Chess forum by Grandmasters

Watch me wreak havoc without a queen

This is my tilt account; I'm currently sick and my reaction time is down the toilet so I'm playing bullet on an alt

https://lichess.org/sQ9xj4jc

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help with the scandinavian gambit for beginners

Hey. I watched Section 4 in Avo's Rise of the champions course and I decided to try out some gambits. I got the black pieces, so I wanted to play the scandinavian. We played: 1. e4 d5 but then my opponent pushed 2. e5 …,  and suddenly we went into a closed game (2. … Nc6 3. e6 d4). I am wondering how to respond to 2. e5 so that the game is not so closed. If anybody could help me, that would be great!

Here is the game on lichess:

https://lichess.org/61MSifS3FoBw 

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After 1.e4 d5 2.e5 a good move is 2…Bf5.  The general idea is to follow up with e6 so that you have a very solid centre, but without blocking your bishop in on c8.  This is known as developing your bishop outside the pawn chain, and can give your position a little more life.

Question 1.e4 e6 2.Bc4

Hello, I would be thankful for a hint. Where do I find this opening in the simplified openings? 

And of course: How to go on as black?

Thank you very much.

Joachim

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Good question! I doubt there are many resources on 2.Bc4, because the move simply makes no sense against the French. Just continue your gameplan with 2…d5, and the bishop will be forced to move and you'll have gained crucial time in the opening.

For instance:

1.e4 e6

2.Bc4 d5

3.exd5 exd5

4.Bb5+ c6

5.Bd3 Nf6

And you have an improved version of the Exchange French. Let me know if I can clarify anything further!

Revisiting the Main Chessmood Openings

I would like to request to coaches if main chessmood openings could be played during the streams. Thank you

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Hi Siddharth,

If by main openings you mean 2000+ repertoire I am excited to tell you we stream them on 2000-2700 level events.

You can find them on the events page, along with several past events available for viewing 😀

events

Hi. During this month the events happen in tuesdays and saturdays, the 2 days I can't participate, so first of all I would like if you would do them twice a week on different days every week. And also when I am trying to see past events it says “video not available”. Is it supposed to be like that or its my problem?

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Dear Eliya,

I do understand it can not fit well with your schedules, but we have thousands members with different time and day preferences :-)

If we do it on random days and times, it will be super tough for everyone to remember and track the schedules, that's why we need to have fixed days and times.

However, all the events are available on the website, and if suddenly events are not available for you, it can be an issue on your side. 

Can you please provide more information, so we try to help you to resolve that issue?

Thanks!
 

Hey Eliya👋,

Thanks for letting us know! I double-checked everything on our side, and the videos seem to be working fine for most users, so it could be something related to YouTube’s regional settings.

Here’s a couple of things you can try:

Use a VPN:: Sometimes, YouTube limits certain videos in specific regions. Using a VPN to switch your virtual location might help solve this.

Check YouTube settings: Make sure there aren’t any filters like Safe Mode turned on, as they might block some content.

If the issue is still hanging around after trying these, don’t hesitate to reach out! We’ll do our best to help you enjoy the content as soon as possible.

Thanks for your patience! 😊

SPARRING GAMES

Hello, this is Madison looking to play some games. My rating in Rapid is 1950, would like to play someone 2000. Opening, (White) Scotch and (Black) French. Let's talk and setup something on going. Name Loftis50 on Lichess. 

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Sent u a DM 

Dear Madison,

It's great you are looking for a friend to train with, it can also be easier to do under this thread https://chessmood.com/forum/main-channel/studysparring-partner-1362

Good luck :-)

An interesting suggestion

Hello ChessMood team, I was wondering if you can organize tournaments where all we ChessMood students can participate and play against each other so that we can get more playing experience!

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it will be amazing if he do it

I love lichess

For the first 6 months of my chess journey, I solely played on Chess.com. But after Avetik's recommendation, I recently made the switch to Lichess, and I have to say—I absolutely love it! The interface, in my opinion, looks much cleaner and smoother than Chess.com, and the look of the board with the pieces just feels right.

One thing I especially love is the blue background that Avetik suggested in the "Rise to Champion" beginner course. It’s visually calming and really helps me focus on the game.

Thank you, @Avetik, for recommending Lichess! Moving forward, I think I’ll be playing primarily on Lichess from now on—it’s just been such a great experience so far.

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Same, I also love lichess!

Hey Tyler,

I am glad you are enjoying your experience on Lichess, each of us has personal preferences and of course, it's a great idea to do what you like.

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

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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

Sour grapes?

Hey all,

This may just be sour grapes on my part after losing a game but something seems a little ‘off’ with my last game.

My opponent's game stats are:

• * Blitz: Played 954 - lost 789 - rating 230
• * Rapid: Played 44 - lost 27 - rating 652
• * Bullet: Played 82 - lost 72 - rating 1165 (not sure how that works?!)

He hadn't played a daily game before our match.  In our game he had accuracy of 95.2!, no blunders, misses, or mistakes, and 17 best moves, and a Chess.com game rating of 2,000!

Admittedly I ‘helped’ him with a stupid blunder but the stats just seem a bit suspicious to me.

What do you think?

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It is suspicious, but don't worry about it.
You will likey never play him again, and if they are cheating or sandbagging, etc, there is a good chance they will be banned.
Just focus on playing chess!

Here is a great blog by Noel Studer if you are not convinced:

https://nextlevelchess.blog/cheaters/

SLP and the worst blunder?

Does it count as SLP if the opponent is confused enough to resign in a completely winning position?
I'll take it! 

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/123305418129?tab=review&move=79

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How strange!  It's almost as if your opponent forgot that it was their move …

Why is there no dutch pgn file?

Why is there no dutch pgn file?

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Dear Eli se,

You can PGN in the BlackMood opening course https://chessmood.com/course/blackmood-openings.

Follow attachments - PGN Files - All

You will find the dutch PGN there.

Cloed Sