or endings. My nick in lichess is saulov. Contact me by lichess of preference. 

Hi everyone,

  I am Shahinur from Bangladesh. My online blitz rating is 1900 on lee chess platform.I  read the article about sparring partner and i have realized that i need a partner to practice . I will prefer from Asian region due to geographical time difference.

 

Hi everyone! I’m daniel from the US. I put off posting in here for awhile because I wanted to watch as many of the videos as I could. I’m ready to start playing a lot more now though and happy to go over games afterwards. I mostly play 10 and 15 minute games but I’m happy to try longer time controls. I’m ~1500 on lichess and working very hard to improve. I have a pretty flexible schedule and I’m happy to try to do at least weekly sessions. 

Hello my name is Shankhodip De. My elo rating is 1573. I really need a sparring partner, where we can prepare our openings by playing against each other because after I prepared an opening but no one played and more things. I have a good feeling of an attack but in endgames and non-dynamic positions i feel less confident. Chess.com id- Invincible_Spryzen Lichess.com id- Shankhodip

Hey guys, I want sparring and practicing partner. My lichess id is jyotisko06

Hello, my name is Giorgos. I am from Greece and I am not rated. My ratings in chess.com are around 1750 and on lichess around 1850 rapid highest is 1913(current rapid 1896) I have completed almost all opening courses. I prefer 3+0, 5+3, 10+0, and rarely 20+5 time controls. Looking for sparring partners above 1600 online rating, I don't mind if you are higher rated than me. Waiting for your answers. I am daily active either on chess.com or lichess. Chess.com id: Giorgos_Kechagias          Lichess id : giorgoskehagias509

Hey guys, my name's Meeth and I'm currently unrated in FIDE, my Lichess and Chess.com ID is meetcshah29. I'm currently 1800+ on Lichess and 1600+ on Chess.com. I'd enjoy having a training partner to play games with, as well as discuss other chess topics from endgames to openings to classical games and even discuss books and ideas. We can talk over email, whatsapp or any other form of social media that is comfortable

Hello, I am 40 years old, look for a partner to improve chess openings, practice typical positions and endings of chosen opening. My lichess rating: classic 2000, rapid 1900, blitz 1600. Lichess ID is T_38

Hola guys all chessmood family. Im new promember looking for a training partner. My rating is 1695 Fide standard. Blitz lichess n chess.com +1800. I am from Panama, living in caribbean islands. I practice and study only between 6-8am or after 8pm. timezone GMT -5.  Looking forward to improve i am good analyzing openings ideas and tactician over +2000 level, but weaker in strategy and  finals so we can exchange knowledge or simply a meeting to talk our study plans. Thank you. Please feel free chat me Whatsapp +507-65610593. Lets work together!!

I am new at CM (a couple of days) and will start learning the Scotch and then the Benkö Gambit and eventually the rest of the repertoire. My lichess.org Blitz rating is around 1700. I have no rating in Rapid or Classical. Won´t mind playing Rapid and Classical though.

I would appreciate a sparring partner.

/Göran

Hi Yair and Jou

I have also just started on the Scotch. Please email me on ggudichsen @gmail.com,

I won't be at home on this Friday but back on Suterday.

Looking for training partner who wants to engage in serious studies, mainly regarding openings and ensuing middle game strategy.

1. My online rapid rating is around 2050 on chess.com  and 2150 on lichess, and I'm looking for someone around the same range or above.

2. Time zone is GMT + 2 - max 3 hours time difference is relevant.

Feel free to PM me on either site. My nic is acye.

Looking for a partner to play these openings with.  I’m 1600 something on lichess. Tactic score is above 2000. I need better strategy and openings. I’m ReinsDaily84. Message me there or here or whatever works best.

Hello. I am Nils from Frankfurt, Germany. My OTB rating is about ELO 1990 and DWZ 1900. On lichess my blitz rating fluctuates between 1800 and 1900. I joined ChessMood last October and you can find my introduction and my last study plan here:

ChessMood PRO Members - ChessMood

2020 and our Goals - ChessMood

I would like to practice a specific opening once a week through friendly games (5+3 on lichess). We would choose the opening/staring position some days in advance so that we can prepare and would play it from both sides (like in the closed tournaments).

I am available Monday to Friday between 05.15 (Europe/Berlin) and 06:45 (Europe/Berlin) and would play between 60 and 90 minutes. I would prefer to agree on a static jour fixe (e. g. every Monday between 5.30 and 6.15) which we could reschedule if necessary.

To start with we would play the repertoire for White (I have finished almost all openings leaving out the advanced sections as recommended). Later we could also play the Benko Gambit.

Hi everyone,

I'm Nick, based in the UK, and would love a sparring partner to practise ChessMood openings with. I play most of the ChessMood White repertoire (although I haven't looked at the Caro-Kann yet) and I play 1 e4 e5 with Black (and Semi-Slav vs 1. d4). Main language is English, but I also speak French and Spanish if that helps! Peak OTB rating was about 2150 a couple of years ago and I'm trying to get back there... and beyond! At the moment I usually hover around 1900-2175 on LiChess and Chess.com

Thanks!

Hello, I am unrated in FIDE and I just joined Lichess today under the username ChessImprover628, so my rating is currently around 1500, but isn't stable. I'm +11 GMT and I am looking for any person/people who are willing to play, study and perhaps exchange notes with me. As for my skill level, I'm not sure so please don't expect me to be very good. Thanks.

Hello! I am Sidharth Sreekumar from Kerala, India. I am looking for a Training partner. My OTB Rating is 1194. I love attacking chess. If anybody would like, we can have some trial sessions. I am 10 years old. i am okay with speaking in english. My lichess ID is chessplayer476, Chess.com is KingFranklin2. My Best Achievement in Chess is to win against Nigel Short in an OTB simultaneuos exhibition held in mys state Kerala, India. (proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nolSdBcBBE&t=5071s - Watch after 1:11:00 :) )

This is the pgn of the game I played with short, Rxc3 exchange sac:

[Event "Simultaneous exhibition - Kochi, Kerala"]

[Site "?"]

[Date "2020.12.08"]

[Round "?"]

[White "Short, Nigel D"]

[Black "Sreekumar, Sidharth"]

[Result "0-1"]

[ECO "B90"]

[PlyCount "66"]

[SourceVersionDate "2021.01.09"]


1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. a3 e5 7. Nf3 Be7 8. Bc4

b5 9. Ba2 Nbd7 10. Bg5 Bb7 11. Bxf6 Nxf6 12. Qd3 Rc8 13. Nd2 O-O 14. O-O Rc5

15. Rfd1 g6 16. Nf1 Rxc3 17. Qxc3 Nxe4 18. Qf3 Bh4 19. g3 Qa8 20. gxh4 Ng5 21.

Qg3 Nf3+ 22. Kh1 Nd4+ 23. f3 Bxf3+ 24. Kg1 Ne2+ 25. Kf2 Nxg3 26. hxg3 Bxd1 27.

Rxd1 Qa7+ 28. Ne3 Kh8 29. Ke2 f5 30. Nd5 f4 31. gxf4 exf4 32. Kf3 Qd7 33. Rh1

h5 0-1

Hi, I'm rated around 1900 uscf/fide, looking for a similar or higher rated sparring partner.

I play on lichess, here's my profile : https://lichess.org/@/Fat_Rabbit

I prefer 5 5 or 10 5 time control or longer.  Feel free to message me there.  I'm in East Coast US Time

Cheers.

Hey Folks,

My name is Varun, I'm from the USA (PST Time zome), my rating is 1450 USCF, 1600 rapid chess.com where I play mostly (thinklazy), and 2000 rapid on lichess (threeeyed). I am not looking for blitz or bullet games. 

I only have 5-10 hours per week for chess, and mostly on weekends. I'm looking for a sparring partner and/or a long-term study partner. Preferable similar level and similar time commitment, midset. 

Please message me here or on lichess/chess.com.  

Thanks!



Hi all,

Being a contractor in between contracts, I have a bit of time on my hands at the moment so looking at trying out some openings, and also looking at classical/model games and ideas with willing study partners. Happy to, in return, help investigate your interests.

I'm around 1900 FIDE (though officially slightly lower), though I give 2100s a hard time, so looking around the 1900 and up mark. Reaching 2000+ is a short term goal, 2300 medium - long term.

UTC+1 timezone, daytime possible at least in the short term

Happy to have a skype or other session open (though not a requirement) which can make things easier than lots of typing.

I will only work with under 16s if a parent or guardian is supervising (otherwise laws in my country require background checks when dealing with minors).

Contact me by reply here, or WickedUK (lichess (preferred), chess.com), Wicked (FICS) - best to note here you left a message anyway.

(less serious chess + beer [bring your own!] also considered some evenings)

Thanks,

David

Practicing Capablanca's endings (or endings form the ChessMood Course Instructional Classical Endings).

Hi, I have started Irving Chernev's book "Capablanca's Best Chess Endings: 60 Complete Games" and was wondering whether someone would like to practice the endings in friendly games with 5+3 (or 3+3) on lichess.

A good time for be Fridays after the webinar on Saturdays closed tournament which would be around 6 p.m. Europe/Berlin time. Or maybe 1 hour before the closed tournament on Saturday (4 p.m. Europe/Berlin time). This should allow to play the ending/position about two times with black and white. 

About the "post mortem" after each session I am not so sure how to do it. Maybe a quick exchange via the lichess chat?

I am about 2000 ELO and my lichess blitz rating is at the moment somewhere between 1980 and 2080.

Hello. My name is Md. Redwan Ullah Bhuiyan. My user id is redwantuhin04 on chess.com and lichess.org. I want a study partner. My rating is around 2100 on lichess and 1950 on chess.com

Hello all, I am looking for someone to play some longer time controls. 30 to 60 min game for at least once or twice a week. Could play specific openings for study or just play our own repertoire. Im located on east coast time U.S. I have rating on USCF of about 1400 but it has been a long time since being in a tournament. Chess.com I have a daily rating of 1900+ and rapid of ~ 1600 

@Purushottam Silwal i am interested 

I also need a study partner.  I'm 2000 rated on lichess . I would love to improve and be strong but I need someone who can help me . So anyone please thankyou 

Hi my name is Nevan, my fide rating is 1242. I need to find a partner to play the semi slav. So I will play black and any of those who want to volunteer can play white

Hello! My name is Chong. My rating for rapid on lichess is 2135 and blitz is 2062. I want to find a playing partner which can play d4 as white. This is because, I want to improve my black opening repertoire against white 1.d4.

Hello my name is sayand I'm from india my chess.com rapid rating is around 1500 and lichess blitz rating is around 1800 I'm looking for someone who can help me with some openings against 1.e4

I am an unrated adult… about 600 blitz/ 1200 daily on chess.com.  Looking for someone to learn an opening with. Maybe the Scotch, Ruy Lopez, or other. I am usually available early AM EST. Thank you. 

Hi Folks, I am Amit from India. i don't have fide rating .I have 1657 rapid  1527 blitz rating on lichess. my lichess user id is amitnew. Looking a sparring. partner for rapid/classical format. 

Hello! My name is Evan, I'm currently 1500 Chess.com Rapid Rating. Looking for a playing partner to help me practice some openings - ideally the Benko Gambit!

Happy to play games with an opening of your choice too.

Hi! I'm Sasmi My Chess.com username is Sasmi20122 Lichess ID Sasmi20122

If your interested you can text me a message I like solve to tactics and practice my  openings

And hopefully we'll be freinds

Hi, this is Atharva. I have joined Chessmood recently and I am looking for a sparring partner for training games and for testing my opening prep. I am rated around 2150 in online blitz. You can message me on lichess if you are interested. My id is scotchboi :)

Hi,

I'm Anton from Toronto, Canada. I'm 34, speak English and Russian. Rating is around 2000 Lichess classical. 

Looking for sparring partners, people to play games with. Can analyze together, too - or just play. Best if you are around the same strength, but a bit less or more is OK too. 

I'm available most mornings and most evenings (EASTERN time zone), also every other weekend usually. 

Look forward to finding some chess friends!

Hello! My chess.com rapid is around 1100 and my lichens rapid is around 1600. I am looking for someone to practice with me so I can practice my openings and just get better at all parts of the game.

Hi I'm Janiru Bathila  If anyone can help to improve my chess openings it would be great help and To play games to  improve  my ideas in the chess game this are lichess and chess.com account names you can send me a message there           lichess-jbliren           chess.com-JaniruBathila15

Hello,

Piotr from Poland here. Looking for a partner to play longer games/analyze or study openings.

Chess.com - nickname: mejva

Lichess.org - nickname: Mejva

My ratings:

Bullet 1450 -
Blitz 1700 -
Rapid 1610

Bullet - 1750
Blitz - 2000
Rapid - 1900


I am now 2200 lichess . Anyone interested to work ?

Hey guys, my name is Albert, I'm from Spain, my rating is 2030 FIDE, I'm looking for a sparring partner. I'm playing almost 100% ChessMood Opening repertoire (Accelerated Dragon and 1.e4 mainly, a bit of Kings Indian instead of Benko), so we can test different lines or prepare against certain lines. I can play on both lichess or chess.com. Of course I prefer to have a spanish sparring partner, because my english is not soo good, but we both talk the same language in front of a chessboard.

Hello, My name is Ben, I am based in the UK. I am 1750 on chess.com however I am climbing and would love someone to train against,(name is Onetwothree21) Many thanks, Ben Cook.

Hey guys, my name is Alessio, I'm from Italy, my rating is 1700 in lichess. I'm looking for a sparring partner to play Chessmood opening! My nickname in lichess is Iskandar47. Time 10+5

Hey guys I'm around 1200 and hoping to steadily grow, so anybody who can consistently train with me would be awesome

Hi my name is Bhavya Singhal I am from the USA my uscf rating is 1500 I am 14 years old and I have aspirations of becoming a top level grandmaster. I am looking for a training partner to work with on chess consistently. My chess.com username is BhavyaSinghal.

Hello! I'm Francesco, I'm 33 years old, based in Los Angeles and I'm currently around 1700 rapid on lichess. Anyone interested in practicing chessmood openings and/or playing longer time control games to analyze afterward is welcome! My lichess username is brigo

I'm 8 year old. I have learnt Scotch for White and French for Black. Please accept my request in lichess and we can play these openings

Hi Sidarth, I'm 8 year old from Bangalore, India. sent you request in Lichess. My USerName is NiravPremchand.

Hi, Francesco from Italy. Looking for a sparring partner to practice together. My current level on chess.com rapid is 1080.

Hello, Champions! Looking for a sparing partner to practice some of the openings. ~2100 rapid on Lichess. Username merbrina. East Coast timezone, 29 years old.

Hi guys I am adult learner 1500 on chess.com... ullu8.. Anyone wanting to spar..just hit me up!

Hi, 2100 on lichess. Do you mind to play with me? Mi nick is mrbnenoni you can reach me there. I have also a chess.com account but I am using that infrequently.

Hello! My name is Alejandro and I am from Barcelona in Spain. I am back to ChessMood as I am now fully invested into getting back to my training routine. I tend to work for about 2 hours at night (21-23h UTC) to prepare for getting back to tournaments. My FIDE rating is 1932 but I have been inactive for the past three years. I would be happy to get in touch with other motivated players to play training games, discuss positions and any other training activities in general. I am fluent in Spanish, English and Portuguese. All the best to everyone!!

Add me up on chess.com for some training games and study sessions. ????? https://www.chess.com/member/abhi_mary_1997 Lichess.org https://lichess.org/@/Insane_Abhi

Hi! My name is Wiktor, im 14 yo and im from Poland. Im looking for a training partner, my fide rating is 1400(im quite underrated) and my chesscom rapid is 2100 i play on lichess also. My nick is xWitekx02. I would be very grateful if somebody would be interested in being my training partner (preferably minimum 2000 rated). thx a lot. have a good day :)

Hi everyone, I recently joined the community, so I hope I'm replying correctly to this thread. My name's Selim, and I live in the Bay Area (UTC -7). I am 1750 on Lichess Rapid and Classical. Until now -without knowing too much about it- I have mainly been playing positional games, and realized this was a mistake on my part. If any of you would be interested in playing some training/sparring games, feel free to hit me up. https://lichess.org/@/crimson_lizard

Hi everyone. Am abdirashid. 19years old. 800 rated on chess.com. looking for a sparring patner

Hi my name is Jonathan Turcotte i am about 2000 Fide searching for a training partner. I am 38 years old i do tournaments since i am 19 yearsold. My handle on lichess is Fastfatcapablancats and on chess.com Karpablanca521.

Hi, if anyone is interested to study any of the books below then add me up on: Add me on chess.com https://lnkd.in/dmgsRh3d Add me on Chessable.com https://lnkd.in/dx4guzMt Add me on lichess.org https://lnkd.in/dA6_RRpF

Hi! I am Sambarta Banerjee from India. I have a fide elo of 2026 and lichess blitz rating of 2450. I would love to have a partner of around my level so that we can play practice games and discuss about endgames. My lichess username is MarinerKnight. And my chess.com username in sam1318rup It would be great if someone is looking to work specifically on practical endgames and the Nimzo-Indian Defence as black.

Hello, My name is Ozan. I'm from Turkey. I am Epitaph from lichess. I am older than 30. We can play blitz, rapid, classical and correspondence games. My blitz rating is 1663, classical rating is 1905 currently. My current puzzle rating is 2379 over 3076 puzzles. So i was'nt playing much but working on the puzzles a lot. If you want to play, send me a message on lichess saying that you are from chessmood. Thanks.

Hi guys! I am 36 years old from Greece. My blitz rating is 2100 on lichess and it escalates around 1900 on chess,com but given more time on the clock, like rapid or classical, I have beaten even GMs (several times actually). I have found that blitz is bad for me (I have to play fast, thus my tactics are getting worse and worse because I get this habit of not thinking) so I would like to play at least rapids but I can't find strong opposition... If you are around my level and interested in playing a couple of rapid games with me on Sundays, please let me know! Ps I need to exercise more than one opening so I will arrange to play with all the people that will respond here in order to exercise as many openings as possible.

~ 2200 on lichess (cheeze_ChessMood nickname) Looking for sparring. Currently my main goal is to play with white against Caro Kann. I can play with black opening of your choice (preferably e4 e5 with Nc6 or also Petroff, but can also play some variations of Caro Kann with black or something else).

Hey guys, my name is Kyle, I'm from the USA / Taiwan, my rating is 2300 I'm looking for a sparring partner. I finished starter courses and currently studying mastery courses. Looking forward to lots of high quality games! my account on chess.com is Model5

Hiya folks, my handle is RawrOnion on Lichess. 1900ish Classical Looking for a regular training partner to play classical games in the chessmood opening with if possible. If we can post-mortem over voicechat afterwards even better. Mostly available on Evenings GMT Zone.

Hello Sambarta. I am USCF 1950 rated. I can work with you. I will send you a message on chess.com

Hi All, I'm looking for a study partner for Openings. My Lichess (ID: NiravPremchand) Rating is ~1875 and FIDE Rapid Rating is 1150. If anyone interested in Indian Evening hours on weekdays and Indian Morning hours on Weekends, please let me know. Thank you, Nirav Premchand

Hello! I am Karanay from Russia, lichess rating is 1800-1900, looking for a sparring partner to study openings and maybe practice endgames. Lichess name: Karanay

Hi! I'm Aditi, I'm 16 years old and I have been playing chess avidly for the past two years. I do chess full-time, and I'm rated 1500 on chess.com. I also actively play in FIDE rated tournaments. I would love to have a training partner whom I can learn a lot from, and also study theory, play practice games & discuss tournament strategy with. I'm aditi607 on chess.com & lichess.

Hi, 1850 (FSE =~Fide), i would like to have some sparring games online in European (UTC+1) time during the week in the evening. would like to play non-rated game on lichess of around 15 + 3.

Hi, I'm looking for a sparring partner. I'm mrpithers on chess.com and lichess. My current ratings are 1440 rapid chess.com (played as 1 hour classical games), 1279 blitz/1490 rapid/2038 correspondence on lichess. I'm going through the WhiteMood and Blackmood openings courses and would like to spar those openings. I'm in California USA but fixed times can be hard with my schedule so sometimes live games would work but also hoping to set up as daily/correspondence games that could be played quickly but with the flexibility that brings for when moves are made. Cheers, Tom

Hi everyone, I am a 16 year old from the UK. I actively play classical games over the board. My rating otb is 2000 and on chesscom is 2250. If you are around the same level and interested please add me. https://www.chess.com/member/driftypencil

Hi, I'm a 13-year-old. I am currently at a plateau, moving around 1380 to 1520 FIDE Rating. I'm from India. Chess.com ID - MasterTheBlaster2010. I would like to play some games on different openings. We could discuss what we could work on at chess.com. I'm not exactly playing the ChessMood repertoire so I also need someone who can adapt to other openings.

I am 2000ish player on lichess.com. Username AJGLUPSI. Looking for sparring partner.Available on weekdays in afternoon(GMT+1) and on weekends.

Hello there people myself Harsh and im a 2000 rated player at chess.com i look forward to have a sparring partner preferably a stronger one in order to push past my plataeu and heres my chess.com username BeastHarsh047 thank you

Hey guys, my names Chance, I'm from England, my rating is 500 I'm looking for a sparring partner.

Hi everyone from the ChessMood family, I'm consistently rated between the higher 2400s and the lower 2500s on chess.com Blitz. I'm looking for a sparring partner to practice the openings I learnt at ChessMood, preferably one whose playing strength is at a similar level or higher. I'm looking to practice these openings in particular: 1. Scotch 4...Nf6 2. Caro-Kann exchange variation 7...Qd7 line 3. Sicilian 2...Nc6 line (as White, but of course when partners practice we're probably playing the same opening from either side) I'm also looking to add Pirc to the list one day, but I haven't had the time to watch the course yet.

As the title indicates, I'm looking for someone with a similar level to practice/train a couple times a week together. Something along the lines of what is described here: chessmood.com/blog/the-importance-of-having-a-training-partner-part-1 chessmood.com/blog/how-you-can-find-the-perfect-training-sparring-partner-part-2 chessmood.com/blog/how-to-practice-with-your-training-sparring-partner-part-3 I have around 2200 FIDE, so looking for someone around that level, with an interest on working together in chess to both improve, something not super formal, but at the same time with a minimum of involvement from both ends. Time zone is +1 GMT.

Hi, I'm looking for a sparring partner to practice longer games 2-3 times a week. Ideally I would like to practice with someone playing OTB. I'm 1800 FIDE and peaked at 2130 chess.com, I would be happy to study as well with mly future partner. My time zone is +1GMT, I speak french & english Antoine

Hi I'm Ken, about 1400 classical on ches.com and 1700 classical on lichess. I'm in the UTC+3 time zone, available generally between 05:00 - 1700 UTC most days. I'd love to meet a sparring partner for short and long games, specific openings, mutual ending practice, and so on. And just to build my circle of chess friends! I'm looking for players of all levels: if you're a strong player looking to hone your winning technique (and willing to go over the game in a call afterwards, ideally!), a new player looking for slightly stronger competition, or about the same looking for an equal partner, I'd love to hear from you! lichess: keaaw chess.com: keaaww (yes two "w"'s on the chess.com user name)

Hi, I'm Bruno from france. My fide rating is 1600 and lichess 1900 in blitz. I'm searching a sparring partner to improve. A partner at least 1800 elo on lichess

Hello i am Jonathan from germany Lichess: Blitz 2000 Rapid:1800 Lichess Classic: 1800 Chess.com Blitz: 1500 Chess.Com Rapid:1400 DWZ: 1407 Rapid-ELO: 1668

Hi my name is Jonatahn Turcotte, my peak rating is 2142, i am 2338 on lichess in rapid, 2250 in blitz, 2150 on chesss.com in rapid and 21000 in blitz, i am searching for a player about my level or more to play and maybe share analysis. tx have a good chesssmood!

2200 lichess, 2000 OTB. Looking for 5+3 sparring partner, Europe timezone, playing sessions of up to 6-10 games every week, evening time. https://lichess.org/@/cheeze_ChessMood I am e4 and e5 player. I can also play ChessMood repertoire.

hi i am Khaled Sakr from Egypt I start my study plan from 1500 to 2000 early and I need a study partner to go together to improve my rating is 1573 in chess.com this my link https://friend.chess.com/qthns

Hi Friends,, I am Amit from India. I have 1704 rapid 1575 blitz rating on lichess. my lichess user id is amitnew. Looking a sparring partner for rapid/classical format. We can play at Indian evening hours. Thanks!

Hey, im a 2000 lichens blitz and about 1750 chess.com rapid. Eastern time zone, Mondays to Fridays I'm available at around 1-2pm ish. Chess.com handle is Sharp2Axe Lichens Handle is ARMANDAS_130

Hi, I am Zubin from the UK. My chess.com rapid rating is around 2000 peak 2100 and blitz is 1800. My chess.com username is ZS-00002. Would really like a sparring partner to play 5+3/5+5 friendly games to practice some openings as i have started working my way through WhiteMood openings.😀

Hello everyone, I am looking for a training partner on lichess. My goal is to hit 2000 lichess before July 31st, 2023, and my current rating is around 1800. My username is ebk1976 and I am looking for a partner to play 3+2, 5+3, and 10+5 with, but other time controls work for me too. I would also like to practice my openings. I am available to play around 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time (USA). Thanks!

Hi, looking for a sparring partner rated 2000 rapid on Lichess, Chess.com, Uscf, or fide to play sparring games with. My lichess account: bhavya_chess1212 My chess.com account: bhavyaSinghal. My availibility is 7 PM- 8:30 PM New York standard time on week days, on weekends I can play longer sessions at anywhere from 10 AM- 9PM

Hey guys, my name is Kyle, I'm from Taiwan, lichess rapid rating is 1700, and I'm looking for a sparring partner I'd like someone to practice the CM material with, and to reach the 2000 elo benchmark together, and have a fun journey! Chess.com id is model17 Lichess id is kylesun Let me know you're from CM when you add me! Material wise, I'm going through the courses as laid out in the study plan. So far I'm halfway through Tactical Ninja, and I finished 80% of the simplified chessmood repertoire

Add me up on chess.com https://www.chess.com/member/abhi_mary_1997 Lichess https://lichess.org/@/Insane_Abhi more we will discuss there.

Hey guys, My Name is Kshitij, I'm from India, My rating is 1989 and 2092 in rapid and blitz respectively in lichess. My Lichess ID is Bestplayer_19. I'm looking for a sparring partner.😀

Hey there! I am a chess player from India who is trying to improve his game.....I am currently around 2200 chess.com(rapid) and about 1400 fide. I am looking for a training partner who is available at evenings (IST)......I am not a chessmood pro member ( so I am not so familiar with chessmood openings) but we can practice openings and can play middlegame positions which generally dwell upon positional factors to improve our positional and strategic play. We can also create a repertoire together where we can discuss lines using the lichess study feature :) I am not an opening master but I can play a few openings which I can play if you would like me to play them- as white I can play 1.e4, London System, English, KIA, Colle-Zukertort Zystem As black, I can play the czech pirc, caro kann, accelerated dragon, taimanov, QGD, KID I am looking for someone who is 2250+ chess.com Feel free to drop a dm on chess.com/discord (just mention that you saw me on chessmood forum please ;-; ) Discord: Counting Blunders#6868 Chess.com: https://www.chess.com/member/countingblunders

Hi I'm looking for a sparring partner (rapid games in specific openings mostly). I'm 16 and my peak fide rating is 2275 about 1 year ago. Lichess blitz is around 2660 while bullet is around 2730. Anytime between 4AM CET to 5PM CET should be fine! Let me know and we'll try to make it work!

Hi I'm looking for a sparring partner to work together My lichess rating is 2150. My lichess account - saadp. Let me know and we'll try to make it workFeel free

Hi Friends,, My lichess rating is 1684 rapid & user id is amitnew. Looking a sparring partner for rapid/classical format. We can play at Indian evening hours. Thanks!

Hi, I'm Carlos, I'm from the US but currently in China, My lichess is about 2100 and I'm looking for a training partner. Ideally a 1... e5 player or Sicilian player. I'm free from 6:30am to 11am Chinese time. (for reference China is 2:30hrs ahead of India).

Hi!I My name is Paulo my  fide rating is 1996. I am trying to find a serious chess player with a strength +1900 FIDE rating or 2300+ lichess. I would really like to join forces for training matches, study lines,ideas,patterns etc. 

Hi there!

My name is Alex from Spain and I'm looking for a dedicated chess partner to train and improve our skills. I'm 1800 Rapid Chess.com (Puiguisito) and 1950 in Lichess (Puigui). If you share the passion for chess and are committed to regular training, join me on this exciting journey 😄

Let's study games, analyze strategies, solve puzzles and play friendly matches!

Hello 

I am Ananth from the USA. I have Doing The Scotch. I have finished the side lines. It's really tough to play that middle game. Do you have any suggestions please. Even I am solving the daily puzzles from almost two weeks and yesterday only I got it correct on the 1st try. Mostly, only I will get it on my second try. So, how can I improve my tactics. I am Halfway-through the course tactic ninja. I even get stuck In my winning endgames and mostly I draw it. Can you please send your id to play some friendly matches in scotch and correct me while going through the middlegame in chess.com please. Thanks.

Hello I'm from USA my rating is 1650 and  My Chess.com id is RazeFinal 

Hello! My Name is Dennis, I'm from the USA, and my rating is 1000-1100 on Chess.com. I play the London, Caro-Kann, Semi-Slav, and I am looking to learn the Vienna. My Chess.com name is TheCheckmateDragon. I am looking for a sparring partner, probably someone around my rating, or someone a little above me who can provide tips and feedback. 

Hola,me llamo Javier soy cubano tengo 2100 de Elo en chess.com , mi meta es llegar a ser maestro Fide, llegué a este Elo con aperturas un tacto esquemáticas (sistem londres y escandinava ) y he decidido que es hora de tomarme el ajedrez más en serio y construirme un sólido repertorio de aperturas con e4 .

Por favor si tienes tiempo y quieres mejorar podemos hacerlo junto no dudes en contactarme.

Hi guys, my name is *************** and I'm 13 years old from England.  My lichess rating is 2000 and I'm looking for a sparring partner.  Please if you have time, contact me.

hi my name is Jacob and I am 15 years old my chess.com rapid rating is around 1700 I am looking for a partner to practice my openings

Hey! I'm Paritosh from India. I have just started playing 1.e4 and I am looking for a sparring partner. My Lichess rapid rating is around 1950. I would ideally like to play someone who's experienced with playing 1.e4 and can give me tips.

Hi, my name is Lucky Lucchesi from the USA (EST) and I am looking for a sparring partner. I like to do my sessions early in the morning around 6:30 AM EST. My Lichess username is ChaosKrab. Currently about 1875 ELO rapid

Hey folks,

I live in EST and tend to play in afternoons/evenings. Lichess-exclusive, username Forgeron-de-pion . 1700 classical and 1300 rapid. I'm trying to find someone to learn new openings/defenses with, swapping between white and black in casual games, discussing during and afterward, that sort of thing. The goal being growth instead of competition. Currently I am learning Ruy Lopez and Sicilians, and recently have taken an interest in the Catalan - I also need familiarization with the King's Indian. 

I can be sensitive, and would prefer to work with another sensitive - but dedicated - individual. I.e., the truth, but don't be rude about it.

Please message me on lichess if interested - I can't guarantee I'll be here to see the reply.  

"Hey guys, my name is Kurt, I'm from Germany, my rating is 1850 OTB and 2100 online I'm looking for a sparring partner to study white chessmood opening repertoire e4." App.: German speaking preferred…:-)

 

"Hola chicos, mi nombre es Victor, soy de PERU., mi calificación es 2250 en Lichess. Estoy buscando un compañero de entrenamiento". 

O incluso más específico como "Soy estudiante de 1.e4 , Grunfeld y Najdor y estoy buscando a alguien para jugar un partido de sparring amistoso y  poder entrenar juntos". 

¡Buena suerte! 
Con suerte, también encontrarás buenos amigos. 

Hey Guys, my name is Matt and I'm from England. I'm looking for a training partner to practice my e4 repertoire, my Sicilian for both white and black, and my King's Indian. I'm rated 1800 ecf in classical, 2000 rapid on lichess, and 1700 in blitz and bullet on chess.com. I'm also working on my endgames (I've just been trying to get the hang of setting up a Philidor position. I know it theoretically but I struggle to get it in actual games.) and would like to practice those. I am quite a tactical player and need to work on my positional play. If anyone would be up for it just reply underneath. 

As of 28/07, I'm still looking for a partner.

Hi everyone! I'm Raeha. I'm from Bangladesh. I'm looking for a training partner to practice and analyze games together. I'm 1200 FIDE but I haven't been playing much.

Hi! I'm Kayden and my OTB Rating is 1874 and I am looking for a sparring partner. I am around 2200-2300 Classical on lichess. My account: https://lichess.org/@/IlIIllIIIlllIIIIllll

Hey guys, my name is David and I'm from the Czech Republic. I am looking for a sparring partner to study chessmood opening, endgame or other examples. My fide raiting is 2250, I am around 2400 blitz on lichess, my nickname is drak77. I am looking for a player with a fide rating of at least 2050 or higher.

Hello. My name is Shubham and I am from the USA. I am about 1700 on lichess rapid which is where I usually play on. I am looking for someone to play against and to study openings with. I am available on both chess.com and lichess. I would prefer a sparring partner with a rating of above 1500. My time zone is EST.

Hello my name is yash and im looking for a sparring partner 2000-2100 lichess i play whatever chessmood recomends. Usually looking for same or higher rated players to practise my openings.

Hi Friends,, My lichess rating is 1660 rapid & user id is amitnew. Looking a sparring partner for rapid/classical format. We can play at Indian evening hours. Thanks!

Hi ,I am 1900 fide rated player from Nepal My lichess rating is around 2300 and i am looking for a  sparring patner at my level or higher

I would like to practice benko gambit as black as well as closed siciliian and other chessmood openings .

Seeking a study partner to read books and practice cm lines in playing practice. I use google meet + screensharing for study.

Add me up .

chess.com 

https://www.chess.com/member/abhi_mary_1997

Lichess:

https://lichess.org/@/caro-prep-time-1997

Hey guys , I'm from the India, my OTb rating is around 1850,lichess blitz 2400 and chess.com blitz 2300  I'm looking for a sparring partner for chessmood opening. 

Hey bob would love to spar with you 

im on chess.com and lichess also in the USA eastern time zone

thanks ray 

Hello, my name is Santo, I’m from the Netherlands, my rapid rating on chess.com is 1500 and I am looking for a sparring partner. My goal is to reach 1800 this year. My username on chess.com is DonkeyLovesChess

😊

Hey guys, my name is Yassin, I'm from Switzerland, my rating is 1800 Rapid in Lichess I'm looking for a sparring partner 

Hi  2023

I am looking for training partners. I am 1279 on chess.com sbreen id for chess.com and 1392 on lichess Rookpower is my id

I'm 2000 rated on chess.com and looking to practice KID against a player around my rating range 

Hey Zhengyu 

wtold love to spar USA est

chess.com lichess either one 

Hello, I am rated 1800 USCF and I would like to practice the Benko Gambit against people who are rated around my rating. Please send me your lichess/chess.com username if interested.

Tigleon52 on chess.com

yars995 on lichess

Hello, I am Filip from Poland. I am 2150 rated on chess.com. I am looking for sparing partner, especially I would like to train Sicilian Defense both sides. My chess. com:Fillippo9

Hi, I am thunder and my lichess rating is 2100, looking to practise the sicilian alapin with black with someone my level or better? I am from England.

Please put ur lichess username in the chat and i will contact you 

Hi, my name is Sabarish and my rating on lichess is around 2230.I am looking for a sparring partner that is at least my level or a little better. My user on lichess : https://lichess.org/@/Sabarishk ! You can contact me for sparring! Thank you. Sincerely, Sabarish.

Hi 

I like to acknowledge that Jzaff1995 and Tigleon52 has been kind enough to spar with me. Even though I rated much lower then them. By sparing with them I learn so much. Is some type of gift or reward these two players can receive?

😀

Hello, my name is Yiding. I am from USA. My lichess id is completemagnet : Activity • lichess.org.   

My Lichess blitz is 2244 and Fide rating is 2034. I would like to play a training partner rated at least 2200+. I would prefer a more positional player as I am more tactical. I played French, Philidor and 1.e4 for openings but I'd also like to practice middlegame positions. My USCF is around 2100. I seek a training partner who also wants to become a GM. I live in Pacific time zone. I  have limited time in weekdays but am largely available in weekends.

            Contact me if you want to work together.

Hello, my name is Luc and I'm from France, looking for a sparring partner to play and then disuss games, and also discuss what's your path using Chessmood resources. I play mainly on Lichess, with a rating of 1721 rapid and 1390 blitz.

My Lichess pseudo is “Babouze”: https://lichess.org/@/Babouze

Hey my user on lichess ratting 1930-1980, and from USA.

Hi my name is Ashwin and I'm from the USA. My username on chess.com is StarGlazerAIPK013. I have a rating of about 2100 rapid and 2050 blitz. 

Hi, my name is Nolan from the USA. My username on chess.com is Blairster. My rating bounces between 1680-1740 Rapid. I do not often play blitz but can. 

Hello, My name is Nafea from Algeria, my username on chess.com is TheRealNafea, i'm 1800 and i want someone to play closed positions with cuz they are my weakness

Hi my name is Mesh and I'm from Saudi Arabia. My username is Meshnus on chess.com and my rating is 1900.

I'm down to try out pretty much anything with a training partner but mainly focused on my whitemood and blackmood openings.

message me on chess.com if u wanna play a few games :)

Hello. My name is Phantasm(nickname). I am rated 2k+ on both chess.com and lichess. I would like a training partner that's serious about chess and is interested in following a training plan(doesn't have to be mine). This way, we hold each other accountable and inevitably get better at chess daily. My username is Skylynx000 on both sites you can reach me on any site of your choice.. Your rating doesn't really matter

I am looking for a training partner

my username on lichens.org is

vit-001

I am rated around 2000 Rapid

I'm looking for a sparring partner, i'm rated about 2200 on both chess.com and lichess, rapid and blitz. My nickname is FrancescoMela on both

Hello, my name is Sai, I'm from Seattle, USA, my rating is 959 on Lichess in Blitz. I'm looking for a sparring partner to work on Chessmood Openings.

Hi, my name is Dima from Ukraine.
I'm looking for a sparring partner, I'm rated about 1100-1200
chess.com

My name is Vittorio. I am from Switzerland. I like to play und study chess.

I am looking for a training partner. My rapid rating is around 2000.

My username on lichess.org is:

vit-001

I am looking forward to train with you.

Hello I am Himesh. I am from India I am rated nearly 1800-2000 on lichess. my lichess account is new as GM Avetik suggested it. I am looking for a training partner. I also use chess.com but I am rated ~1650 rapid there

My chess.com name is piedraven and I'm rated 896. I'd appreciate a regular opponent to play unrated daily with. I need to practise thinking about moves more.

Hello,

I'm Moqsudool from Bangladesh. 

My rapid Elo, at present at chess.com, is around 1900, and I'm searching for a partner specially who likes to play Sicilian as white. I like this system most because most of my wins as black are from this system. I usually prefer to play black if the opponent is in super mood while playing the white side. I enjoy from start to finish of a game.

However, I have no problem at all provided that someone would play other openings.

My chess.com user name is Chisti123.

Hey guys! My name is Richard and i'm a Chess Mood Essential member 😊

I’ve increased my chess.com daily rating by 250 in 3 months. It’s currently at 1090. I’ve won 21 drawn 1 and lost 8. Most of these games were started even before I found Chess Mood. 2 months is how long I’ve been a paying Chess Mood member too 😊

I live in New Zealand (GMT+13) and would prefer to talk to someone in the GMT+5 to GMT+13 timezone window.

I've been focusing on the Tactics Ninja and Mating Matador courses and I’ve nearly finished the opening principles course and would love to practice the openings with someone. I will probably move onto the other opening courses too.

Ideally, i'd also want to voice chat on discord / zoom, with someone, so we can help each other out with any questions in regards the games we play, or the training material that we are learning on Chess Mood.

I look forward to your responses in due course :)

Best regards,

Richard

Hello! 

I'm from Poland and I'm 13 years old.

I'm looking for a sparing partner, who is rated 1800-1950 on chess.com Rapid.

More things that i can say about me is that, I'm rated 1840 on chesscom Rapid.

I love positional chess.

I really love this.

About openings:

I play 1.e4.

If e4 e5 Nf3 Nc6 i Play Bb5.

If Petroff, I Play like in The Petroff course says.

I play open sicilian, Tal variation against caro-kann.

For black pieces:

For 1.e4 i play Accelerated dragon

If 1.d4 i Want to play benko gambit, but im learning it.

Beat regards:D

Hello, my name is Jose, I am 37 years old and live at Panama City, Panama. I am currently 1270 rapid on chess.com (highest has been 1400), I love chess but need some help on analyzing my games/frequent mistakes and somebody to study along the chessmood courses. Right now trying to finish tactic ninja, would be nice a partner who has a higher rating, to learn new stuff and get some encouragement on the way.

Hello friends,
my name is Johannes I am 30 y/o from Germany looking for a sparring partner. Playing each other and or training together on a regularly basis.
My FIDE (Elo) Rating was around 1850 (lichess rapid 2040 rn). Got more to playing serious after a long time. I don't mind an elo gap, but for it to be a fruitful exchange it would probably sensible to stay within +-300.
---
I play Nf3
e4 - e5 (petroff)
d4 - d5 (QGA)

I'm looking for someone who mainly plays d4 systems so that I can my KID , I'm 2000+ rapid on chess.com and is looking for someone my strength.

Hi! My name is Jaromir and I'm from Poland. Im 2000 blitz on chess.com . I play WhiteMood and BlackMood openings. But i used to play Vienna ,Caro-cann, Sicilian ,Nizmo /Queens indian. So I could play those openings in our sparring matches too. Im looking for someone who is+- 150 points from my elo. Dm me (1stCesnq) if you are interested.

Hello guys,

I 'm looking for a partner. My elo on Lichess is 2400+ in rapid .

My fide rating is around 2100. 

I would prefer someone of my level or a bit better.

Thank you !

Hello I’m Barbagianni, italian, about 1000 elo looking for someone to play against 

Hello,
I am looking for a French or German speaking study partner with maximum Lichess Rapid Rating of 1550, available during the day (morning or afternoon), with only a slight time difference (e.g. Central Europe: France, Belgium, Germany or nearby). 
1-1,5 hour per week at a set time.
Center of interest: Strategy and positional play.
My Lichess account: Stekall, 1500 in Rapid.

Hello, My name is Javier.I am from Cuba. My rapid rating is 2200 in chess.com. I want to find a playing partner to help me practice chesmood openings. I am looking for a spanish or english speaking study partner.I'm prefer someone of my level or a bit better.

Hello, my name is Javier.I AM from Cuba I have 2200 in rapids on chess.com. My username is gmjavier1510. I am looking for a training partner who speaks Spanish or English with a similar level or a little better. My Whatsapp is +53 56669771.

Hi guys! My name is Joseph. I am from England. I am 1500 rapid on chess.com and 1800 rapid on lichess (but my blitz rating is much lower because I am rubbish at blitz).

I am looking for a training partner who speaks English and is rated at least 300 points higher than me, to play rapid games (casual/unrated, preferably), so I can learn something from a better opponent.

My chess.com username is JosephChessKing72 and lichess is JosephChessKing6

Hello My lichess username is Kira-Justice. My fide elo 1707.

 

Lets practice attacking chess and use world championship famous positions by playing both colour sides.

 

Thank you.

Send mssg to me in lichess Kira-Justice

I am looking for someone similar to me (100 points up or down is ok) that speaks English or Russian, and that is between -2 and +4 hours away from central European time. I am rated around 1600 points on lichess rapid. My name on lichess is sah-sahmat, I am interested in playing rapid and correspondence, both ranked and non-ranked.

I'm looking for someone to do sparring games with the Whitemood openings starter course. I'm working on Scotch up through Caro-Kann. My Lichess classical is 1545 and rapid 1247. I'm in EST time zone (-5 GMT) and have most of my free time on weekends or early weekday evenings. My Lichess username is “edstolen”.

I play the Caro Kann and am looking for someone who knows the fantasy or the panov attack and can help me fight against it.

Hi , I would like to keep my name anonymous, but my fide rating is 1673 and I am looking for a chess training partner. If anybody has a fide elo of above 1600 and would like to become my training partner please reply.

HY, helow i am from israel my name is eyal my profile name is eyalpoli want to train qween endgame my chess com rating is 1972 rapid i play on lichess to 

Hi my fide is around 1750 I have recently learned a line in the Scotch Game: Schmidt Variation and I would like to practice it. The line goes: 1. e4 1. e5 2. Nf3 2. Nc6 3. d4 3. exd4 4. Nxd4 4. Nf6 5. Nxc6 5. bxc6 6. Qe2 I'm playing as white. I'm fine with playing on either chess.com or lichess.org. My time zone is EST and my lichess is https://lichess.org/@/Philosopher_Seal and my chess.com is https://www.chess.com/member/tactical_seals
 

Hi, my name is Soumajit, I am from India and my chess.com elo is 1125. I recently finished watching the Blackmood openings (starter course). I am looking for a sparring partner with whom I can practice the Dutch Attack. 

Time zone IST.

If interested, please send a reply.

Hi my fide rating is 1673.Anybody who has a fide rating above 1600 and like to be my training partner pls send message to https://lichess.org/@/Attack_Sparrow_2011 and my time zone is Indian Standard Time.(IST)

 

Hello Am looking for a practice partner! I am 1800+ rating in FIDE.

So fide rating above 1800 are better for me.

If anyone here then plz message me in my lichess ID https://lichess.org/@/Hrishi_ChessMood

My time zone is IST (Indian Standard Time)

Good Luck, keep looking!

Hello, I am new to chess about= 900 chess.com and look for partner studying chessmood openings  to better learn…Time zone= France

 

Hello, people ..

https://lichess.org/@/Hiperduke …. and, I am looking for a sparring partner. 2-3 games per day ( 30 minutes each, or more ). I need someone who is ready to learn, to go deeper, to share the knowledge. I need someone who is willing to TALK and to DISCUSS the various topics of its chess skills … MY future sparring partner should be rank at 1900 and more …

Central European Time (CET; UTC+01:00 ) 

And, ideal schedule for me is after 8:00 PM (after 20:00 )

my current rang at lichess.org is about 1940, classical 30+0 ( on a way to 2300, and beyond )  … ;-)

 

Hello chessmood family .I am 2200 on lichess and I am looking for a study /practice partner for middlegame and endgame practice .Also I have another idea : We will analyse together our blitz games so that analysis becomes fun and efficient through Skype calls maybe that we can discuss later .This will help both of us rectify our mistakes and help learn from it and grow strong .Anybody of my level or higher can contact me via my lichess inbox - supergm3000.

Preferred languages - English ,Hindi ,Bengali .

Thank you .

Hi my fide rating is 1798 .Anybody who has a fide rating above 1800 and like to be my training partner pls send message to https://lichess.org/@/Attack_Sparrow_2011 and my time zone is Indian Standard Time.(IST)

Hi everyone.

I am fide 1709 in classical.

Anybody from 1675 to 1800 and would like to play with me can message me on lichess @Crazystockfish1209

Hey guys, my name is Ken, I’m from Indo, my rating on Lichess (@practicingalways) is around 2.000 and I’m looking for a training partner. GMT + 7/8 is what I usually have. Just got my fide rating this year (1648). 

Hello, I am an 13 year old young chess player with an FIDE rating of 1800 + elo. I was wondering if any of you guys where interested in becoming training partner. My time zone is Indian Standard Time (IST) and for your information my Lichess account is ( https://lichess.org/@/Attack_Sparrow_2011 )

Hello, I am a 12 year old, my rating is 2200 USCF from the USA I'm looking for a sparring partner around my level.

 

Yo guys,

My name is Soumajit, a 14 year old.

I am looking for a training partner who is available at 8:00pm to 9:30pm IST time range, from Tuesday to Thursday and on Saturdays. Rating should be around 1200 on chess.com. Higher rated players are also welcome:)

P.S. Both Lichess and chess.com are okay

Hey chessmood family! I’m 52 years old and looking for a training partner 1-3 times per week. I’ve completed the black mood videos and a lot of white mood, I am playing the positions in my games and watching some live videos to learn. I’ve never had a partner to practice with but I really want to learn and get better. Rated 1200 in daily and 600 blitz… want to get my daily up to 1500 and blitz 1000. I’m in USA, west coast, Pacific standard time. My schedule is flexible so please message me if your interested!

Hi Craig. My name is Paul and I live in Pittsburgh, so Eastern Daylight Time. I am rated 1155 on Lichess Unlimited and 881 on Lichess Rapid. I do not play Blitz. I have played all my life off & on from age 11 and have not progressed much until I found Chessmood about a little over a year ago. I LOVE it, because the ChessMood White and Black courses are just what I was looking for. I had been bouncing around trying various openings and defenses with no guidance except books. I have loved studying for years, but would have proressed more had I been playing more and studying less. Couln’t find partners, and it was before I was aware of online games. Tried correspondance years ago but got really REALLY bored. As you can see by my ratings, I am not strong. Always found myself tied up in the opening and not being able to get to a decent middle game. But thanks to Avetik, now I know a lot more about how to meet what I will face in both one White and one Black opening. I have been mostly thru the Whitemood and well into Blackmood openings, and just need more play to help remember them. I have been able to hold my own on chess.com against 1100, 1200 & 1300 bots, if not always winning. Still blundering. I love Anna Crammling training vids on YouTube. Have also generally won maybe 1 out of 3 games with a friend on line in Columbus, Ohio who is a little over 1500 . I have gotten up enough confidence to start playing in a local informal club whose members seem to be nostly 1500 & above.Feel like I can hold my own until I blunder because I don’t remember far enough into my Scotch Game or Dutch Attack. 

So I would really appreciate being able to play both sides of those games with a sparing partner wo has patience with my stumbling. I am retired, so can play almost anytime, except for some days when I have to to take my wife or myself to meical appts. So the evening seems most consistently best for me except for a committee meeting I have on the last Tuesday night of every month. So after about 7:15 pm EDT looks like it would work for me. Also spotty times throughout some afternoons. I asume you are still working.Sorry this has been so rambling, Craig, but I wanted to give you as complete a picture as posible of my chess background. Where would we spar? Lichess or Chess.com or elsewhere? Do you want to chat further about your chess experiences or sparing? Email is [email protected].

Hello guys….I'm Mike from South Africa….I'm looking for a training partner. I'm rated about 2000 on Lichess Rapid and Blitz

Hi

My name is Aswin, and my Fide rating is 1597 in classical chess.

I am preparing for a tournament in May, and I need a sparring partner with a fide rating of 1800+ to play and analyze on weekdays. (Monday to Friday—preferably daily). 

Time control: Classical chess (30+30) on Lichess,

 and fix our mistakes.

Time: Preferably after 10:30 pm IST (Mon to Sat).

Also, if you are interested, we can analyze one classical game from the 100 strategic/attacking games sessions on Saturdays and Sundays. 

Hello!

I am looking for a training partner to play some rapid games with. 
15+10 or 25+15 games.

I am near 1900 FIDE elo and would like a training partner of FIDE elo over 1900.

My Lichess name is ARMANDAS_130.

My time zone is UTC+1 and I would be willing to play on weekdays 2pm-5pm.

Message me if interested!

Hi Guys,

I'm Ibrahim from Dubai. I'm around 1800 FIDE. I would like a sparring partner. Time zone is GST and i would like to play in the evening after 4pm in the evening.

Hi guys, My name is Sulakshan. I am from Sri Lanka. My rapid rating is 1917 in lichess. I want to have a training partner above 2000. My lichess username is SULAKSHANSULAKSHAN. I am hoping to see my partner.

🦧

 

Hello, my name is Madison, Looking for sparring partner. My rapid rating is at 1800 on lichess. Look me up at Loftis 50.

Hi guys, my name is Claudio, I'm from the Italy, my rating is 1618 on lichess blitz nickname Claudietto86, I'm looking for a sparring partner to train openings. I'm also on chess.com, nickname Nuvolo, blitz rating 1249.

Hello, my name is Fab, My lichess account is rated 1300. I’m looking for a sparring partner better than me at around 1500 lichess. I play nothing but the simplified CM openings, but i'm trying to test things out pirc and basic sicilian for black. My account is sillycate_chessmood on lichess. 

Hello, I am an 13 year old young chess player with an FIDE rating of 1800 + elo. I was wondering if any of you guys where interested in becoming my training partner. My time zone is Indian Standard Time (IST) 

Hello everyone! I'm Sarah, and I'm from the USA. I'm fairly new to the game and my USCF rating is 973. I just made a lichess account and my username is FischerRando. Anyone want to play some casual sparring games? 😀

Hi everyone! I'm Mikkel and I live in Copenhagen, Denmark. I just started playing OTB this February and I have a FIDE rating of 1950. I am looking for a sparring partner but only one that is either around this level or higher so 1950+ OTB.

My Lichess is “Yikers69420” yes I know very cringe:) Feel free to send a message

Hello, my name is Anouk Adel. My Lichess Classic rating is currently 1658.
I live in Belgium/Europe, Central European Summer Time (UTC+01:00). I am only available during the day (until 6 p.m.). I speak Dutch & English & understand French.

I'm not sure what I'm looking for in a study buddy because it varies. I'm definitely open to playing longer games, minimum 30+30, maximum 90+30. I regularly look for someone who wants to play from a certain position, for example to practice endgames or a certain opening, taking turns. I'm currently doing a challenge: 100 puzzles a day for 50 days. It would be fun to do such challenges with a buddy & encourage each other...

Send me a friend request and we can see what comes next. Username: AnoukAdel on Lichess & Chessdotcom

I am 53. I started playing chess from scratch in the summer of 2022 at the age of 51. I am chronically ill and was looking for a way to challenge my mind. I'm here thanks to Eric Rosen's free gift for one month.

🙂

Hi guys 

I am rated around 1600 in classical (fide rating ) and 2000 rated in lichess(rapid) 

 And I am looking for a both a study and sparring partner around and  above my rating ( my time zone  is IST)

My lichess id : keerthi_sadurangam 

  I am also seeking players who plays sicillian defense and I am a caro kann player with black pieces and a e4 player with white pieces

Iam looking forward for my study /sparring partner 

Hy! My nick  on cc is TomoRobo. My rating in rapid is 1900+ on cc. I would appreciate if someone on my level or better than me will play with me games, because I want to test some new for me openings and varations.

Hello chess lovers :D

My name is Daniel, my chess.com rapid rating is 2141 and blitz, 2022. I would like to find a study/sparring partner who also wants to improve. My current repertoire with black is e5 and KID, with white is e4, but I'm also open to play queen's gambit or sicilian, if that might help.

Looking forward to hear from you :)

Chess.com username: DanzanteDeTijeras
PD: My timezone is GMT+2

Hi! My name is Jacob I am on the East Coast of the USA.

I am rated 1650 blitz on Lichess and 1350 blitz on chesscom. I am looking to establish a consistent training routine with someone who is near my level. I would be interested in playing 4-5 games at-least once a week, and maximum 3 times in a week.

Let me know if you are interested 😆  my goal is to establish excellent study habits for upcoming return to Graduate School. To me, rating is secondary to good study habits.

Thanks and looking forward to hearing back. My lichess handle is:
jacoborangepie
 

Hii i'm new to chess. Would be nice to find someone my elo is 700

Hello, my name is quinn_palmer on chess.com and I would like to have some training games in preparation for a tournament in a month, I'm looking to improve in the 2 knights caro kann. 

Repitoire: 
White: e4, and c4, ruy lopez, botvinnik carls english, tarrasch french, fantasy caro kann, and 2 knights attack caro kann
Black: Najdorf Sicilian and KID 

Rating: ~1450 blitz chess.com and ~1600 rapid chess.com
 

Timezone: CDT

Please contact me on chess.com if you would like to be a training partner, I'm looking forward to playing and thank you!

Hi, my name is Bernd, I live in Bali, Indonesia! If by any chance any of you are here and up for some sparring sessions, please let me know. Would love a training partner, kind of isolated over here. Top chesscom rapid rating has been around 2020 I think, right this moment 1972. 

Hello,
I am looking for a study partner aged 40+, available during the day (morning or afternoon Central European Summer Time). 
1-2 hours per week to look at positions, exchange experience, or simply chat.
Center of interest: General, all without stress.

Languages: French, German. (For English I need to use Google translate).
I would like to use the Lichess chat feature (telephone button) to minimize typing on the keyboard. The closer the country is to Luxembourg, the better the speech communication will be.
My Lichess account: Stekall, 1500 in Rapid.

Hello everyone, my name is Aaryav and I'm from India. My lichess username is AaryavSP and I have a rating of 1900 on lichess rapid. I'm looking for a sparring partner around my rating. I'm looking for someone who is available in the evenings on weekdays (IST). 

Languages : English

Hi everyone I would like to have a practice partner against specific chessmood openings on lichess in casual format  we can go through whitemood and blackmood openings. Preferable rating:1900+ interested players mssg me in this forum 

Hello, I’m Christian and my native tongue is German, so please excuse my bad english.

I’m around 1500 ELO, but my chess.com rating is significantly lower; I haven‘t played many rated games. I am looking for a sparring partner who is better than I am, and who can help me improve. It would be great to practice on weekends, since I’m 15 years old and still go to school. I’m planning to play in national tournaments when I get better (at around 1900 ELO I plan to do that), since in my country there aren’t many good chess players.

Just to give a bit more information: I am pretty bad at openings, I think too little when playing, and I think my endgame is very good for my level.

My Lichess username is: Ikkm-der-Wahre

My chess.com username is: IkkmderWahre

If you are interested feel free to message me here or on Lichess, I’m looking forward to that.

Hi, I'm Aditya from USA! My US Chess rating is 1660(dunno what that is in FIDE) and I am looking for someone my strength or stronger to practice SLP/WWP and just training in general. My Lichess username: aditya_grandhi. Please reply to this message and also send me a message on Lichess if you are interested. Thank you!!!!

Hi there 

My name is Saeid, I am in my 50 and new to chess. I have a busy full-time job and would like to have a practice partner who can improve together. 
Unfortunately, I have a fear of unknown situations and it makes it very challenging to play against random players on Chess.com and Lichess.

I am from Derbyshire England and would appreciate your friendship. 

Hello Champions,

 

Looking for training partner for my 8 year old son, Anay Deshpande, from UK.

chess.com rating 1150-1200. Most in this thread are highly rated :)

Hi all,

 

New to the ChessMood Family and looking for a training partner to play rapid games on a regular basis. These can be based upon the ChessMood recommended openins as well as others. I am around ELO 1930 but missing playing practice. I am based in Italy hence in the CET time zone.

 

Let me know if you are interested. 

Cheers, Edger

Hello everyone,

I am looking for a training partner for playing a few practise games (mainly regarding opening practise).
My rating (Chess com) : Around 1600 Rapid (I'm underrated)
Preferable Rating: 1800+ Chess Com or 1500+ FIDE

Thanks

Hello, my name is Pierre. I am new to ChessMood. I'm from the USA (east coast). I am in the 55+ age group, my rating is around 1500. Looking for a sparring partner in a similiar age group and rating. Thanks.

Hey y'all, I'm looking for someone around 16-1800 online to practice openings and possibly other aspects of my game with, although my rating fluctuates pretty dramatically 😅

Going off a New York time zone and I'm looking to train for some in-person tourneys. Thanks in advance!

Hi I am looking for someone who is 1850+ lichess blitz or 2050+ lichess rapid to practise openings with me. I am rated 1900 blitz. Reply with your lichess username if interested. I am located in UK so currently in BST time zone

Hi, I'm Dariel. I have an Elo a Fide about the 2200.I am from the land of José Raúl Capablanca. My account on Chess.com is: Trainingdml. You can write me out there.

Hi, I am Edolo und live in Central Europe and am an enthusiastic chess player. After a creative break of 20 years due to studies and entrepreneurship, I started playing chess again a few years ago. I am currently at ELO 1960 and hope to reach my all-time high of 2100 again.

I would like to exchange ideas with other chess players - play and analyse games together, discuss topics such as time trouble, preparation etc. But the most important thing is: it should always be FUN!

You are welcome to contact me at Edolo in Lichess.

Hey Bob I am in USA as well. Around 1800 on chess.com. I could work with you i am in Virginia so on Eastern time. 

Hi there,

I'm Michal from Slovakia (GMT +2). My fide rating is a little bit above 2200. Lichess rating 2300 blitz, 2400 rapid, I play on chess.com as well. I'm looking someone to practice chessmood openings (all of them) and other opening as well. I prefer someone fide rated at least 2100, or 2300 lichess (blitz or rapid).

Let me know if you are interested.

Hello there,

 

I'm Ervin from Hungary (CEST/GMT+2 now, changing to CET/GMT+1 in a month). derervin @ Lichess, current rapid is about 1850 (FIDE ELO is around that, too). I'd like to practice ChessMood openings with sparring partner(s).

My near-future goal is to have a solid opening repertoir (building up from scratch), and then advance to middlegame and endgame theory.

As family and work duties are present, my schedule is rather chaotic, but I'm usually available at 5-6 AM and/or 9-10 PM. It might be a perfect time at the other side of the globe :). Please message me here or at Lichess if you're interested. Thanks in advance!

 

P.S. You can find me on gameknot as charger2752.

Hi, g, my daughter finished caro kann opening and all lines need suggest to improve game wise, she is under 1500.if ur interested, suggest somethinh

😀

Hi , I am a 13 year old chess player with 1950+ FIDE rating and I am looking for a training partner with a ELO above 2000.

I searching for a partner with whom I could play training games, discuss chess topic, practice openings and prepare together.

Hi, i'm between 1850 - 2050 elo on lichess.I'm searching  a sparring partner.

I'm from france and i play mainly between 6h-11h

Hope to find someone around the same elo on lichess. But if you're more than 2050 elo it's fine too.

Hey, I’m 1400 chess.com ELO looking for a sparring partner to learn the chessmood openings and help each other get better. Let me know if you are interested 🙂

Hey, my fide rating is 2000 and chess.com rating is 2200 I am looking for a partner to train with to memorize openings and play practice games with

Hi! I'm from India and I'm playing chess again, after a year long break. I was 1900 on Chess.com, but i feel as if my ability has decreased due to being out of practice. I hope to find someone to train and practice with! My chess.com user is aditi607. HMU!

Hey guys,I  am Rajat from India.I quit  chess for a while,and I am back at my goal of improving at this beautiful game.I am 1842 Rapid,target is to reach 2000 rapid before the end  of the year.My Id is Rajat_2011(on Lichess),msg for a  partner.You can like the post,it would be huge  help,target  is  5 likes

 

 

New article: 7 Lessons from a Top 100 Who Left Chess to Find His Purpose

Recently, GM Georg Meier joined us on the ChessMood podcast. 

Despite reaching the top 100 and training with legends like Kasparov and Carlsen, he chose a different path. Why? 

Here’s a quick overview of his journey and the 7 key lessons it holds👇
https://chessmood.com/blog/georg-meier

Replies

Thank you for sharing this article! I really love that ChessMood spends time focusing personal things, including how to be a better, happier, and fulfilled human being.  Rather than talking only about chess, here there is the understanding that chess is, for each of us, part of our life. And there is much more to life than chess.

 

And this article about GM Meier hits home — he talks about it is too easy to get wrapped up in the result. And that he, a top player, fell into that trap. I can't tell you how happy I am with the ChessMood team. And how insightful you are. I will always remember the 1-on-1 conversation that I had with GM Gabu, and how he (gently) diagnosed that my attitude and putting too much worry into winning, or how others might measure me, was the recipe for being miserable.

 

I keep re-dedicating myself to my current goal: improve and enjoy (really enjoy) chess. And less emphasis on the improving part, more on enjoying.

 

Happy Trails to everyone,

Jeff

New podcast with GM Georg Meier: Beyond Chess Success and What Really Matters

Imagine you’re in the top 100. 
You train with Carlsen and Kasparov and get invited to super-GM tournaments🤩

GM Georg Meier was living the dream!😊
Then, he gambited his safe chess career to explore a new path.

Why did he leave? What did he learn from his interactions with the world’s best? 
What traps can you avoid by learning from his journey? And is he happy with where he’s ended up?

GM Meier joins the ChessMood podcast for a conversation. Tune in on ⬇️

YouTube: https://youtu.be/0HSZg3gn0jI?si=dwa2PNzCdrR7XzhU

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beyond-chess-success-and-what-really-matters-gm-georg/id1685445424?i=1000672210819

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0uhOPdTNEXy7kU9gCHWEKl

Replies

Excellent perspective Georg puts on life and chess at the highest levels. And how important it is not be limited to living for chess only but broaden life's horizons.

 

Thank you Avo and Georg!

ChessMood PRO Members

Hello champions and welcome to the ChessMood team! 
We all are from different countries, different ages, have different professions... But one thing bounds us - the passion for chess.

Champions, we'll grow together and keep a warm relationship in our team. 
Please tell a bit about yourself in this post. 

#ChessMood_Family 

Replies

Okay, I'll be first :) 
I am GM Avetik Grigoryan.
I have born on 27.01.1989 in Armenia. My father had a big passion for chess (he has 2400 in chess.com) and when I was 4, my father went to the war... 
That time my Grandma taught me to play chess... 
Eventually, with some magic, I became a GM :) 
At 22, being at my top rating 2623, I stopped playing professional chess and started a career as a professional chess coach. 
I have been the coach of Thailand's national team (2017-2018) and trained many Grandmasters. 
In 2019 I founded ChessMood and it was one of the best things I've done in my life. 

Knowing many of you personally, I would miss a lot, not knowing you. 

Dream - To create the best educational chess platform and help you to pursue your goals and dreams. 
Good luck to us :) 

Hi everyone, I am Roger, 60 years old from Levanger, in the middle of nowhere... ahh... Norway...
I love chess, to follow tournaments on TV and web, to play in my club and on the net. I should spend more time learning than playing, but as you know... (and my old brain doesn't take som much anymore).

I started playing when I was around 10 years old. And quit at age of 15. Had a short intermezzo around 22 - 24 years old, and started again at the age of 52 (or something). I love (too much) the aggressive chess. Always looking for the opportunity of a mate.... (Then you understand my results ... yes about 50/50)

My rating on Lichess is around 1850 (on a good day), and I always dream to raise. Make plans and start the study. (Just now it's the Benko). Suddenly down again, and try to build up... Ups and downs... that's my chess life.

I met Avetik in Armenia in March 2019 and became Pro Member and a good friend. I stayed there for 11 weeks last year, and Avetik, Ani and me were neighbors in Komitas, Jerevan. I had one other friend of Avetik, Tigran, as my coach when I was staying there. I get a lot of opportunities to grow my chess, but drinking beer, meet and talk to people, listen to the lovely Armenian music and live in a lovely country took the most of my time. But this was a very, very good experience, and I met and became friends with a lot of the GMs behind Chessmood.

I work as an editor for a local newspaper (innherred.no), live with my lovely wife Hege and together we have seven kids and three grandkids (soon it will be five).  

I call Chessmood my second family. I call Armenia my second homeland. Hope to meet the family there one day. I am sure that will be a great experience.

Hi everyone - I joined ChessMood about 6 months ago, and I'm really enjoying it, and learning huge amounts.  I'm 59 and live in London.

I started to play chess around 18 years old, but bogged down at around 1800 for many years.  Started to work more seriously on my chess about 15 years ago, with intermittent bursts of activity.  In the last few years, I have slowly improved to get above 2000, and I want to get up to 2200 as chess is going to be my main hobby in my upcoming retirement!

I'm Hunan, 31 years old, working as a programmer in San Francisco. I have always enjoyed playing chess, but never taken it seriously. I started spending more time playing in May of this year and have been improving very slowly, trying to keep the pieces together, trying not to blunder, trying to learn to think (around 1200 on chess.com at the moment).

I had noticed "Chessmood" on top player handles on chess.com, so I was intrigued what it is. I found an interview of GM Avetik by our own Jay Garrison and I learned about the mission and the approach. If you have had any interaction with Avetik, you immediately get the sense that his passion and his dedication are on another level.

I look forward to hearing about you all. We needed this thread!

I'm Peter, a 44 year old Austrian currently living in San Francisco. I played my first rated game at 14 and was an active tournament player in my high school and college years. For ten years I offered weekly free chess training for kids and coached our biggest talents at national competitions. Since turning 30, I've only played national league (~10 games per year), and my chess has mostly stagnated. In 2015 I moved to the US and haven't played OTB chess since then. My (inactive) FIDE rating is 2210.

ChessMood has inspired me to set myself a new goal: to become an FM strength player in all phases of the game. The first step in this journey was to switch to 1.e4, a move I hadn't played in almost 30 years. :-)

I am a lawyer in New York.  I lived in Brooklyn for many years, but I now live in a small town about 1 1/2 hours north of the City. 


I started playing in tournaments in college.  Played over many random games in books and watched many videos but nothing ever seemed to help.  Never had a coach or formal training.  

I played tournaments at the Marshall CC but quit years ago when work and family took all of my time.  I played Kamsky, Epishin, Benko, Lombardy and others in tournaments and blitz.  Karpov might be the nicest player I ever met.

My rating fluctuates wildly online from 2000 to 2450 depending on the site but I’m rated 2110 OTB.   I am the biggest sore loser online but a perfect gentleman OTB.  :)

So far, I’m very satisfied with chessmood and I’ve done some studying on it every day.  I feel like I’m improving.  We’ll see!

I forgot to mention that I discovered Chessmood after I started to watch the 100 Classical Games.  Instructive and highly recommended.

Hi fellow ChessMood Pro Members,

I only recently joined ChessMood as a Pro Member. This seems like a really nice and inspiring community. I am 53 years old and live in Düsseldorf, Germany. I am married and have two teenage children. I am a qualified lawyer and work full time as a law professor. I learned chess as a teenager and played casually. I stopped playing after a few years, turning to computer and video games.

I restarted playing chess in 2007. My training was unsystematic: I bought a lot of books, started many, but finished none. I also regularly watched the coverage of top tournaments. My rating then was around 1300 in classical on ICC and around 1600 in correspondence on chess.com. 

At the end of 2010, I stopped playing again, but restarted briefly between 2012 and 2014. My correspondence rating peaked at 1693, my bltz rating on chess.com was around 1000. In 2018, I made another restart, motivated by the Perpetual Chess Podcast. For more than two years, I practiced daily, mainly doing spaced repetition. I bought numerous courses on Chessable, at least finishing a few, like 1001 Chess Tactics for Beginners, Free Scandinavian and Icelandic Gambit. I also started the Yusupov series, but still have not finished the first book. In July, I became a member of a local chess club, where I had played an open OTB tournament at the beginning of the year until Corona put an end to OTB chess. My lichess classical rating is now around 1800, my chess.com correspondence rating is around 1750 and my blitz rating on lichess is around 1520. I hope that ChessMood will bring me to the next level and beyond! My long term goal is to reach 2000 FIDE, 2300 Classical and 2000 Blitz on lichess.

I look forward to play and chat with you all!

Hello ChessMood family!

My Name is Jay Garrison, I am 47 years old and live near Phoenix, Arizona. 

When I was 4 years old, my father taught me to play checkers. By the time I was 5, I was winning every game and he decided he would teach me a tougher game: Chess. By the age of 7 I was winning every game of chess against him and any of my fathers friends he could bait into playing me.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a chess scene near where I grew up, and didn't play much growing up. When I would play a game against my friends, I would win easily, and they wouldn't want to play any more. So the game of chess was just a novelty to me, that I thought I could beat anyone any time, and didn't pursue it seriously. Instead, I pursued American rules football. At the age of 22, I suffered an injury that ended my football career before it really started. (I was invited to training camp for the Arizona Rattles - an Arena football team - but got hurt just a couple weeks before I got to camp, so never played) 

I was seeking an outlet for my competitive spirit after my injury when I saw a movie called Searching for Bobby Fischer. I thought, hey, I am really, really good at chess, I will go do that! So I looked up a local chess club and went to play. I ran into a room of experts and masters, and as you can imagine, I lost every game. I couldn't believe it! I didn't ever lose at chess, yet it happened! So the next day I went to the library and borrowed a book on chess - Bruce Pandalfini's Weapons of Chess. I played in my first tournament a couple months later and received a rating of 1422.

Then I moved to a small town that didn't have any chess, and as a young father of 2 boys, I couldn't afford to travel to tournaments, and chess was set aside so I could pursue a career and raise my family. In 1997 I moved to the Phoenix area and found a local club and was playing once a week. Then in 1999 I played several tournaments and reached a rating of 1600+ USCF, but then earned a promotion at work that once again kept me from playing. 

I didn't come back to the game until 2014, when I took a part time position with a local club to go into schools and teach chess as an after school program. (One of the most rewarding things I have ever done! I love working with the kids teaching them chess!) I played a couple tournaments, including the 2015 US Open that was held here in Phoenix and got my rating over 1700 USCF, but every time I would get close to 1800, I would slip back down. For several years I was stuck in the 1700's and finally gave up on improving, and walked away from chess again.

Then @GM_Avetik_Grigoryan came into my life. In 2018 I was invited into a Facebook group by Coach. I didnt think much of it, and didnt really participate much other then reading a few posts by others. Then a post was made that peaked my interest (I dont even remember what the post was anymore) and I made a reply that caught Coach's attention, and he sent me a private message thanking me for my answer to the post. I could tell he was sincere and it struck up a private conversation between us that ended in forging a friendship that will last a lifetime. 

When ChessMood launched in early 2019, I signed up right away. I decided to give myself one more chance to improve my game. I remember my 1:1 call with Coach when I signed up and how he listened to my goals (At the time I wanted to reach master) and how he asked me "why" I wanted that, and then helped me lay out a plan to achieve it. 

Then 2 months later, while on my evening walk (I was watching opening videos as I walked hehe) I got a huge sense that I was supposed to do more. I immediately reached out to Coach and asked him if he could meet with me, as I had a question for him. He set aside time for me the next day (I still am in awe at how freely Coach gives back to us all, and makes me want to be just like that!) and I told him of my premonition: I am going to be a GM, will you coach me? He didn't laugh at me, he didn't say people my age cant reach that level, he only asked me 1 question: Why? And after I gave him my whys, he said, "Lets make history!"

And here I am! In the last year and a half, my online ratings have increased 300+ points, with 2000+ on LiChess. My OTB at first took a dip, back to about 1650 before shooting up to over 1800! We are postponed on reaching 2000+ only because of a lack of OTB tournaments, but I know we will crash right by that when we can get active again! 

ChessMood is my second family, and I can not wait till we all get to meet up and play chess and drink beer together! #RightMoodRightMove #COGRO

Hi Family!

My name is Sergio Carrera. I am 48 and I was born and live in Madrid (Spain). I am married and have a 5 year-old child. I work for a large IT Company.

I started playing chess online in December 2018 (I already knew how to move the pieces because I had been taught  when I was a kid). I did not know any opening, so I bought and started reading the following books that I saw recommended in Internet and began to play the very first moves of those openings, against virtually anything and without really understanding them:

- 1.d4 Repertoire, by Boris Avrukh

- Chess Openings for Black, by Lev Alburt

Then I bought "Reassess your Chess", by Jeremy Silman and I read it in a few days and I fell in love with Chess and in April 2019 I played my first OTB tournament and in June 2019 I joined a local club. Currently, I am 1320 elo FIDE and 1650 on chess.com  and 1970 on lichess and I would really love to improve, and I am commited to improve.

My job is very demanding, so I decided I could not invest more than 10-15 hours a week without taking too much time from my family. With that in mind, my short-term goal is to achieve 1500 elo FIDE by  March 2022 and 2000 elo FIDE by March 2027.

I joined Chessmood last July and it has been the best chess-oriented decision I have made. 

We will grow together!

Hello All,

I am Sadkrith and I just turned 13 in July,2020. I live near Chicago(100 miles approx.) and currently in grade 8.

I started learning Chess from my Dad when I was around 6. Chessmood happened around 8 months ago when my Dad subscribed to the Pro membership. The immediate change thereafter was to switch to 1. e4 from 1.d4 that I was playing. I am thoroughly enjoying the game and dream to be a GM + Cardiologist. My Lichess & Chess.com ratings are around 2200 and 2000 respectively.

Coach Avetik & GM Gabuzyan have enriched my understanding of chess and hope to see the positive results OTB.

Hi everyone, I’m relatively new here as I became a pro member just a couple weeks ago.  I’m 38, living in Brooklyn New York with my wife and 6 year old daughter and 2 dogs.  My dad taught me chess when I was young, but I didn’t really do much until college when I joined the chess team there and got a uscf rating of around 1700.  After college I kind of dropped chess since I didn’t have time for it.  About a year or two ago I started to get back into it.  Unfortunately I still don’t really have time for otb tournaments, but I’ve been playing on lichess and chess.com where I’ve reached a high of 2150 on lichess.  I’ve taken a bit of a hit the past couple weeks trying to switch to e4 and learning all the new stuff but I’m sure things will start trending in the right direction after some study since Avetik does a great job of explaining things.

Hi everyone,
my Name is Michael, I am 55 years old, married and live in Berlin. Its funny how non-linear my chess development has been in hindsight.

At age 9 or 10, I had to stay at my uncles place for a few weeks. In the basement I found a chess book (Laszlo Orban: Schach für Anfänger) started to read and was immediately hooked. A few days later I played my uncle but he beat me with the scholar's mate every time. So I went back into the basement to finished the book. At the end of my stay I still lost, but the games went at least a bit longer. Back at home, I had no access to a chess club and my father did not liked chess at all, so I showed my brother how to play. The local library had two chess books (one d4 opening book and Simon Webb´s Chess for Tigers) which I read several times. I coached my brother to level him up as a sparring partner. Unfortunately after a few years my brother lost interest and stopped playing. 

19 years old during my time at the air force I started playing again. I found some chess fans and during some boring march etc. we played blindfold chess. After my service I studied architecture and joined at a chess club in Munich. I played regularly until the late 90´s (about 1800 - 1900 Fide). Then my professional work took overhand and I changed city's (as well as countries) a few times. The result was that for the next 20 years I only played a handful tournament games. 

Since last year I am kind of semi retired and chess became finally the place in my life that it deserved. My Fide rating is 1911, Lichess is about 2000 (bliz, rapid and classical). 

For the first time I work regular on my chess improvement and enjoy the process. I am happy to have found Chessmood and this nice community of like minded people.

I am WIM Siranush Ghukasyan from Armenia, Yerevan
I was born on 25.11.1998. My uncle is a huge fan of chess and he always wished me to grow and become a good chess player. I've started studying and playing chess when I was 6, but I knew how pieces move when I was at the age of 4, and I've learned it from him.

At first, I hated chess because I thought this game is not girly :D

But when you start to play games and feel the pleasure of victory, it is impossible not to be in love with chess :)

My international rating is 2222.

My goal for now: I'm WIM since 2016 and my next step is to become a WGM  (I have one WGM norm)

Big thanks to GM Avetik for ChessMood and for his devotion to helping us to reach our goals.

Hi I am Till. I am one of the old geezers here (55). I started chess at 15, got to about 2200 (mostly tactics, but no real understanding)  when if was in my early 20s, stopped because I got excited about maths, moved to Japan, got excited about Shogi, stopped, got serious about physics and programming, .... You get the picture.

Now I play correspondence chess and online bullet to relax but a few years ago got a bit more serious again about studying chess at the site of one of chessmood's  competitors. I discovered chessmood when all courses were unlocked. I wasn't sure about joining for a while since I really don't have any chess-related goals besides having fun, but then I decided it is time to fill some of the gaps in my general chess education and I liked the selection of topics here.

Hello, Chessmood family.

I am Susanna (Susik) Gaboyan. I was born on 25.08.1996 in Armenia / Yerevan, currently I live in Russia / Moscow.

Before I wrote about me I was reading about all of you, and this sentence killed me "Even though we have the risk that it sounds a bit like a meeting of Alcoholics anonymous, let's proceed with the introductions..." by @Edo_Tokyo  :D :D 

Ok this is about me. I started playing chess when I was 6 years old. My brother went to chess classes, once I sat with him and looked how he trains. He taught me some basic stuffs like how to set up position, how to move pieces, the next time my mom and I went together to pick him up from the class, his coach saw me and gave me several puzzles (mate in 1), I could easily solve them, then he told my mom that I'm very "talented" :D and from the next class also to bring me to classes, I started my trainings and the next year, when I was 7 years old, I became a Vice-Champion of Armenia U10. Then the journey began :D 

I have participated in many international events, World and European championships. I am now 24 years old, Women international master (WIM), FIDE rating: 2211, and my goal at the moment is to become a Women grandmaster (WGM).

I am very happy to have chosen chess, not because only chess is cool, but mainly because I got so many nice friends and I have so many incredible memories.

Chessmood became my second family, I know @GM_Avetik_Grigoryan from an early age, probably around 16 years, but of course we were not close friends because he was older than me :D
He's just an amazing person, very purposeful, friendly, kind, positive etc. I think who knows him personally can approve of this. I am so happy that he was able to create this coolest chess arena and unite all people from all over the world.

I look forward to achieve my goals with Chessmood and wish you all the best.

WE CAN DO IT !

Hello everyone


My name is Jamie, I am 40 years old and live in England. I work full time as a poker professional and coach, so luckily I am a little more flexible with time than most people despite having a family.

I played chess when I was a teenager up until my mid twenties, until I discovered poker really. I was never particularly good at the game. I think I was just shy of 1950 elo or something. We have a weird BCF system in the UK (which is now changing to elo also) so the conversion is somewhat tricky.

I started again on and off playing bad blitz/bullet for the last few years, with sporadic attempts to get somewhere near the average level I used to be. A few months ago I played a correspondence game with a friend and i rediscovered how rich chess is when you have some time.

I decided that I wanted to take chess somewhat seriously again and be competitive over the board. I took a lesson with a IM who outlined some very good ideas for improvement which revolves mainly around endgame and classical middle game studies.

I found chessmood via a friend who suggested I check out the perpetual chess podcast. I did, it sounded interesting so I checked out the site and watched a few free videos. I loved that the scotch was being proposed as this is one of the main openings I was planning to learn.

I signed up and following the blog  on openings, memorizing, what time controls to play etc have already seen some solid improvement (in the one opening I know!).

Great site and great people, I already met a study partner (shout out to Marc!) and did my 1-1 call with GM Avetik. He approved and improved my plan already a little bit and I also found out he used to play poker also!

I posted in the study partner thread already but if anyone wants to train please let me know. I am game as they say!

Hi everyone

I am Shahinur Haque , 37yrs old from Bangladesh. I have one kid near about 5yrs, he is a boy. In my early childhood i used to play chess regularly. Chess was my passion. My story of learning chess is little bit similar to the legendary Capablanca. At the age of 6 or 7 in front of my village house there was small grocery shop which was run by one of my cousin. At the evening at their leisure time two of my cousin used to play chess. I just learn from them and started beat them within next few days very easily. I am not sure how it was possible, may be they were very weak player. Then my father shift with us to a small town for my better education. Until completing the school i used to play chess regularly and win some school competition.

In the mean time i have completed my graduation in medical science and become a doctor in my country and started my job in a research organization. Then it was 2017 ; i was in Japan for 6 month at Osaka University in a fellowship program . The program was easy and i had enough free time for myself. Moreover for the first in my life  i was truly alone. Then i took an online course it was about how  to find out  the one thing in life. After this long course in conclusion i discovered that Chess is the one thing of my life. Then i come back my country and started to play competitive chess. That time i didn't have any FIDE rating. After my first tournament in 2018 i got FIDE ID and rating as well. Now my OTB FIDE rating is 1641 and online rating is around 1900 at lee chess. Now a days besides my Job and other family responsibilities i use my maxim time in practicing chess. During Covid-19 pandemic i knew about Chessmood through social media. And i become the PRO member and i am glad that i become part of chess mood family. I want to continue my chess growth and become a chess master within next 5 years.

Namaste every one. I am Tanmoy. I had born on 14/04/1989, same age as our head coach Avetik. I had learn Indian rule chess from my father and grand father at the age near 5. Later at the age 12-13 I had learn the international rules which is a little different from Indian rule chess. I always want to learn chess from a professional coach. But in my area there was nothing about chess. From my college life, when I get a computer and start playing chess against computer. 2 years ago I had joined chess.com and started to think chess seriously. My two dreams was to become a math professor and a fide titled player. My first dream was achieved last year. Now I have focused on my second dream. I have joined ChessMood pro team in April, this year and my rating is increased from 1300 to 1700+ in chess.com Blitz. So I feel I am going towards my dream. 

Also I wish to grow our ChessMood family bigger and bigger and one day come out an world champion from our ChessMood family.

Wish you all the best. 

Hi, my name is courtney, I am 33, from ohio in the USA, and have played chess as a hobby since age 5, but never competitively other than a few tournaments when I was a kid.  I did play in a chess team in high school and a chess club in college, but it was pretty casual.  I am rated about 1500 or 1600, but I always thought it would be fun to try and reach expert level, so that is my goal.  I work as a doctor, and for fun I do chess and card tricks.

Thanks,

Courtney

My name is Mateo Jackson. I am 10 years old. I was born in Vancouver, BC Canada but now live in Alberta. I am in grade 5.

I have been playing chess for 2 years. I am really happy to be part of Chessmood. My goal is to be a GM. I started playing in tournaments in 2019 but due to Covid there has been nothing but online. My chess.com rating is 1600. 

I am working really hard to get these openings solid! I am  excited about the club on Lichess to practice. 

Hi!

I'm Tiago, from Portugal. I'm 41 and expecting my second son in a few days. I was born in Oporto in a family with a few chess enthusiasts: my father learned chess from a magazine and teached some brothers.

My father, who is around 1500, teached me the rules and one day, when I was 11, one of his brothers, who joined a chess club, invited me to go there too. I played there until college, but never got any formal training. 

After college (I’m another chessmoodie for “team law”) me and some friends started our own chess club, mostly devoted to kids. It had some interesting results (we had about 50 members and won two youth national rapid championship) but ended abruptly: my friend who had the idea and was the man behind the scene had a fatal disease since birth which came to an end, and although we kept the club for a couple of years after his death, live changed for the rest of us too.

For me it was a carreer change: i made the public tender to enter the judiciary and moved to Lisbon. I had a classmate who i knew from my youth national championships and we put a chess set at the school bar. We got a few other players and when we moved to our internship, in a city called Braga (northern Portugal) we started a very serious chess club called APAXES en passant. APAXES was a word play with apaches and the initials of Almoçaradas, Passeatas, Aventuras, Xadrez, Estadias e Salgadinhos, something like Lunches, Tours, Adventures, Chess, Stays and Appetizers... we even made a theorical novelty: “dessert gambit”, when we skiped the first round after lunch, to eat well and get a lower opponent in the second afternoon round!

When internship was over, we all went to different courts in different cities. It is now 2012 and I was placed in Loulé (in Algarve, southern Portugal) and i started playing here. Chess is not very developed in Algarve (no more than 80 players in 4 clubs) so i started playing in a club in Spain too, in Ayamonte, right after the border (+- 80kms away).

During this period, i got some formal training and played more games than i used to. I think my understanding of the game got deeper but my FIDE elo has been always around 1900, although with some ocasional good results (U2000 Canada Open 2014, Algarve Regional Championship 2016/2017 and our team (Loulé ++ www.facebook.com/xadrezloule) got from Algarve Championship to Portugal Division 2. I guess it is true that knowing chess is not the same as playing it, as our coach says.

Last year i started a 3 year program to teach Tax Litigation in Lisbon, at judiciary school, so my life has been between Loulé (family) and Lisbon (work). Meanwhile I'll try to improve my chess to pass it own to my children the same way my father gave it to me.

I think you are the best companionship i could expect to make this middle age chess struggle. =)

See you in the board!

(Lichess: TorredosClerigos or Tiago_ChessMood / Chess.com: TorredosClerigos)

I’m Sean Raasch. I’m 37 and have spent a great deal of my life translating my passion through songwriting. I own a small business which opened right before COVID so I’ve been struggling but with extra effort we are starting to do pretty well. My father taught me how to play chess and his grandfather from Fozcoa, Portugal Antonio was a master and moved to the US during the 1918 revolution there. My goal is to try and keep talented chess in my family through the generations. I believe in giving something your best if you choose to take it on. That being said, I have a lot of work to do. For anyone interested in the music and even a song with a chess reference.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6fJam13nZgh4SqEYzIVu5y?si=uvvjkcyzT_W1qVM6dVtv5A

Hello, I am Nils from Germany, 48 years old, married with twins at the age of 8 (boy and girl).

I used to play chess in a club in Hamburg during high school. That was in the 80’s with chess informant, GM Helmut Pfleger and GM Vlastimil Hort on German TV and the Mephisto chess computer. Highlights were the ‘Berliner Sommer’ tournaments. During university I played coffeehouse chess with friends and participated in the Passau Open tournament twice. That was in the 90’s with the upcoming internet and the free internet chess server.

Around 2016, I got exited for chess again and joined a club in Frankfurt/Main. But this time I wanted to learn chess in a different way and study it like at university: How did chess evolve and what did the first World Champions write on the game of chess? And what would be the right basic courses? I began with Lasker’s Manuel on Chess and Capablanca’s Chess Fundamentals and had a look at the My Great Predecessors series which turned out to be too difficult for me.

My first basic course was the Steps method of which I finished the manual and all workbooks of step 4 and the lessons on endings of step 5. Subscribing to the Saint Louis Chess Clubs’ youtube channel brought me to Winning Chess Openings und Winning Chess Endings by Yasser Seirawan as my next basics courses. My current basic courses are Beyond the basics (level 2 of the Artur Yusupov’s series) and the Woodpecker Method by Axel Smith and Hans Tikkanen.

My rating is around ELO 1990 and DWZ 1900.

I want to improve und widen my understanding of all phases (opening, middlegame and endgame) and want to be able to convert this understanding into my games. My focus lies on over the board chess with classical time control. Before Corona, I used to play about one league game a month and about two tournaments a year. Additionally, we have regular non-rated tournaments at our club with different time controls.

My long-term goal is to earn the FM title. Reaching that goal after retirement and the kids grown up would be fine with me.

My opening repertoire should consist of sound main lines of both more dynamic/aggressive and more calm/positional systems. Unfortunately, back in 2016 I started with more aggressive and to a certain extend dubious side lines from which have not managed to replace the Smith Morra, yet.

My other main systems for White are:

Scotch Four Knighs (from Yusupov: Beyond the basics) and Scotch Game (Negi: The modern Scotch)

French advance variation (from Yusupov: Beyond the bascis) and exchange variation (from Sielecki: Keep it simple 1. e4)

Exchange variation against Caro-Kann (from Sielecki: Keep it simple 1. e4)

My main systems for Black are:

Petroff Defence (from Yusupov: Beyond the basics)

QGD (from Yusupov: Beyond the basics and Ntrilis: Playing 1.d4 d5) and Grunfeld Defence (different sources)

Regarding tactics I completed all easy puzzles from the Woodpecker method over 7 cycles. Before moving on to the intermediate puzzles, I want to first finish Beyond the basics and woodpeck the tactic exercises form this series over 7 cycles.

Regarding endings my plan is to woodpeck all endgame exercises form Beyond the basics, too. And after that, maybe to start with 100 Endgames you must know.

So, having these quite concrete study plan already, why did I become a PRO Member on ChessMood?

First, I lost track during the Corona lockdown (my wife and I suddenly had to take care 24/7 for our kids while our school and day care centre had to close). Second, I liked what Avetik said on the Perpetual Chess Podcast.

My regular time budget for serious chess improvement:

Around 3 times a week in the morning before work for 75minutes. Another 1 to 2 times in the evening for about 75minutes. And about 2 times a month for about 180 minutes in one piece in the weekends. This does not include tournaments I follow on youtube and blitz games.

The tools (besides books) I use are:

Shredder 13 (GUI and engine) for creating pgn-files and analysis,

ChessBase Prime Membership using the Web Apps (researching games and copying my repertoire in the Openings App),

CT-ART for tactics and Chess King App for endings (doing some puzzles in the subway etc.)

ChessBase DVDs (mainly openings and the Master Class series on the world champions)

Hi,

I am Jesse Turner. I have been 45 for half of the year and will be 45 for the rest of the year. I work best in groups so I tend to offer my pro Zoom account for people that like to do study groups. I can handle over 100+ people at once, but I don't expect any more than 2-10. I don't care about training partners. I am more concerned with getting to know people personally and getting a mutual respect with people and preferably more than one people. I like to help others as well as others helping me. So if anyone would like to start a regular meeting day let me know and I can look at starting it. (Best is probably discussing things we learn here and working out the logic, or analysis of the games here and analysis of our own games.) I am a migrate from another GM facebook group. Found more about this from GM Grigoryan who is I think still a member there, and then realizing he was the contact here. So I decided to try it out. 

My goal in chess is to hope to improve as much as possible. I am rated currently 2012 USCF and 2120-2180 lichess. Seems pretty consistent that I stay in that range. I hit 2000 USCF after 40. I learned at 12, and I started actually looking to improve at 22. I had a lot of problems with improvement related to dyslexia. Not understanding any written materials. I was basically stuck under 1200 till 30. My short term goal of course is to see if I can bump up over 2100 USCF and if they correlate, 2200-2300 lichess. I tend to make practical errors against the people I want to be like. Either not believing I can be on their level, or making a strategic error that also has the strategic correction in my mind at the time of the decision, so I need to figure out how to determine better the correct idea. I am a little weak tactically, and most of my main weaknesses is planning and lacking ambition in most cases.

I hope to get to know people and hope to come closer to accomplishing goals.

I've been a PRO member for a few months now but realized I never introduced myself here. This is going to be a bit long (GM Avetik is familiar with it since my long message to him when scheduling our one on one call :P).

My name is Vishnu Sreekumar. I turn 35 in November. I have a wife and 6 year old daughter (who has also just started learning chess). I am a cognitive neuroscientist currently finishing up my postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health  in the USA. I specialize in human memory. I hope to open my own research lab at a university next year, where I will eventually also incorporate research into expertise and learning in chess. 

I started playing chess at the age of 7 or so. My dad taught me the moves but after I beat him about 1-2 months after I learned the moves, he stopped playing with me. I then had to wait for summer vacations until I could play my uncles who were stronger players. I also played age group tournaments as a kid, with my highest achievement being a podium finish at the U14 Kerala State Rapid tournament alongside E P Nirmal who some of you may know as Nihal Sarin's second chess coach. I then stopped playing competitively at around age 13 or 14, because I started developing an interest in biology and physics. After school, I went to study physics for 5 years at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and then decided to get a PhD in cognitive psychology (basically building mathematical models of the brain). Only in Jan 2018 during my postdoctoral fellowship did I think of returning to chess because there was a tournament near where I lived. I got 4/7 in the U1700 section there and won $100 but in the very next tournament, I got crushed by little 10-12 year old kids because I was playing 1. ...c5 with zero prep as I had done in my childhood but these kids were all booked up. That is when I decided to start training. My first stable USCF rating in early 2018 was 1650. I got to USCF 1950 in 2019 and then dropped back to 1850 again due to severe time trouble issues but I solved them partly (the trick was to play a rapid tournament with the sole goal of managing my time better and not worry about results and indeed I lost 4/4 games but didn't fall behind on the clock but my regular rating shot back up after that tournament) and returned to 1940 after my first tournament in Jan 2020. I have only played 4 NMs so far OTB with a +2 -2 score and one FM who offered me a draw in a slightly worse position (for him) but I was a bit cowardly and accepted his offer. Haven't played tournaments after that since the pandemic hit. 

Between 2018-2020, I read around 25-30 chess books cover to cover, including doing Aagaard's Positional Play cover to cover. I used to do tactics on the train to and from work, would work with books early in the morning before my family woke up and lighter chess reading at bed time (e.g. Seirawan's Chess Duels, to give you an idea). My primary focus however was on calculation training, and only started working on openings in late 2019. So I worked very hard but there are so many areas that require work and will see significant improvement once I've done that work. I've been playing a lot of long time control games against 2000-2200 players online during the pandemic and have been analyzing with them and have learned a ton. I used to be underambitious when it came to chess goals but after my call with GM Avetik, I realized there was no need to do that. There is no evidence so far that I'm stagnating in my chess growth. So I will try to get to FM in a reasonable period of time but my primary focus is on plugging the vast holes in my chess education as I have only been properly studying chess for two years. As a kid, all I did was play. No one even told me that I had to review my games and learn from them. However when I restarted as an adult, I had a GM mentor who encouraged me to do that. I now have 3 hardbound books of handwritten annotations to my games (all done first without an engine and I spent 3-4 hrs on average on each game). 

I think, breathe, and live chess. It is always on the back of my mind even when I'm doing other serious tasks. Yes it is disrupting but I cannot escape it. I'm sure many of you feel the same way. Good luck in achieving your goals, I look forward to being an active part of this community! 

P.S: I'm liszt85 on both chess.com and lichess if anyone wants to add me there.

Hello ChessMood family! I love reading through all of your posts.  I have been a member of ChessMood for quite awhile, but I've taken a break from chess since the pandemic hit and life got a little chaotic. However, I love GM Avetik and the ChessMood team/family so I continue to be part of the community. 

My name is Matt and I am 36 and a physician assistant, practicing emergency medicine in Missouri.  I started playing chess sometime in middle school, around age 14, and basically got beat by everyone I played.  This was really annoying, so I started playing more and trying to improve through the after school program when I wasn't playing other sports.  I played a lot in the 1200ish rating range, and then bought Jeremy Silman's Reassess Your Chess in grade 10 and studied it basically all one summer.  The next year I came back and jumped around 500 rating points and actually had a great year playing competitive chess.  After that year I moved to a small town with no chess team and basically quit playing except on yahoo chess.  Rarely I would meet someone to play with casually, but that was it. 

After college and graduate school, I started picking up new hobbies and looked up a local  chess club here in Missouri and became interested again. I don't have lofty goals, but I always thought the 1800-1900 range would be attainable and make me competitive enough for most local competition, so that has been my focus.  I'll be honest though, sometimes I love the idea more than the actual work required to get there. However, with ChessMood I truly feel like I found a learning platform I can stick to and not get burned out on.  

In addition to chess, my hobbies include traveling, exercise/lifting, learning new things, investing and growing wealth, inventing products to reduce waste in medicine and hunting/outdoor activities.  

I am glad to see everyone here and I hope you all reach your goals! 

Matt

Hi, I'm Nick from the UK. I just discovered ChessMood (I found the YouTube channel first) and I absolutely love the opening repertoire - it's just what I was looking for and fits with a lot of what I was already playing. I'm in my 40s but still trying to improve. In the last 3 years or so I managed to go from about 140 ECF to a new peak rating of 187, which is a jump from roughly 1750 about 2100 ELO, so I know that improvement as an adult is possible. The only thing is, if you stop practising, your rating can slide back down! I'm a stand-up comedian and writer by profession and the pandemic has really hit my work hard, so I'm mostly at home at the moment. Obviously there's a big negative to this (no money). But the positive side of this is a) we got a puppy; and b) I have some time to spend seriously applying myself to chess again.

Anyway, I'm delighted to have found ChessMood in time to be able to access it while I could still afford to. A week ago, I'd never heard of this site; now it's the one I spend the most time on. Thank you and congratulations to GM Grigoryan for a fantastic new chess resource during this Golden Age of online chess.

Hello!

I'm Hugo, a Software Engineer from Argentina. I'm 33 years old. I've played chess since I was a kid but always with friends and family (and against the computer), so I've been studying and playing online for the last six months.. and I'm completely hook!. I don't have an official rating but I'm around 1600 in classical in lichess.

I'm extremely happy to be part of this community and hope to meet you all!

My name is Tom, I live in the Detroit area, I'm 70 years old, and have been addicted to chess since army basic training in 1974. I am a classic underachiever with high IQ and low self-discipline, so my USCF hangs around 1500 or so. My only "claim to fame" would be that I've played three generations of Finegolds: I played Ron in a local tournament, Ron's son Ben in an OTB game in the local chess club we both were in at the time, and Ben's son Spencer in the Michigan Open. I lost to all three. Ben was in high school and "only" a master (maybe expert?) at the time. Ron was a master and had played Bobby Fischer. So I played someone who played Fischer! Of course, that would be more impressive if I'd won. I retired last year, so now I have more time to study the Bible and chess, my two favorite subjects. :-) I very much enjoy this site.

Hello ChessMood family!

My name is Francois. I was born in Switzerland, but I have lived in the US since 2001. I moved to Mountain View, California, after 14 years in Florida.

My first degree is in Education (licensed teacher). I later got a M.S. in Computer Science and did different things in the software field (engineering, consulting, entrepreneurship).

I love games, in particular chess, poker and backgammon. I did not play chess for about 10 years but rekindled my interest in 2016. I opened an account on chess.com where I enjoy playing, watching videos, and solving puzzles. As of today, my chess.com ratings are: rapid 2030, blitz 2061, and bullet 2003.

My main objective is to learn and have fun, but it would not hurt if I managed to become a stronger player. I would consider it as a real success if I could add 200 points to my chess.com ratings. The awesome content prepared by the ChessMood GMs will help me reach this goal, but based on the recommendation of Avetik, I am interested in teaming up with a study/sparring partner of similar strength (1900 - 2200). Let me know if you are interested :)


Dear Chessmood family, 

I'm thrilled to be part of this community. I just joined and had a wonderful conversation with GM Avetik. I will do everything he recommended - watch the Happy Pieces video series, review 3 famous games per week, and learn the openings (all from the white side) over the next 1-2 months.

I'm 38 years old, work full time in NYC and have 2 young children, so chess has definitely taken a back seat in my life over the past few years. 

My son, who is almost 6, has gotten into chess and it's re-ignited my interest in this wonderful game! Before I stopped playing in 2014, I was rated 2243 USCF (2076 FIDE). I have a goal of becoming a FIDE Master, and will work hard to achieve it. 

I would really like to play some training games to practice these new openings.

Hello everyone. My name is Alex. I am 38 years old. I am from Odessa Ukraine, but I moved to New York when I was little and later I moved to Tokyo after the university. I have only recently joined the Chessmood, although I keep trying to solve a daily puzzle every day. I'll keep the rest short.

I noticed an earlier post from Edu Tokyo. I believe we know each other in real life.

Hi Dear chess family,

My name is Vladimir Bugayev. I’m 49 years old, moved to Brooklyn NY from Tajikistan in 1996. Did here all kind of things worked in moving company, as a home attendant, limo driver, ambulatte dispatcher, programmer, Swiss company representative, yellow cab driver until one day discovered that I’m not bad at all at teaching chess (have been playing chess professionally since 7). I’m especially good at knowing how not to teach ;)) I have 3 kids 17, 15 and 11 made all kind of mistakes with their teaching :)Two of them currently are on top 100 list of their age in USA. I’ve also volunteered and organized a chess team at my children’s school. So we are a real chess family, even won twice already World Team Amateur East as best family team. I’m myself a US National master with current USCF rating of 2255. Teach chess to kids as a full time job. Love to play blitz, this is the way of relaxation for me, instead of alcohol ;) What I really enjoy here on the chessmood - how coaches use what they teach and you can see it with your own eyes through their games and streams, really cool. You can find me on lichess and chess.com under name of batradz.

Best,

coach Vlad

Hi all!

My name's Meeth Shah. I'm from India but brought up in Kuwait. I'm 19 years right now and will turn 20 soon, I'm currently a University student studying Computer Systems Engineering in London at the Queen Mary University of London. I've been playing chess since the age of 3 but did not play between the ages of 4 to 11. I restarted chess at the age of 11 playing for my school competitively and managed to make it to the National Playoffs at the age of 13. I'm also an athlete that runs the sprint events and the relays and have made it to the National Playoffs for the same 3 years consecutively. I spend about 3 to 6 hours on chess on a daily basis now, my passion for chess just grows daily. I would love to get to know more people here and train with them and/or discuss chess topics and am open to discuss other topics apart from chess as well. I've just joined this platform and am very new to this platform. Hoping to talk to you all soon and making new friends! Cheers!

I am Shankhodip De, I am 11 years old and  I am from West Bengal, India

My highest elo was 1590. My elo now is 1573

I learnt chess from my father when he saw this game in our school book. Then he taught the rules of the game and really wanted me to play this game.

I first joined the club Alekhine Chess Club, there were many Bengal players who rose from there there were many international tournaments played there and Korchnoi, Short,Tiviakov, Anandetc.

Hello,

I am Matthäus. I am 14 years old and  I live in Sweden. I learned chess because my brother played it but he never wanted to play with me but I started playing in the same club. I have been playing chess since I was about 6 but I never started taking it seriously until right before the summer. Sadly that's when the pandemic started but luckily my club have still had small tournaments so I got my FIDE-rating then which was 1400. I am still only 1450 but I feel as if my rating is a bit higher since I can compete with 1800(I have a positive score:)).

Lichess: Matbuc123 (1900 blitz, 1700 rapid)

Hello I'm Claudio Thoux  from Italy, I'm 48 and I'm a school Director (actually 11 schools... to many). I play chess since I was 6... and always loose with my father & brother. That's why when was 20 and I met Italian female champion on holiday helding chess courses I joined it and start studying chess. I went, as adviced, on east Indian and Sicilian,  studied a lot but only played once in FIDE tournament which was in Turin (we're I lived) Olympiad 2006. I did quite good but that was it. Then married & babies (2) kept me away from studying & only used to play bullet (argggghhhh). So,  I haven't done my monthly & year plan yet (I will) but daily one: one classical game,  follow YouTube GM Avetik's lesson, solve puzzle (if possible) and go on with openings. 15 minutes tactics on chess.com, no more, as coach said and... no more bullet (by the way I can understand smokers trying to stop smoking!!... I failed only 3 times in 45 days I'm in chessmood family)!

My dream? FIDE Master would be great and compete for Turin championship. 

My Id on lychess and chess.com is iaiobros

I wish the best to all chessmood family! 

It's interesting in watching these videos. You get to know the GM pretty well.  GM Avetik has a nice sense of humor. Just started additional scotch sections. GM thinks the only way someone would play nf6 is if they already planned on responding to your white bishop and oops! misclick. I was rolling, laughing out loud. I also like when he calls the knights stupid! Love it.

Hello Friends!

My name is Paul Sherman and I'm a 41-year-old chess improver from Northern Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C. I learned the rules of chess as a child but had never played more than a handful of games until I was 37 and had my first son. I was looking for something to do while holding a sleeping baby and had at some point downloaded the Magnus Trainer App. From there I moved to the Play Magnus App and then, a few months later, over to Chess.com and games against real people. Pretty soon I was hooked and spending as much time as possible (and more money than appropriate) playing and studying chess.

I don't have a FIDE or USCF rating, but I'm rated about 900 in blitz and 1400 in daily games on Chess.com. The biggest things I'm working on right now are time management (I lose the overwhelming majority of my games on time or because of time trouble) and strategy in the middle game. But I love all aspects of the game and enjoy working hard at improving.

If anyone would like to play, whatever their rating, my Chess.com username is psherman31. I can't wait to get to know you all better and work with you on improving our chess.

Best,

Paul

Hello! I am Sidharth Sreekumar from Kerala, India. Fide Rated - 1194 (haven't played in 2020 and 2021) I am 10 years old. I born right on the World Chess Day - 20.07.2010! My biggest achievement in chess is to win against Nigel Short in an OTB simul when I was 9. My aim is to become a World Chess Champion. 

Bonjour everybody, My name is Sharan Sridhar, I am from India. I am 19 years old and currently doing my bachelor's degree in physics. My aim is to become a scientist in the field of quantum physics. I also have a great passion for chess. I started playing chess when I was very young(maybe 7 years old), I never went to any high level professional coaching and I was more of a club player who plays chess based on my intuition. I gained my Elo when I was 9 years old(around 1485) and I used to enjoy playing chess. However, my lack of chess knowledge, strategy and so on inhibited my growth and I eventually lost interest in chess when I was a early teen. Here and there I just used to play tournaments and never learnt anything. Last year I decided to improve my chess and I started to really work hard(6 hours a day) and I really raised around 200 Elo points in around 6 months(Now my rating is 1804).  Recently, Only after joining the wonderful chess mood family I found out what I was missing all these years and gained significant love for the game. I really want to become a Gm someday before I die and with the right mood I am really happy to focus on my chess and enjoy playing the game.

Hello all,  

Thank you for sharing all your passion for chess. 

I am very happy to be a part of chessmood family.   

I am trying to find a balance to be able learning more about chess and improve my rating.   I am playing a lot on Lichess, my nick name is KajsaWarg .  I  like to analysing my games and find it important for having a deeper understanding and learning from my  mistakes.  I  prefer rapid games.   

I am from Sweden.  Living in Stockholm, 

Looking forward to get to know you all and sharing  our thoughts about chess in this forum.   

Hello,

My name is Leslie Smith, age 50, I live in the USA. I have been playing chess on and off for most of my life and for only a few years in the late 1990s early 2000s I became a club level player. Life took over and until recently I rarely played, just some periodic very bad late night fast blitz on chess.com.

At this point in my life I have the blessing of time and have decided to reach the goal of Master. What I find interesting is that there are so many sources that say this is almost impossible at my age, well I plan on being that outlier. I am enjoying what I have learned so far with Chessmood and am encouraged by this great community. 

Best wishes to you!

Leslie

Hi --- I'm Keven aged 66 from Cheshire England. I am now fully retired. I had a business career in various  multinational corporations with endless international travel. In the Covid era I'm glad to just be home ! 

I have been interested in Chess since school -- back in the 'mists of time' for me !! I've been an active member of a local chess club and play league games within the city area. TBH I'm no more that local league standard but enjoy playing.

My goal now is to challenge myself to improve further and I think Chess Mood is the right set of courses and the right supportive environment, for me to move forward and keep my cognitive functions 'tip top' in retirement .

Hi Everyone,

I’m a 49-year old software developer from Wales, and my two passions in life, apart from good food, good company and spending time with friends, are skiing and playing chess.  I learned chess when I was six years old and achieved a 2000 rating when I was about 15.  Sadly, I reached a plateau and have stayed around 2100-2200 for the last 30 years. I have never had a coach, and I think my study has often been haphazard and not structured enough to make real progress.  This year I decided to do something different and put some effort into studying to see if I can raise my level to 2300+, and that’s why I’ve joined ChessMood.

I represented Wales as a junior and am on the shortlist for selection to the Olympiad team, but unfortunately, we are a weak chess country – so that doesn’t say too much.  I play for my local club, Nidum, which happens to have been one of the strongest clubs in Wales for many years.  This has allowed me to travel quite a bit with chess to various European Club Cups at some great locations and make some chess friends along the way.

For example, I have a 100% score against Mamedyarov.  Pity, it is in table football and not chess lol! 

Our poor club team has faced an Armenian club team in this competition several times. It was quite a pleasure playing alongside Akopian, Lputian, Minasian, Danielian and Vaganian (What a team!)  Wow!  They ended up winning the whole thing many times.  No surprises there!  My loss to Vaganian was terrible!  But it was a lot of fun and a real honour to play such a legend.  When I saw that ChessMood is run by strong Armenian Grandmasters who offer excellent explanations in their courses, I knew it would be well worth it.  The videos are truly superb, and I look forward to digesting them one by one. I’m excited to see how ChessMood can help me achieve my goals of adding 100-200 rating points and look forward to meeting you all and playing a few games of chess too!  Let’s Go!

Hello guys,

I'm Paulius Juknis from Lithuania, current elo 2143, aiming to reach 2300 (FM). I work as a software developer and have big passion for chess during spare time.

Looking forward to put in hard work and improve my game.

Happy to have found this chessmood community. Lots of quality courses!

Hi Team!

My name is Cristina Svensson and I am living in Uppsala Sweden. I played chess for some years when I was a teenager, in my homeland Romania, but after that I took a break for 4 decades. I am still playing like a teenager, hopefully I will evolve and learn some chess fundamentals by joining the  ChessMood family.

Hello everyone,

This it Itzael Mendivil, 34 years old from Mexico. 1360 rating in chess.com. 

I started playing chess against a computer with MS2 operative system and windows 3.1 back in early 90's.

I've been playing on and off since then but never studied chess formally. I had 1-1 call last night( 5/6), I am willing to follow the plan, put the work and see how far and can go. 

Nice to meet you!

I am Satish Nair from Canada. I am 50 but no one says I am 50. I play chess to burn calories, surprised!! Don't be surprised because if you do blindfold chess every day, you will burn calories. I live in the most beautiful city of Victoria, an Island that is the 7th best place to live in the world. Covid never consumed us but we never say never, we wear our masks. 

I have been playing chess since my 30's. I improve and improve and then breaks in my life bring my score down. But here I like to interact, play and get entertained on chess.

Hi everyone,

My name is Sarathi, 45 years old, a lawyer in New York City.   I play regularly at the Marshall Chess Club, and I am also a board member there.  My Fide is 2025 and I am aiming to raise it to 2100.  My favorite feature on the site is the puzzle of the day.  And also watching the streams with ChessMood openings.  

It is great to be part of the ChessMood family.   And I admire all the work and effort that all of the Armenian GM's and their staff have put into creating an amazing on-line learning platform.   Let's grow together!  

Hello everyone, I am Giorgos, from Greece, 15 years old. I started playing chess at the age of 6, but around 13 I started to be serious about my chess goals and improvement. Before 2 years, I discovered chessmood, after watching streams (I watch often blitz streams by strong GMs who have more than 2650 blitz rating). At that time, I started playing online and my ratings were around 1400. I became a pro member for the last 3 summer months, and in that period I raised around +300 online rating (all timings included), but from now on I will be a pro member permanently. Although I do not have a fide rating, my fide rating strength would be above 1700, as I have passed 2000 rating on lichess blitz, and have ratings above 1900 rapid and blitz in chess.com and lichess. My chess goal is to become at least a fide master, and if I reach that level, to try to get GM title with above 2600 Elo. I have completed almost all opening courses, apart from the Pirc set, Sicilian sidelines and The gambit set. I have also completed all the commented classical games, and the pawn and rook endgames. In addition, I made a reply in the sparring partners page, you can find me there. So I raised 600 rating points in 2 years and 7 months and now I am targeting 2300. 

Hello everybody,
as it always happen - by some beautiful coincidence of random meetings I met Avetik Grigoryan, well better to say I was given his contact as the "magic guy" who can help me to pass 2100 as I am stuck here for a year already! So I am here :)
We talked and while I was in my excitement of learning Evans Gambit he gave me some tips and ideas to start with... So after 1-2 months of thinking I've finally signed up and can't wait to grow as a chess player and reach 23 or 2400 (because why not?).
In few words, I'm 32, PhD in biochemistry,  working with neurodegenerations such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases.  I was taught to play chess by my grandpa, and later my father who is an active chess com player. I've learned in the most hardest way by just playing and repeating same mistakes thousands of times when slowly fixing them. Over 30 000 games and still hating Scandinavian and forgetting f3 pawn to move :)
But I love it, I love sacrificing and putting myself in the worst positions and trying to find the way out of it. 
But now I'm thrilled to learn from all of you and digest all these ideas, openings, tactics described here! I love the style and way of teaching, and I think it will be a great journey for me! 
Let's see how it goes and what is my rating and may be title (why not?)))) when I'm 40!
Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeers to everyone
Gor

Hi everyone!

Here is Tarik Selbes;  originally from Istanbul/Turkey but currently living in Leszno/ Poland. I'm a FIDE Master with two IM norms -hoping to get the third one soon- and also am a chess coach myself. Not really an active tournament player and have never played more than a few tournaments a year but want to change that and hope to play more chess in future. While I was looking for some materials to train myself, especially regarding openings,  a friend of mine recommended me this website and well, here I am. 

Glad to have joined it and looking forward to check the courses by established grandmasters and connect with others in the due process.

Dear all,

Hello everyone my name is Alex Ung, 46 years old from the island of Penang, Malaysia. I work in IT as a sysadmin. I got to know about ChessMood from GM Noel Studer's blog.

I've been playing chess since childhood but have not improved since my high school days. So I'm happy to join, I really like the concepts here on improving ourselves all-round and am sure all of us are getting stronger together.

With no OTB events to play in since last year I'm playing only online of course. My lichess handle is "Alex_Ung" and chess.com handle is "Capauta". 

My best wishes to everyone in the ChessMood family!

Thanks,
Alex

Hello there

I better introduce myself as well.
 
My name is Rasmus, I am 44 years old, married, have three children and work as a certified public accountant.

I played a lot of chess in elementary school, but got away from it again because of ice hockey, studies, and family.

I started playing again 6 years ago, have 1800 in ELO, but have spent more time starting a club with a friend, where the club is now on its way up in the Danish 2nd division. The club has started on the principle that we should become better players through online training and OTB training camps where we have had Bartosz Socko and Vladimir Malakhov as coaches. Both players have also played team matches for us.

But now the time has come for me to become a little bit stronger myself, and via Noel Studers blog I found this page where I have primarily spent my time watching the commented classic games, a discipline I have neglected badly in my youth!

My goal in the short term is to get up to 1900 in ELO, and in the slightly longer term to get up over 2000.

In connection with the pandemic, I tried a few online coaches, but unfortunately the quality was extremely low, so I lost the desire to try to find the right one.

I’m looking forward being a part of this community, to gain a lot of new knowledge and a lot of new relationships :-)

 

Hello All, 

My name is Imtiyaz Hirani, I am from Mumbai, India. I am 38 as of Aug, 2021. My father taught me chess when I was 8 and until I went to university, I participated in many local and state tournaments in under 17, under-14 age groups and luckily also did well in many tournaments. ;) 
The reason I say luckily is because most of the players that i competed with at that time on top boards where trained by professional coaches and I was mostly on my own with few chess books. 
I was always behind the game after openings, and in the middle-game i used to hold on and somehow win with end games. ;). 
After that I had to give up chess for focus on education. It wasn't an easy decision, but from whatever little chess experience I had, I knew that without proper coaching its very hard to progress beyond a certain level.

I am a software engineer and trainer. I teach coding to newly joined programmers in my company  and try to help them take their coding skills to next level. In many ways coding is also like chess. fundamentals and preparation are key words here too. 

Recently I participated in local online tournament and all the chess memories came back.  My family is also encouraging me to devote some time to chess so that I won't have regret that I completely gave up on chess. 

I don't have any goals regarding rating as such, but i want to improve my own game. I see the way GMs  prepare their moves, with deep planning, It really fills me up with joy playing and watching someone play like that. 

Hope someday I could play even 10% of the way they play. 

Finally, I am delighted to be part of chessmood community. I can see that many members have almost same story as mine. Hope to be part of the site for long. 

Thanks for having me. 

Dear ChessMood family,

At the request of GM Gabuzyan in our Facebook group, I would like to briefly introduce myself. It took me a while to respond to this request, as I have been busy at work and busy playing tournaments, which I will also tell about. By profession, I am a software developer, working on logistics optimization for the last several years.

I come from Riga, Latvia and was born in 1985. I learned to play chess at the age of 5 and was playing competitively throughout school, which covers years 1990-2003. At that time, I managed to become a candidate master, was rated over 2100 nationally and had a FIDE rating of about 2050. After school, I stopped playing, with a brief attempt at a comeback in years 2012-2013.

In the beginning of this year (2021), I decided to take up chess again. There are a number of reasons for that, but if I would have to condense it in one sentence, then I believe that chess, if done properly and taken up as a discipline, has the potential to help people become a better version of themselves.

So I have been working on chess since January 2021, practicing online on lichess.org. Eventually, in the beginning of July 2021, my search for a quality source of systematic chess education led me to ChessMood, which, as I already shared with GM Avetik and GM Gabuzyan, I am very, very happy with and already managed to complete several parts of the Nc3 Sicilian course.

Recently, I had the opportunity to play my first OTB tournaments in Latvia after more than eight and a half years. These were Latvian rapid chess championship, RTU Open rapid and RTU Open A standard tournament. Since my lichess.org rating is in the range 2250-2300 and online ratings are about 300 points higher than those in real life, my expectation was that I could expect a 1950-2000 performance, which would be a decent starting point for a comeback.

Unfortunately, the reality check turned out to be different. In the first two rapid tournaments, my performance was 1859 and 1609, and in the standard tournament the performance was about 1646, dropping 169 points of rating in total.

The standard tournament I started with five loses in a row, finding myself at the bottom of the table and playing a couple of games at the last board. Admittedly, at that point I was starting to doubt that coming back to chess was such a good idea, because if after seven months of preparation I end up there at the bottom, then maybe I should be doing something else in life.

Then, I managed to draw with a WIM, who was apparently also not having a great tournament, which lifted my spirits a bit and I scored 3 points out of 4 in the last four games.

So that was my first standard tournament after a long break and there were multiple things to learn. For one, I have not listened to the advice GM Noel Studer gives on his blog to take a few days off before the tournament - rather, I was tired after the intense pre-vacation week and went straight for the tournaments without rest, which affected the rapid and the first part of the standard event. 

I am also grateful for this experience of being off to a humble start, because it gave me a practical experience of how other competitors feel when the event does not go well for them and what it takes to persevere.

The good news is that, even though new to ChessMood, in these tournaments I have already managed to apply ideas from the Nc3 Sicilian courses and got very nice positions out of the opening, so I am continuing my studies under the direction of our grandmasters (and listening to their advices, on and off the board) and, hopefully, eventually I will share a more positive experience with you. :-)

Hi everyone.

I am J.Pragkya

I became a ChessMood PRO Member yesterday in hope of improving my chess.

I am 15 years old and live in India.

Hello everyone!

I am Sheersonno Biswas from India. 15 years old with Fide Standard 1339 rapid 1190 blitz 1210. I learned chess at 4yrs of age, my dad taught me. I played for a while and at 7 I left chess(thought it was a game of stupid nerds ;) At 13 I again returned and started taking it seriously. I want to become 2000 rated by the age of 20 and a GM by the age of 25. I get frustrated a lot these days as the covid in my country is increasing and all OTB tourneys are stopped.

Olá everyone,

Claudio de Macedo is my name, 47 years young, Portuguese but grown up in Sweden. 

So good to have found my way here. I stumbled upon some videos of GM Avetik and I was hooked straight away. Just after a few days of joining ChessMood I decided to go PRO. Its very nice to see the community here and Im sure its a top place for growth. 

I didn't have a strong background in chess as a kid. I was taught by my stephfather when I was young. His level I suspect was not that strong and I remeber he wanted to play less the more I beat him. So unfortunatly my games became less and I wasnt even aware about chess schools.

Later in life I played sporadicaly over the board with people I met while traveling, but mostly I played on apps on the phone. I was working as a diving intructor for a long time in many places in South-east, Australia, Egypt and Europe.  

It was only 5 years or so ago, while I was traveling in India, that I started to play more regular and started to do chess training and took some classes. My love for this beautiful game had re-ignited. Nowadays I'm back home in Sweden, more settled with 3 small kids. Getting own time is precious and when I do I mostly study chess, watch videos, watch games and try to improve my play. I recently started playing at a chess club and my aim is to play league games for my club and get a title. 

My online ranking on Chess.com is around 1500 Blitz, 1650 Rapid and 1900 Daily. 

Hi all,I am Dr.Anoop.G,  from state of Kerala in INDIA. I am a 36year old Psychiatrist  in Government  Health Services  In my state...

I used to play from 10 to 14 years....learnt chess at 10years...but did not have the support to continue. Unfortunately  my dad considered all these are distraction  from studies.....

Years later now in 2021 ,the passion  somewhere  deep within got revived when I started teaching my 5 Yr old daughter  on her birthday  in June 30,2021. Her growing interest  and amazing progress really encouraged me to bring out my chess dreams....

I find this a wonderful  initiative...Thanks to GM team and members. 

I want to meet people, travel ,interact with like-minded people.Chess is something  that connects all of us beyond boundaries 

I'm Anton from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I'm 34 and I've been studying and playing chess somewhat seriously since March 2020.

I like to play practice games early in the morning, before work. Would be great if I could make some chess friends here. If you also enjoy playing 30+0 games, and if you are free in the mornings (EST time), let me know!

As white, i like d4 openings. As black, I love the French defense :)

If anyone else is from Ontario, you are welcome to message me. 

Hi together,

my name is Daniel and I am on board since last week. I am 37, married, have two Kids and live in Austria.

In november 2020 I was infected with the chess-virus and since then have been playing and studying the game passionately. Most of the times you can find me on lichess (rating 1600 classical) by the Nickname MtdGun. The Name stands for M-Mindset, T-Training and D-Dedication because I belive these are the most important principles when approaching any endeavor. Gun stands for Gunslinger, reffering to Roland Deschain from Stephen Kings Dark Tower Books. I chose it because I constantly feel like chasing my own dark tower, but never reaching it :).

I am always looking for training partners around my level so if you are interested, please contact me.

I usually practice and study in the morning and play games on Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Saturday at around 8 pm CET.

I'm really looking forward to beeing a part of chessmood family.

See you soon, Daniel.

Hello all,


My name is Muath Bin Hussain, from Sauid Arabia, a country that has no GM, nor IM, and only CM.

I am 34-year old, managing my own consulting and training company. We train people in business and management.


I am also part-time lecturer at King Fahd Univeristy. 

My passion of chess started in 2016. But I started truly putting effort and studying the game around 2 years ago. 


My goal and aim is to become a FIDE Master, a title that no one in my country has acheived.

Looking forward to my journey with you !

Hi all;

I am Hovig Aramali from Beirut, Lebanon. I am 36 years old mechanical engineer with more than 12 years experience in the consutruction field with PMP certification. I've been a chess player since long time. I have won many medals and trophees in different tournaments in Lebanon during my school years & university years, photos attached; however, as I became older, I stopped playing chess since my marriage especially that I was lucky to have 3 children, 9 years Christ, 6 years old Christiana and 4 years old AnnaMaria.

As I love chess a lot, I started to teach it to my son and I have now some students in Lebanon that I teach chess. Unfortunately, I do not have any ELO rating, but I would be rated between 1800 and 2200.

Besides chess, I also do scientific experiments with my children and I have a Youtube channel.

However, as the topic is chess, I am enjoying my subscription to Chessmood for now and I hope to learn more and more from its lessons.

Hello, I am glad to have found ChessMood.com. I am 70 years old.  I have been playing chess, mostly online, for about 10 years. Mostly fumbling around, that is not learning much, in the way traditional chess has been played. Book moves, and all that stuff, I did have three lessons, in my life. I am excited about being on ChessMood.com. I am impressed by the content of ChessMood.com.  I hope to learn a lot here. 

Hello everyone,

My name is Mark, I reside in the United States (South Dakota). I'm a mental health therapist (MSW), and I just began playing chess less than a year ago. When I was in 8th grade, I did learn how the pieces move, but that was the extent of my learning. Over the last year, I have not been playing very many games, but I have been mainly doing puzzles, tactics, and playing engines. However, I began playing some games on chess.com this month, and I must say my performance is very erratic! I hang pieces and make foolish trades, and sometimes, mainly with Black, I get blown away in the opening. The reality is: I love playing and learning chess, but I suck! Most things come pretty easy for me, but chess is not one of them (which I like about it!) 

Anyway, I'm here to learn, and I'm open to any advice on how to improve. My screen name is LollyDharma on chess.com, so feel free to hit me up for a game or chat.

- Mark

Hello everyone!
I'm really excited to finally be here :D

My name is Sandro, I'm a 22 year old computer science student and chess player+coach from Croatia :)
My FIDE is jumping between 2200 and 2260 right now, but I'm really hoping to reach FM this year. After that I will shoot for more titles because I absolutely love chess!
My online ratings are all about 2400, with Chess.com puzzle rating being around 3200-3300 ( https://www.chess.com/member/sandro970 ). I started playing when I was 7, and started seriously when I was 13. Former top 10 U20 in Croatia, Junior team chess champion in 2019.
Started coaching in summer of 2019 and haven't stopped since. I absolutely love it, fills me with great joy to be able to help someone reach their dreams/goals. It feels like I'm on my purpose which is why I will never stop coaching chess even when I finish university and get a normal job. I hope I will be able to contribute to this amazing community! Love the content btw :)

Outside of chess, I'm a huge fan of escape rooms, board games, video games and sports (playing, not watching xD)

Ask me anything, I'm very open and interested in meeting cool ambitious people!

Hi everyone!

I'm Francesco. I'm 33 years old, physicist. I am originally from Venice, Italy, but I moved to Los Angels with my wife just before the pandemic.

I've been on and off with chess since I was a kid. I always liked it a lot but hated too much to lose lol. I loved to go through all Alekhine's games, but I didn't have many chances to play. For about 5 years now I've been studying it more consistently, although, without a proper structure. Just going from one book to another and things like that.

I hope to finally have found in ChessMood a reliable resource for having a properly structured material suitable for my level. And to have the chance to interact with stronger players constructively. From what I have seen so far, I'm very happy with my choice!

Cheers!

hello chessmood family!!

I am Jay Ismael Macadaag, 36 yrs old from philippines..i love playing chess it becomes my passion but I'm not good in any tournament. i always defeated with time mostly. most of the tournament now is rapid or 15min time. I don't know how to improve. in my blitz game i always loss in time and most of the game i get blunder, but i never stop playing.

Hi, I am Michael (retired since 1 year and from Hamburg/Germany originally but moved to France near Geneva some 37 years ago). Started to have time for chess learning and playing some 2-3 years ago. 1 months ago I became a pro member and well, so far I can only say that the courses are by far the best I found so far (and several others were also well done for my level between 1800-2000 on lichess).

Looking forward for continued learning here for the next years

all the best and thanks for having started this!   

Hello Chessmood Family!

I am Dipankar from India. I am 33 years old and I first learnt Chess when I was 8 years old maybe when my parents taught me. At that time, I did not take much interest and kept the Chessboard back in the closet!

Then when I went to engineering college at 17 years old, I somehow got very curious and interested in Chess during my summer vacation of the first year. I started searching the internet to learn and playing online and played some college-level tournaments.

At 21 years of age, I graduated from college and got a job, and I still have that same job to this day - I work as an IT consultant. So Chess slowed down as my job took up most of my time. But my love for Chess has been alive and I have played some tournaments over the years, although not very regularly. I lived in the US for 6 years and got my USCF rating to around 1940.

I first heard about Chessmood when I saw GM Avetik talking to IM Sagar Shah on Chessbase India channel. Then recently I decided to make the jump and become a PRO member. I must say I have been very impressed with the quality of courses and all the things the Grandmasters do for us students - streams, webinars, 1-1 calls and more. I have seen other Chess websites but I do not think there is another website where they are doing all this for their students.

I hope to improve my strength/rating and make our Grandmasters proud by becoming a good student!

Hello Chessmood Family! I'm Albert, from Spain. I am 37 years old and I learned to play chess when I was 11 years old, when 2 teachers from the chess club came to my village to teach chess. I immediately became very interested in the game. I have had seasons competing a lot, other seasons without playing, but now I can combine my work with chess and I want to improve. I have been an online poker player for 6 years and I love competition and strategy: this is why I love chess so much. After seeing a lot of material to improve (other courses, books, etc) I have decided to try Chessmood as a PRO member because of the quality of its content and the personalized treatment that teachers have. I hope to be able to meet my improvement goals, enjoying chess and this community.

Greetings from Ohio, USA! I'm excited to be a new pro member. In real life I'm a medical doctor specializing in psychiatry. In addition to chess, I enjoy cycling and hot-air ballooning. I'm out to prove that a 66 y.o. can still raise his rating. I've been stuck at ~1800 for over thirty years. My goal is 2000+. All the best - Denny

Hello chessmood-family, happy to join the community! My name is Marcus, I'm 39 years old, I live in Germany with my wife and two little boys (3 and 6) and a dog. I work as a business engineer in the automobile industry (the one with the four rings...) Chess has been a part of my life since I was around 14. Like many others, I had an ambitious time when I was around 20 years old and reached a level of about FIDE 2150. Since then my primary focus laid on other things. First playing football, then working, then family...so I didn't improve much anymore. Recently I decided that I want to give my chess improvement another chance. My aim is to reach 2300 FIDE (meaning FM-title). Why?Because I want to show my kids that we grow when we work hard on our given talents in order to reach ambitious goals. Via the great blog of Noel Studer nextlevelchess I found chessmood and Avetik convinced me to give it a go. I like the concept and am very curious where the chessmood-journey will take me :-) Especially I'm interested in the mental part of the game. I'm convinced that right mood = right move is absolutely right! See you! Marcus

Hello chessmood family I recently joined chessmood. My name is Zaid. I am 32 years old.I am originally from Iraq but I currently live on small Islands called the Faroe Islands. I work in a salmon factory called Bakkafrost [the best salmon **]. I started playing chess around 2 years ago with turbulent results and got my first rating last year otb as 1500 FIDE. my goal is to become 2000 OTB in 2 or 3 years and just play good chess and enjoy what I do over the board. sometimes I get so stressed when I play over the board and think for a minute what am I doing here. I really hope this feeling goes away as I want to enjoy the game and not get stressed by it. I wonder if you feel the same. I wish that I have found chessmood earlier as from what I see, it offers great content. I think I would have saved money as well ** I play in the team league here on the Faroe Islands and various tournaments when the season starts. I hope to have a good season this year with chessmood. Zaid ^^

Hi Chessmood family! I am 37 years old.. I am rated around 1600 and my aim is to become a GM! It's tough but I've beaten a couple of GMs already so maybe it can be done... I am very much motivated since if I manage, I guess I will be the oldest that made it! I am strong at positional game and everything goes smoothly if I keep tactics away... I am not sure I can improve calculation at this age.. I seem to do a lot of stupid mistakes when it comes down to tactics or when the position gets messy even in the slightest.. a lot of times in completely winning positions my opponent will try to attack me with almost no pieces or foundations for an attack (just out of desperation) and still most of the times I will lose the game... Hopefully the tactic ninja course will make me invincible! :D

Hello everyone from Chessmood family! My name is Karanay, I'm a 21 years old chess player from Dagestan, Russia. Currently studying to get a master's degree. My lichess rating is 1700, and offline it's 1400-1500 (not FIDE). My strong sides are openings and strategy, but I often lose a game because of a stupid blunder and struggle winning won positions. My aim is to get rid of those problems and get 2000 offline rating by the end of the year and become a FM in a year. I hope Chessmood will help me to get better at chess :)

Hello everyone from the Chessmood family! I'm a 15-year old chess player currently living in the UK. I am really passionate about chess and want to become an FM by april 2023. Currently, my rating in the UK (not FIDE) is 1900-2000. My chess.com ratings are as follows: Rapid = 2100 Blitz = 2200 Bullet = 2000 I joined chessmood at the end of June this year and I am already seeing the results. The dynamic, attacking openings that chessmood have perfectly fit my style since I like complicated positions. I often lose games because I overpress in equal positions. Thank you GM Av for the affordable and high quality content! ChessMood is improving my chess a lot! :)

Hello chessmood family I have a question if you are over 2100 would you learn a new white opening as well as the scotch

Hey, team! My name is Bill and Im currently USCF 1488. Ive been playing for years but have stagnated. Got back into chess recently and have switched to the Caro-Kann and love it (I notice there seem to only be resources for how to play against the CK here). Excited to learn here and get better. Best of luck to all of you on your chess journey!

Hi all. I've been a pro member for quite a while so figured I should get around to posting an intro in this thread. I'm returning to competitive chess after a break of more than 25 years. My (very inactive) FIDE rating is about 2250. My goal is to get the FM title and my why is "unfinished business". I see this as a huge challenge given that I'm no longer in my 20s, 30s, or 40s! I'm focused on putting the work in, taking things one step at a time, and enjoying the process.

Hi all! My name is Antonio and in November I decided to subscribe the PRO membership after "studying" and evaluating this site for a couple of weeks. I'm from Italy, 52 years old. I'm an engineer and my job is in a telecommunications company. About chess... I play mostly on lichess, my rating is about 2000 in rapid and standard (my preferred time controls); in FIDE official tournaments my rating is slowly dropping, now I'm 1635. With ChessMood my aim is to raise the quality of my games and possibly to invert the descending trend, I have some expectations mainly in how to approach and manage the games against higher rated opponents. I start this experience with a lot of enthusiasm, I'm at the same time aware of the hard work is needed in chess to achieve some results, so I will try to enjoy with your help this fascinating path... Antonio

Hello Chessmooders, I'm Jared. I'm 36 and I live in Alabama, USA. I'm 1100 on lichess, playing mostly King's Indian and Bongcloud. I'm lost in the opening; however, and am hoping that learning the Chess Mood repertoire will significantly help my game. I'm going through the Chess Mood openings for white, ATM. Loving GM Grigoryan's style of lecturing. He's got that smooth voice and every section reminds me to stop what I'm doing and actually pay attention (which I need :P). Anyway, looking forward to meeting you folks. If any of you higher rated players want a laugh sometime, challenge me on lichess and I'll show you what an 1100 bongcloud looks like. https://lichess.org/@/BlunderingTactician

Hey Chessmood students, I'm Noah, 21, in California USA. 1200 on Lichess, and technically 700 on Chess.com because I selected 800 and lost some games when I first started chess. I'm looking to solidify my openings and truly start mastering a select few as my "pet" openings. It's ambitious, but I'm willing to put in all the work and commitment to becoming a GM one day hopefully

Hello everyone Today I joined chessmoodpro. My rating is fide1255, chess.com is 2200+, blitz is 1756. Lichess is 2100+, I don't like playing on lichess. My goal is to win below 1600 in India where I came from in March 2023. Before that I need to cross 2600 rating on chess.com first. I'm starting from Openings .

Greetings all. I'm incredibly excited to join ChessMood. From reading Grigoryan's blog posts and appreciating the communication style to finding other random GMs/IMs/FMs who recommend ChessMood, I somehow knew I'd end up joining ChessMood. Being an "adult improver", I have come back to chess after many years away. I got involved in competitive chess in elementary school but over time, my attention drifted elsewhere. Over the past year +, I got back into chess and found I now LOVE soaking up knowledge around chess topics. I really enjoy reading annotated games, soaking up training courses, and trying to put these learned skills into practice. (Though, I probably have spent too much on books and courses without much focus... Another reason why I'm here now in ChessMood.) I'm currently 1988 USCF (quick-rated). 2000-ish on Lichess and for some reason, stuck right around 1500 on Chess.com Because of my work, I rarely have dedicated time to just SIT for long periods of chess games. I have a lot of "interrupt-driven" aspects of life. Thus, I have been playing a lot of "Daily Games/Correspondences" games. I work as a high school programming and computer science teacher that also as the chess coach and mentor for the K-12 students. We live in the middle of "nowhere" on a very rural Native American reservation school. I'm enjoying seeing the growth in my chess students as they apply their newly acquired chess skills and incorporate those skills into other aspects of school and life. My goals.... - Gain greater confidence in the "middle game" because I feel fairly comfortable with openings as well as figuring out endgames in the midst of a game.... My biggest weakness (I feel) is that my middle-game tactics and strategy fails me too often. - I want to prepare myself to get back to OTB games. - I'm also looking to learn and grow ALONG SIDE other like-minded individuals and move beyond some of the "solitary" life that exists in the study of chess.

Hello! I'm Sanjay, I'm 12 and I have a fide rating of 1500. I have a lichess 2200 and chess.com 2000 rating. I used to be 2300 on lichess but I am slowly dropping my rating there. I hope to use ChessMood to help me become a better chess player and strengthen my conceptual understanding so that I can raise my rating, both online and OTB. I hope to also have fun while doing so. Thank you!

Hello all, I finally found the improvement site that I dreamed of finding many years ago. Being 50 years old it is time to get a solid 2000+ rating online aswell OTB. With ChessMood and yours all help I am sure I can reach this goal and maybe even get beyond. See you all at the 2000+ rating side!

Hello, my name is Christian, and I am a young guy from Denmark, looking forward to breaking my plateau with the help of chessmood.

Hi, I'm Omkar Deshpande. My fide rating is 1468. My chess.com rating is 2000+ . lichess is 2200+. This year target is before december my rating have to have reached 2600+ on chess.com and lichess. So,I can win big delhi below1900 and 1600 rating tournaments easily. and eventually increase fide rating as well . If there is someone who need playing partner please send friend request or give your ID . My ID is Omi_chessmood

Hi, I'm Csaba from Slovakia. I have no fide rating or deep knowledge about chess. I started last December as an absolute beginner to distract myself from my coding work. I cannot do this full-time, just like an hour/per day, and I am not young anymore, at least what my date of birth says, so my memory is not as good as it was My target is 1200 on chess.com, but I'm far from it (for 300 games: bullet 250; blitz (I like 5|0) 117, rapid 165, puzzle 610). Somebody mentioned on a stream ChessMood last week, so I subscribed, but all I see are advanced players around here, so I don't know if I am on the right path/page, but at least I am slowly going through the courses by the plan, which I like. Excellent work, guys. If anybody wants me as a playing partner, or rather coach me with my elo, please send me a friend request or contact me via chat my ID is: kobuki_rs

Hi friends. I am Veera from India. My age is 26. My FIDE rating is 1654 (Peak rating: 1765). I started playing Chess at the age of 15. I was not able to continue playing due to some personal reasons. So, I stopped playing Chess after a few years. I am working as a Chess Coach since the age of 17. But my love for this Art didn't reduce. This time I am not going to Quit. I am going to give my best to reach better heights. My goal is to become IM in the next 2 or 3 years. Very happy to join the ChessMood family. Looking forward to working with you friends. All the Best to Everyone🙂

Hello ChessMood family! My name's Ken, and I'm an adult improver. Perhaps one of the oldest I've seen here, a short couple of years away from 60! I've loved chess all my life, and have gone through many phases of obsession and study, only to hit a wall realizing chess is really hard, get frustrated, and then to step away from the game for some number of years. But I can't remain away for very long and always come back, regretting the time spent away. My classical rating's around 1400 on chess.com and 1700 on lichess. Once I had the goal to reach master level, but being realistic, my sights are set currently on expert (2000 USCF). I know with effortful study and dedication I can reach this goal. I have the good fortune to have a lot of free time to work on study and playing chess these days. The challenge is to partition this time in the most effective way to build my playing strength as efficiently as possible. But rating really is not important to me. What I *really* want is to be a strong player, comfortable in every phase of the game, able to play with confidence to the best of my ability under all circumstances. I know my main challenge is that I prefer to add knowledge as opposed to work on building skill. I have a large library of chess books, most unread. It's easy and enjoyable to add knowledge, but building skill takes sweat and effort and change, it takes real grit. On this latest return to study and play I really feel that I am completely dedicated to reaching my goal and that I am willing to do what it takes to build skill as my #1 task. My skill deficiencies are many (as my rating shows!), but the really big ones are: 1) unforced blunders (forgetting that I have an opponent who is also trying to win and can make moves!); and 2) time management (I play wayyyy toooo sloooowly, afraid to make tactical mistakes, and end up losing winning positions because I'm usually playing only on increment by the endgame). I enjoy blitz but it just reinforces my bad habit of not considering opponent replies, so for the moment I'm taking a break from it to concentrate of building the habit of considering strong opponent replies on every move of the game. I've joined the lichess 4545 league and am playing in ches.com Dan Heisman Learning Center club slow tournaments. These groups have strong players, and I'm already struggling. They prepare for their opponent's openings. I'm on a 5-game losing streak so far, and it's challenging to maintain the mood in that context. While I don't enjoy losses, they don't phase me all that much, I see them as lessons. However, if I played below my potential and lose because of something I already know (safety check all candidate moves, move in the required amount of time), as opposed to being outplayed, *that* really bothers me. I tend to lose the mood in games after a blunder, and find it hard to put up the most challenging defense afterwards. I enjoy studying Tibetan Buddhism, especially dream yoga, and my reading in this area has taught me the key importance of mind/mood/thoughts, and how this effects our life and our performance. I am a firm believer in "right mood - right moves!" But underlying that is the foundation of strong opening, tactical, strategic, and endgame pattern recognition, and I have a long, long way to go to build up these areas. My current focus is a "woodpecker" approach on a pool of simple, basic tactics, to instantly recognize them in games. I'm looking forwards to the tactics ninja and mating matador courses here, but am concerned about the lack of built-in spaced repetition ability on the site. How have others here managed to most effectively use those courses without that feature? My openings story is highly schizophrenic. I'm having trouble deciding on repertoires. I've decided on 1.e4 and 1. e4 e5 for now, with emphasis on aggressive gambit play (Evans, Scotch gambit). I struggle against 1.d4. I'm looking forwards to incorporating the Chess Mood openings, and perhaps trying out the French Attack approach, but I prefer the open games, so am not so sure about that one. And finally I'm very interested in joining a community of serious but friendly chess enthusiasts, working with them and learning from them, and it looks like ChessMood is that place! On a different note, I'm a very experienced, life-long career software developer, so if ChessMood wants assistance in adding features to the site (like spaced repetition practice for courses?!), feel free to contact me about those opportunities!

Hello ChessMood family , I m from Quebec , Canada . French being my first language , it s possible i sound weird in English sometimes.. 😅 I m 56 yrs , currently 1702 FIDE , 1771 CFC and 1704 FQE ( a had a peek at 1873 , 12 yrs ago ) In chesscom , bullet is around 1500 , blitz 1600 and rapid 1840 . On lichess , i m over 2000 blitz and rapid . I played as a kid without knowing anything but with good logic , I was able to do some tactics . If I played others like me , I usually won but the few times I met anyone who has been in a chess club or had study with a book , I was losing . At 35 yrs old , I was playing on Yahoo and was around 1200 in rapid . I got a book on chess from a friend and for the first time , was interested by it ( there was many pictures and side story ) and picked some knowledge after which i saw improvement on Yahoo ! After that I bought chessmaster on pc and did most of the lessons with it . I bought more books , joined a club ( which was 2 hrs drive from home ) and started competition . I took me 2 yrs to get to 1700 in classic , another 2 .5 yrs to get my peak at 1873 and then came back around 1800 . I was strong in tactics and endgames . Very often worse after the opening stage , always looking for tactics to get back in the game and almost no other plan than that, despite having read nimsovich , max euwe and silman .. My ultimate goal was to get to 2000 . During that period , I was without players in my region , no more club . I started studying openings (which I neglected before as I had only a small 1970 book as reference for everything I played so far ..) bought chessbase 2007 with big database which I didnt use properly . Bought many opening books , study for over 2 yrs without playing much apart 4-5 tournaments a year . I did play online , mainly correspondance games where I was checking the openings but It was not efficient at all.. my rating decreased gradually under 1700 in classic .. I had 2 young kids so I stopped tournaments which were mostly 750 to 960 km away from home and got bored studying openings especially as I felt turning in circles . I kept playing online correspondence regularly but was less serious about it as time passed. Eventually , my daughters left for college so having more free time , I started studying on chesscom with videos and play online for couple of months . Then the pandemic occurred and I was not able to play my first come back tournament. I stopped studying chess again but kept playing online . When the restrictions slacked , I restarted studying , and participated in the first tournament available and shared first place ! It was a surprise as I did not play with pieces and clock for 11 yrs .. I was the highest rated player of the section but it seem the others( mostly 200 pts lesser than me )were even more rusty than me .. after another tournament against stronger players ( 150 pts ) than me where I did ok but lost the pts gained of the first one . I went for my third one and hit a wall..😵 playing against weaker players by an average 200 pts like in the first tournament , I scored 1.5/5 and lost 73 rating pts ..ouch I decided I needed help and hired a coach for the first time . He was busy being in college so I waited 3 months before working with him and we only did six 1 hr /session, but he made me realise i had to play more actively and having a minimum repertoire was necessary. During last summer , he went on fantastic streak , winning everything in Canada from junior , blitz , zonal and national open and score a perfect 9/9 in a norm tournament in the us. ( he got a review of his 9 wins on Gotham Chess) . He concluded his journey with the u 18 world title in Romania ! I have no credits .. he was my coach , not the opposite.. 😆 I had to get a new coach as he was very busy . With my new mentor , and ChessMood , I m confident I will improve for good .

Dear Avetic and team, dear champions, first of all, thank you for all the content, thoughts, blog posts and so much more - and for your passion. A few short sentences about me: Last weekend I played an OTB tournament again after many years and did quite well. I used to have a rating between 2000-2100 in my late twenties, then I took a long break from chess. Now I'm 50 years young, male, hosted in Germany and I'm experiencing something like my second chess spring. :) I discovered all the new training opportunities on the internet and I've been training intensively for about 10 weeks, mainly with chessmood. My focus is on calculating variations, openings and analyzing classic games - and the new study plan. :) It's what I can do on my own. But I think I need someone to analyze my games with me and work specifically on my weaknesses. A concrete example: I played the following game with black last weekend. https://lichess.org/study/HxTmvXIa/DauP2kHY After 24.Kd4 I wasn't sure how to use my strategic advantage. I decided to open a line, swap rooks, and then win the endgame with the better minor piece on the black squares. And that's the point: for me the analysis isn't primarily about whether, for example, a sacrifice is correct after 10 moves (I can do that well with an engine), but rather about increasing and improving my understanding of chess in order to to better assess positions. If an analysis might reveal that I have problems in the treatment of positions with, for example, space disadvantage or IQP, then I could work on closing these gaps. Maybe also with chess literature or other sources. What is the best way? Who can help? I want to get an FM title in the next few years, that's my goal and I want to work disciplined and hard on that. But my actual goal was formulated by Buddha: There is no way to happiness, happiness is thw way. Thanks for all! Matt P.S. My opponent gave up after Kg5.

Hi, my name is Balazs. I'm 35 years old and live in Hungary with my wife and my 3 year old son. I played chess as a kid without much success and quit at around 12. Fast forward 18 years and on an especially mind numbing office day, I had the thought: I wonder if chess is still a thing in the 21st century? As it turns out, it is. So I started learning online, joined a club, started playing OTB again. I've been between 1400-1500 FIDE ever since, although I stopped for 1.5 years when covid hit. I was changing careers that time and also my son was born. Before I stopped, I started having decent results. Beat a couple 1700-1800 players in the team championship and won an U1500 section at a tournament. As it turns out I messed up my restart of this beautiful game by adopting incorrect openings for my level and for my goals. Namely, system openings for white (London and Colle/Colle-Zukertort) and the Caro-Kann and QGD for black (those are fine to be honest, just a bit passive). My first goal is to actually get an opening repertoire that allows me not to plateau too early. My ultimate dream goal would be the FM title, or the CM title.

My name is Paulo, I am an enthusiastic chess player with tons of self-discipline,passion for the game,learning and competition. I am currently the second best chess player in my country in the “expert” category (rated under 2200) I am ambitious, perseverant and will never give up on the game. 

My name is Uri Blass 
I am 56 years old from israel.
My fide rating today is 1911.
My best fide rating was 2051 in 2010.

My lichess blitz rating is 2106(most of the time it was slightly more than 2100 when my best blitz lichess rating was 2225)
I think my main relative weakness in chess in OTB games is positional understanding when I evaluate positions wrong.

My visualization is not good and I cannot play a single game blindfold but inspite of it I love tactics and fide estimate based on solving tactical problems in chesstempo was always better than my fide rating.

My memorizations of lines in the opening when there is no tactics is not good but I will never forget some tactical lines inspite of the fact that I never play them:
For example
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6? 3.Nxe5 Qe7 4.Qh5+? g6 5.Nxg6 Qxe4+ and black is going to win(I know no opponent at my level is going to play 2…f6).

I hope to improve to fide rating of 2100 and to blitz lichess rating of 2300.

Hi I am Medin Sabic from Bosnia I just got my PRO Subscription I am hoping to reach a Rating of 2300 Currently I am 1950 on Lichess I want to improve Sacrifices, Chess Understanding, Principles, Openings and the best way to improve on my chess position play.

I recently started playing correspondence games on Lichess, where my current provisional rating is 2199.  I have a much lower USCF rating from a few tournaments over two decades ago.  I really enjoyed the Opening Principles course, and I wanted to study some others, so I subscribed.  I'm looking mostly for a systematic way to get better at this game, and I think I'll find some help here.

I am currently 7.5 years old. I have been using Chessmood for 2 months since Jan24 after My Dad subscribed to it. It has helped me sharpen my tactics a lot, and how to coodinate attack and defence. I also like to play the chessmood openings esp the Scotch and French which I use a lot. I hope to continue using chessmood as an aide to further improve my game and obtain success in future competitions. 

My name is Colin. I have just started using ChessMood but have been training to improve my rating for a while. I have to be honest, the videos on here are great. Not only am I watching the videos, but I am also having a go at the puzzles to put them into practice. When I am White, I like to play the Smith Murr Gambit, and when I am Black, I usually play the French. I have now cancelled Chessable and am doing my training here as it is so much better. I play tournaments around the UK during the Summertime, usually during the season when I am not teaching classes. I will be spending at least 30 minutes a day on these videos for the time being and doing lots of puzzles on AimChess. I will ramp up my training to an hour a day during the holidays. I am not include the games I play online; I just play them throughout the day on Lichess. 

I have started on the Tactic Ninja and will progress through that first and go in order.  My main goal is to decrease silly blunders and be able to spot more tactics at the under-2000 level for the time being. I have a FIDE rating of 1624 for standard play.         

Hi Everyone,

I am new to ChessMood having joined 3 weeks ago. I've not played Chess for 20 years due to work commitments but returning to play now I am retired. Wow, how the Chess world has changed since I last played!! The ChessMood training is amazing and I am trying to familiarise myself with online chess through Lichess and Rapid rather than Classical Chess

I am in the UK and my OTB rating was 1850 when I stopped 20 years ago. Have rejoined my local chess club and am training to be ready for playing in one of the teams from September. Focusing on Tactic Ninja and White/BlackMood openings together with the racing to 2000 streams.

Hi guys! I'm Samuel from the UK and I'm 13 years old. I started playing chess when school stopped during the pandemic about 4 years ago. I played lots of games on lichess but found that without studying I hit a brick wall at around 2200. I found out about chessmood through the English chess federation and started working on the opening courses. My goal is to achieve the CM or FM title by the time I'm 16.

Hi All ! I am Julien. I am 45 years old living in the Netherlands. I started playing chess about 3 years ago. I really love the game even if I find it very challenging. I am playing on-line on Lichess and OTB games at my local chess club. I really like the chessmood approach and since I am playing the chessmood openings I am having much more fun playing chess. I like to play attacking chess, just go for the king! I have to learn to be patient because often my attack falls short and then I have to defend against the counter-attack :-(   I recently also started to play the SLP gambit on chess.com. This is also a lot of fun, especially when the opponent is making fun of me when I sacrifice my bishop … then I am laughing when my opponen get mated ! :-) In general SLP is tough, though. 

 

Thanks for creating chessmood! and happy to be part of the family :-) 

 

Cheers,

 

Julien

 

 

Bug Report

Hey, champions! 

If you notice any bugs on the website, we'll appreciate if you could share them with us here. 

Sharing details (like screenshots, screen-recordings) will be even more appreciated! 

Thanks in advance.

With best wishes,
ChessMood Team 

P.S. 
Our team isn't big, so we ask your patience with fixings. Please, don't get confused, if the particular bug haven't been fixed immediately. 
But we promise, we'll do our best! 

Thanks again 
 

Replies

I believe it has been reported many times before, but I'm going putting the bug related to editing forum posts here. The bug concerns posts that have a blank line separating paragraphs. Like this. If I were to edit this post an extra black line would be inserted between the paragraphs.

As mentioned in the FB group, in Chrome the videos are displaying below the fold. The problem persists even after cleaning cookies, but in incognito mode, however, this doesn't happen.

On ipad , I can t move piece as usually in any puzzle ! I close the window , restarted the iPad and the problem is still there . When I grab the piece I want to move , it appears partly double and if I try many time , I sometimes succeed moving it

https://chessmood.com/forum/pro-channel/puzzle-fixing

Hello. Im still having problems with the puzzle quizzes on my iPad. The dail puzzle and the mini quizzes work fine but the main puzzles dont work well. The pieces drag or dont move and the whole board moves sometimes partially off the screen. This all started a few weeks ago. I just tried marking matador and tactics ninja and neither one worked. Any ideas on when it might be fixed or is there something I can do? Thanks for your great site overall Rick janss

Marocy Bind course, game 12. Vodep - Scheffer A. Actually it is game between Vodep - Scheffner. It is misspelled in video course and took me some time to find the correct game. https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1364899

Today puzzle was the same as another day and didn’t give rewards again . if we want to replay older puzzles , there is a bug since since many months which is you don’t get the puzzle you clicked for ( at least on iPad ) today , I noticed a new bug and I took a screen shot of it . Double dates for different puzzles . This is obviously not a major issue but it does not give a good image of the site to my opinion and chessmood deserves better . My iPad is taking photo over 3 mo which I can t post … I tried to reduced the size of it and it s not working… anyway , the old puzzles offered were all différents but there 2 différents ones for 9 th of august and 2 others for 8 th of august …

🙂

Just a quick suggestion…I would like to do Tactics Ninja or Mating Matador puzzles on my android phone but the board is miniscule so its not possible….even with a microscope

I started a new tread named I m too slow and I just noticed Peter mentioned losing his first reply and when I answered Ben wi , I also lost the first one I did … anyone else having the same issue lately ? 

Embedded frames do not currently seem to work.  This issue affects course quizzes and training exercises (see a screenshot of the Tactics Ninja course) as well as blog posts (see a screenshot of “Blunderproofing her Game”).  This is happening on Chrome for Android as well as Firefox on Linux – I don't think it's browser-specific.  I see two X-Frame-Options headers being loaded when there should only be one (see screenshot of Firefox developer tools).  You probably just want SAMEORIGIN, not DENY.  I just noticed this issue today (in my America/Chicago time zone).  I'm not familiar with your server configuration (and it's not exactly my area of expertise anyway), so I can't offer any more specific advice.  Your engineering staff can likely fix this issue in short order, though.

Hi, I'm a bit puzzled. Since some days the progressbar of the courses I made is not in line with the reality, i.e. showing finished courses as unfinished. Will it be fxed?

Hello, would like to report that there are problems with the Rock N Rolling with Black videos and Blackmood Model Games? After watching an episode, the checkbox doesn't get checked, although answering the accompanying quiz questions does get recorded.

This has been happening to me for a couple of weeks already, I don't know if I'm the only one? 

Other course videos are OK.

Also sometimes a "Player error" message appears and stops the video. I have to replay it from the beginning.

Thanks.

Just a small bug: The positions 4 to 6 are identical with the first one in the quiz to the 99th game of the 100 commented classical games (and there is no confirmation of correct solving of 5 and 6).  https://chessmood.com/course/chess-classical-games/episode/6742/2585

Blundered my queen. Won anyway.

https://www.chess.com/game/120687168938

 

Fear my deadly rooks!

Replies

Nice one! I wonder if an SLP dedicated forum would be useful, so we can share entertaining comebacks without clogging up the forum or Best Games category. Thoughts?

Target rating reached!

When I first started playing I set myself a development target of reaching 1,000 on Chess.com.  At the time I had no idea how realistic this was or how long it would take but since I was in no hurry that wasn't an issue.  (I realise most of you probably reached this level so long ago that you don't even remember it but for me, it feels like an important first step in my chess learning journey)

Well, today I reached my target! 😎

Thank you to the ChessMood team (especially Avo and Lily) and to everybody here who helps to answer my queries. 

Replies

Congratulations! What's the next goal?

Every goal is important , you should be proud of yourself for attaining it ! Congrats 👏 

IQP

Do we have a course covering how to play IQP positions? Specifically, attacking when you have the IQP in a favourable version. Beyond just the simple ideas one usually sees (black wants to control d5 to blockade the pawn, white wants to push d5 or attack using e5 outpost) - e.g. how to understand when pushing d5 is actually good vs just liquidating to a draw. I thought “Attack like a viking” might have a section on it, but am not seeing it there.

Replies

The best games of September and the prizes

Hello ChessMood family, hello champions and future champions! 
Welcome to the "Best games of September" competition.
Under this post, we invite you to post your best games that you will play this month. 

The Prize fund is 350K Moodcoins which is equal to 350$.  

The 1st prize  - 150K
The 2nd prize - 100K
The 3rd prize-  50K
The 4th Prize- 30k
The 5th Prize- 20k

Good luck with your games and keep the Right Mood! 
#ChessMood
#Right Mood - Right Move 

P.S
Here are the winners of August: 

1st-  Abhi Yadav
2nd- Edo Tokyo
3rd- Captain Hook
4th- Duncan Vella
5th- Kourosh Asgari 


Replies

A very nice win almost sacrificing everything against FM with 3.Bd3 in french 

https://lichess.org/YFJgUXZLL7ZV

Killer Tactic Game!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5382974226

Closed Game

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5383216515

Nice Game

But Time

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5383354630

Positional Exchange Sacrifice!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5383182780

Clean Game!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5383435376

Smooth Game!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5383462890

https://lichess.org/jFHYvAgs

Crushing Chigorin Defense

Long Castle idea in rossolimo with black !!

https://lichess.org/UrOToDwC/black#0

https://lichess.org/sE1eoSww5Vby Played the chessmood recommendation against the London and got a great endgame. Was a nice finish (though I almost gave away a draw unnecessarily).

Edit: scratch that, was played a few days before September. :( 

Positional Game!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5391863866

Funny Game!

5 Move  Game!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5391863866

"The Cooolest Game I Ever Game!"

https://lichess.org/nQ29S0xjtORK

Opponent long-castled in Maroczy and got crushed after Queen exchange

Recently thanks to ChessMood I found Benko gambit a very interesting opening for black pieces.
Here is one of my games for September:

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5401205867

https://lichess.org/ib4HAwqyyKLQ good and interesting game

Crushed the sicilian with 2..e6

I think this game deserves a prize

Here's the reason why?

- It was a serious rapid game with time control of 15+10

-I used the chessmood opening

-I beat a real FM rated 600 fide rated points above me 

https://www.chess.com/live#g=5409613159
Crushing Benko win!

Best Ever Game!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5411164535

And I Play A Brilliant Move

Using opponents mistake

Sacrified a pawn for attack in French

My opponent couldn't even breathe

Beating a FM with strategies

A fine win against a trendy line in the Pirc!

A little sloppy at the end, but always fun to feed the dragon!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5421833467

Won a good game against higher rated player,using Scotch-- chessmood opening,in 5+2nformat.

 https://lichess.org/9JJpYk2q

"Suffocation"

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5426083383

very aggressive grand parix attack!!

https://lichess.org/D7yluBhYdiOS

https://lichess.org/z13vFXCymPEg

Never give up..

Hi, new member here. Yesterday,  in my Lichess 45-45 game I had the opportunity to test my knowledge of the Maroczy Bind course I watched the day before.  I was black in the game.

https://lichess.org/0PwLK3Z8nJrb

Now I am winning almost every game with Scotch

This is earlier game against same opponent with Scotch.

again using our weapon against sicilian ( grandprix attack ) to beat a strong GM !

https://lichess.org/6VRvuZjCX05S

Scotch 4..Bc5

Beautiful Game!

https://lichess.org/ydCgVoP2ktaN

When you follow @GM_Avetik_Grigoryan's positional instructions, games get easier to play!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5437206501

Another quick win, this time in the Petroff!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5437282179

Great & Beautiful Game!

No Counterplay!

Clean Game!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5439555590

https://lichess.org/Y0iEgx9z

Just practicing chessmood openings..

Beautiful Game!

https://www.chess.com/game/live/5449442991

 Short Game!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5449504502

Crushing the Pirc.

https://lichess.org/itvW5Lqx/white#55

The first game I've shared, feeling like I'm starting to get the grand Prix 

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5450788827

Oh, I won a game in the Sicilian Maroczy with black!  Impossible!  I still made 5 mistakes????

https://chess24.com/en/analysis/Vj64p8CnR-mCGyGYkXaFTA#15

#SLP - Whites King "Charge!"

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5451514360

https://lichess.org/NwkSDmnvcWJx

Play white Opening Scotch Game 

Smooth win,

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5458852499

I can not understand why my opponent resigned!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5458936890

Chess Academy Cup 2020

Anna Khachatryan 2224 vs Astghik Hakobyan 2168

1-0

A crushing win with another system of 2. Nc3 Sicilian

Typical ROok Sac.

Positional Crushed a 2000 elo player with Anti Sicilian!

https://lichess.org/WslvcUfysYuG

Beating 2100+ player..

Crushing Game!

https://lichess.org/l0H0FuFt7boX

Nice Game
!

https://www.chess.com/game/live/5463620161

Scotch Game 

Beating GM with Anti Sicilian !!!!1

https://lichess.org/uRupBMSIBBl3

i play black - Sicilian Najdorf

https://lichess.org/Y09ZesYa

Only 1 innaccuracy for me estimated by the engine as black

Just testing my positional and KID structural skills.

https://lichess.org/8c4CYQOi/black#55

Scotch Game 

Wining with Fd3 French against strong apponent!!

https://lichess.org/IsptYQQilajZ

Nice attacking game with white. Every move was a threat!

https://chessmicrobase.com/microbases/14167/games/1121629

please take a look

Killer Benko Gambit

https://lichess.org/xX9zjVP2Xx3y

Anti Sicilian -2...d6

https://lichess.org/mzo41NxEQBIj

#accelerated dragon

Textbook Scotch straight from the course  ... didn't even need to think myself!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5478551153

I won this Accelerated Dragon game thanks to a Chessmood stream. And it finishes with a beautiful mate!

Crushed a NM with GP

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5479489290

I play just simple chess, focus on just not to make mistake. In the end my opponent blundered.

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/5481149238

Another smooth win 

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5481258386

Perfect Benko

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5481309802

Another simple win

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5481360104

One of my first games with the chessmood French!

https://lichess.org/v4vFZjTj/white

I think decent positional game.

https://lichess.org/4Y5x2ACG1Onj

Passive Scotch Greek Gift.

https://lichess.org/RZgmvIYK/white#22

Anti-Sicilian part 3 2...e6 3.f4 d5 4.Nf3 Nc6 6.Bb5

Crushing whit scotch ! Crazy rook on a5 !!!

https://lichess.org/u1fY7wvopIwW

Tal!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5486789673

Smooth!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5486758892

One of my recent games with 98.2% accuracy. I missed mate in one but still it was winning position.
https://www.chess.com/live/game/5487137720


French Str. 

https://lichess.org/w2t4Fm2Z/black#44

Passive Stonewall Destroyed

https://lichess.org/JvrWoQa6Q3He

Demolished a 2200+ with GP 

https://lichess.org/LrtxDyqQUorS

Victory with Scotch

https://lichess.org/KKtXy0XYosWF

Nice win. During the game I thought about the super isolated LSB in a game in  the stream 1600-2400.

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/5490401913

Miniature against the Scandinavian 

https://lichess.org/HmmN4tYs/white

One of my best games so far.

https://lichess.org/eZ1wW0IU/black#72

Epic Mating combination

https://lichess.org/u4IJ6Rgz/white

Exchange sac and great interference tactic as in a game where I never took my foot off the pedal against a computer no less!

https://chessmicrobase.com/g/xuxfvmpf

Exchange sac and great interference tactic as in a game where I never took my foot off the pedal against a computer no less!

https://chessmicrobase.com/g/xuxfvmpf

This match is a part of my structural basics training. I am playing e4 and d4. e4 was a main chessmood weapon and d4 to practice my knowledge of KID pawn formations. Here is a game. Ignore openings because I am sure there will be tons of mistake there but final rook sac was nice I think.

https://lichess.org/Ps1pctgDITNZ

Played this today and it shows a great example of a kingside attack using knights! My proudest game thus far this month.

https://chessmicrobase.com/g/wqpltmvl

I am a big fan of Carlsbad Stru. so sometimes I try to play it online and in this game black was crushed like a melon. I don't say black's opening had issue. His one slight early c6 gave me a tempo so I castled long. Because in normal positions if I castle long with pawn on c7 then black can simply play Be6 Rc8 and direct c5. In this position he already committed that oh I have pawn on c6 so I said to myself let's go for long castle in tempo up line. 

This is what I learnt about it. I feel I am right. That's why I don't like this early commitment because of white's long castles. I like Re8 Nd7 Nf8 then c6 only if white castles short

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5494218858

Scandinavian Defense 

a nice win using accelerated dragon n*c6 and e5 variation

Crushed a 2200+ in 23 moves with GP.

https://lichess.org/kYyCdI47/white

I am not sure how to embed a replayer game yet.

This was nice attack versus some random double fianchetto in the modern.

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5453107180

I just follow the ChessMood openings, simple normal chess and some small tactics.

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5500444148

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/5500326381

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5500285495

Caro-Kann.
The rook endgame was over my paygrade, but anyway luckily I won.

A very nice game I played at a real tournament on September 5th.
Just creating attack from nothing, pawn storm on kingside.
I can send you a real batch record if it is confirmed as needed.



1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. d3 Bc5
5. O-O d6 6. h3 O-O 7. Bg5 h6 8. Bh4 a6
9. Bc4 Na5 10. Bb3 Nxb3 11. axb3 b5 12. Nc3 Bb7
13. Nh2 g5 14. Bg3 h5 15. Nf3 h4 16. Bh2 Nh7
17. Qe2 f5 18. exf5 Rxf5 19. Ne4 Bb6 20. Rad1 Qe7
21. Kh1 Raf8 22. c4 Qf7 23. c5 Bxc5 24. Qd2 Bxe4
25. dxe4 Rxf3 26. gxf3 Qxf3+ 27. Kg1 Qxh3 28. Qd5+ Rf7
29. Bxe5 g4 30. Qe6 dxe5 31. Rd8+ Bf8 32. Qg6+ Rg7
33. Qe6+ Kh8 34. Qf5 Qf3 35. Qxf3 gxf3+ 36. Kh1 Kg8
37. Rg1 Rxg1+ 38. Kxg1 Ng5 39. Re8 Nxe4 40. Rxe5 Nd2
41. Re6 Nxb3 42. Re3 Nd2 43. Rd3 Bb4 44. Rd7 c5
45. Ra7 a5 46. Rb7 c4 47. Rxb5 c3 48. bxc3 Bxc3
49. Rc5 Bb4 50. Rh5 Kg7 51. Rxh4 Kf6 52. Kh2 Ke5
53. Kg3 Kd5 54. Kf4 Kd4 55. Kg3+ Kc3 56. Rh8 a4
57. Rc8+ Kb3 58. Kf4 a3 59. Ke3 a2 60. Ra8 Kb2
61. Kd3 a1=Q 62. Rxa1 Kxa1 63. Kc2 Ka2 64. Kd3 Kb3
65. Ke3 Kc2 66. Kf4 Kd1 67. Kg3 Ke1 68. Kg4 Kxf2
69. Kh3 Kg1 70. Kg3 f2 71. Kh3 f1=Q+ 72. Kg3 Qf5
73. Kh4 Qg6 74. Kh3 Kf2 75. Kh4 Kf3 76. Kh3 Qg3#

Applying basics of positional play into practice in my training games sessions

https://lichess.org/VmKb3tjHoEE0

Here is a game I played with Scotch.

- This was one of the "good variations" where Black castles queenside and doesn't castle into White's attack.

-This was a 30-0 classical game in an online tournament.

Here is another game from the same online tournament, except this time I played against a higher-rated player than last time.  It's an Accelerated Dragon. I took all his pawns at the end :) .

Imp. of knowing opening. He missed Nge7 then I play imp. Bb3 not allowing any d5 and I will follow up with e5 after d5. then Be3 Bf2 and Bh4, But he forgot e5 is a blunder and I won.

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5504621603

ups and down and finally won

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5504539641

Sicilian Defense - Najdorf 

Attacks and counterattacks in scotch

https://lichess.org/EBafvwuyZLZU

SLP win 

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5507634115

Lost this one but I loved the concepts of dynamic. Applying basics here. Line of Bxd6 acc. to engine is lost for me but I loved to apply Nx6 concepts here

https://lichess.org/RCri8dn0/white#57

Caro-Kann 45m+45s game.  Used chessmood opening. Got advantage and won. Was a bit lucky as both myself and oponent have missed the intermediate Ng8 move, that would lead to drawish ending. 

My first ever Benko gambit:

https://lichess.org/vmx3KqgNm2er

Crushed Sicilian Sidelines

https://lichess.org/l4VOncFsFCEt

https://lichess.org/uApm1hddZCe4

Cool Finish!

Openings violation then win

https://lichess.org/5dH5rmCYbS8C

Demolished him with Kan

https://lichess.org/zXfID39RMBbn

My fav. Carlsbad Str. and I won

https://lichess.org/ui6d7PdIlPBT

Punish your opponents mistakes!

https://www.chess.com/a/2Kit4CmotZwLa

Hello Chessmood! I played a very good attacking game this month with king hunt involving a queen Sacrifice! This was a team match and I had days to prepare for my opponent but still this is a beautiful sacrifice!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5399112890

Total domination with GP

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5512477425

Greek Gift!!!

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5512465704

Yeah the combination of Nxg6 was not sound but black had to find only move to save his game  and get a winning advantage so I went for that in blitz. I missed his resource of fxg6 then Kh8 but still I am glad my intuition is improving now a days and once I will see more and more classics I will learn how to find opponent's resources well

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5512484398

Anti-Sicilian

https://lichess.org/8NkzfdwP

Beating the Petroff

Crushing attack against Black lonely king..

Chessmood Grand Prix!

A win against one of the best player from IRAN

Anti-Sicilian

I play White: https://lichess.org/CmF48vgylPo1

A win with the Chessmood Caro Kann!

Caro-Kann! 

I play Black: https://lichess.org/fonbwLUSUmyq

Rook endgame:

I play Black: https://lichess.org/jTljISBAo8bj

https://lichess.org/PWkAsGzT

Winning with the French (sorry no accelerated Dragon yet) in 23 move against the Tarrasch (and an IM).

Simple Chess:

Beating The Morra Gambit: 

I play Black: https://lichess.org/6wENevBM/black

French Advanced: 

I play White: https://lichess.org/DaheO5hP

Hello ChessMood Family! 
We are very excited to see, that each month the quality of the games are becoming better and better. 
Thanks for all the games you've posted! 

The 5th prize goes to @Abhi_yadav for his crushing the Caro Kann. 

The 4th prize goes to @Karl_Strohmaier for crushing the Scandinavian with his nice Nc6! 

The 3rd prize goes to @Ash_Pv for his brilliant game with Modern Maroczy.  The two breakthroughs d5 and b5 and the conversation of  2 bishops advantage was very nice.  The game will be added in the "model games" section of the course. 
(Here is the link: 
https://lichess.org/mzo41NxE/black#79) 

The 2nd prize goes to @Jaylen_Lenear for his nice positional game which he finished with two knight sacrifices. 

And the winner of this month becomes @Keok_Woltek who sacrificed almost all his pieces :) 

The guy who improved the most, comparing to the previous month is @Aayush_Shirodkar
For which he gets 50k. 

Congratulations, winners and everyone who raised their rating improved their game, or enjoyed playing chess this month! 

See you in the next month's competition. 


Why am I good at short time controls and absolute hot diarrhea at slow ones?

For someone with the lichess name ‘Adrenalectomy’ this is a gigantic irony

Replies

Annihilation or decoy? A bit of both?

What would you call this tactic I used to clean up the bishop and pawn? 

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/124364367783?tab=review&move=109

Replies

What move would that be?

My gut says to call it annihilation, as you are transposing to a winning pawn endgame and that seems lke the main part.

Decoy dosent make that much sense to me as the sacrifice wouldnt seem that justified (in a matter of speaking).

Scotch move order: 6.Nc3 vs 6.Qe2

Hi, in the Scotch course after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.d4 ed 4.Nxd4 Bc5 5.Nb3 Bb6 the recommendation is 6.Nc3 and then the main line is 6…Nf6 with theory to learn. I saw a suggestion on the internet to play 6.Qe2 instead: now if 6…d6 or 6…Ne7 then 7.Nc3 transposes to the course, and according to the engine 6…Nf6 7.e5 gives advantage for white. Is there a reason not to play this move order?

Replies

Actually the resulting position after 7. E5 are not so good for us.

It is so really complicated, and it is much easier to play the main line for us.

Anything against the Bird Opening?

I don't think I've seen any course on how to play against the Bird Opening on ChessMood, am I right? What do you play against the Bird? because as white I tend to have good success against the Dutch, but the dutch up a tempo (a.k.a. the Bird) gives me trouble. 

Replies

Section 22 of the Blackmood Opening course is about the Bird.

Dutch attack against f3

hi, I recently played an OTB game and was faced by f3 against our Dutch attack (see picture) achieved after 1 d4 e6 2 c4 f5 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 e3 Bb4 5 Bd3 Bxc3+ 6 bxc3 b6 7 Ne2 Bb7 8 f3 0-0 9 0-0. 

 

I did not find anything about his variation in the courses. I had difficulties finding a good plan in this position. Does someone has suggestions about how to play?

 

Thanks a lot !

Cheers,

 

Julien

Replies

NEW ARTICLE: To Succeed at Chess, Start with WHY

Hey Champions!

We have this topic in our Blog.
https://chessmood.com/blog/to-succeed-at-chess-start-with-why
If you have any questions, comments or you just liked it, feel free to share your thoughts here. 

Replies

Nice article on the dreaded (but ever so important) why question!

(Does size matter so much? How big is yours [your why] may not be as valid as the quality of intent of yours? Have you ever seen a "mustard" seed [or any seed] grow into a full size plant? Why does that happen? Does one seed have a greater burning desire than its other fellow seeds? We all want to reach our full potential, but conditions are not always right for some to do so unfortunately.)

Still, this why question, is the bane of all parents at some stage with young children.

When it comes with (or goes with) love though, it is indeed very powerful. Give them roots & give them wings & they will grow up to do great things! I can testify to & verify that to be true. It even applies to chess coaches and chess students!

I am not a good chess player, but as I change my mindset on this & play more I will improve (& my "why" is my own and special), but I was a good sportsman (especially at Squash rackets) in my youth. My son is a very good chess player,  as he learnt good chess by simply playing good chess as a junior (age 8-16yrs). I fondly remember one of my friends, who was a good squash payer, playing many games with me, as squash training & being competitive and encouraging to improve my play & we both had good fun with this and I improved. Later, I took professional coaching, but this was never the same and not as much fun, so even though it was useful, it was quite different.

It would be nice to replicate this "serious, yet fun" mode with some other good chess players for my chess training too, but so far I have found nothing as good, but this site helps! Maybe one day here I may find a kindred spirit to share chess play &  improvement with. I have just started enjoying interacting with one particular good chess player on his Twitch chess stream & I am learning to improve from this which is excellent!

Well, may we all aim for & reach the stars & fulfill our dreams & goals with our own unique special "why", but remember, chess is a game, which we are very blessed to play and study with these fine resources.

Right Mood, Right Move..

COGRO ChessMood family...best wishes and much love to you all  :-)

I started play chess when i am at grade 6. Nobody teach me how to play it..i just watch my grand father when playing..im not talented like other's but i felt fun playing it..one day there's a tournament in our town, i want to participate but my uncle wont allow me because he though im not good at it..that's the start i took a chalenge, i watch every game of some elite chess player in our town and study it before i sleep and after some weeks i defeated those some of the elite and also i defeat my uncle..im now 35 i want to be the number of my town but there is one that i cant defeat badly..it turns that were even or sometimes i have lost to him..when this pandemic come this chess mood appear in my wall, free for 7 days...i only watch some of the video because i dont have computer, i only rent in the computer shop..but in that little time i crush my opponents 10-0...im so happy but after that he study my moves with the computer and i cannot defeat him like the other day because some of the line i did not watch it...and i cant proceed to pro because i dont have any paypal or credit card... My goal is to become number 1 in the city and become a GM someday.. and i want to prove to my family that i will fulfill my dreams without there support.. for now i only solve those puzzle everyday but i cant solve it in the first attemp... Thank you chess mood...someday i will become pro member..thank you so much..sorry for my grammar..

A good teacher teaches and a great teacher inspires!

Thank you Avetik sir for this wonderful article.

Waiting for the next article:)

Amazing article! Start with why and find your why by Simon sinek best books I have ever read.

I liked this article and some of the other articles you have released on lichess and chessmood. I can't afford a coach so this for me helps to work on my chess psychology and just the way I view life in general

The link sends me to 404…

That was a great article! It helped me really understand the mindset I should have not only in chess improvement but in every goal I have in my life. Everyone must ask this question to himself in everything he tries to accomplish in his life.

I am new to this platform and I found it by luck, by a blog posted on lichess about the 10 days where all courses were unlocked. I said to give it a try for these ten days as I have not the money to afford any expenses about chess. It was one of my best decisions in my chess journey. I stayed even after the end of the offer. I have not watched many courses as I can't buy them at the moment but your articles keep me motivated and helped me understand not only the right way to study and improve my chess, but also the reason why I want to do this, the mindset I should have. I hope that one day I will manage to buy a course through mood coins. Thank you for all your help. Keep up the great work!! 

Was it ever said on who was the CFO who became a GM?
Recently one of my students had a goal to become a Grandmaster.
He was a CFO of a big company, had a full-time job and family. In other words, not much time to invest in chess. But he had a very strong WHY.
WHY should he become a Grandmaster?

His dad was very sick… He didn’t know how much time his father had. He wanted his dad to see him becoming a Grandmaster.

He had a very strong WHY and I believed in his WHY.
And we started working… I don’t know which one of us was happier, him, me, or his dad when he made it! He became a Grandmaster! (I’ll reveal his name later, as he asked).
I assume this was Kevin (https://chessmood.com/success-stories/kevin-goh-story), Since their stories are similar enough. But i might be wrong, who knows

I want and must be an FM with a rating of 2290 by the age of 18 because otherwise I will enlist in the IDF and there for three years I will not have access to chess and I will never fulfill my destiny of playing chess and learning it every day with other chess players [By the way, 2290 because if you get this rating you get an outstanding player]

my why is that I want to show that it is possible to become a GM before college in a Gen Alpha world and that Skibidi toilet is not brainrot.

My peak rating achieved today

I'm so happy with the games I have played could be better if I brush up my openings a bit more. Thank you chessmood

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Congrats ! 

SLP skills!

Pulled this off with two bishops bearing down on me!

https://www.chess.com/game/120656305496

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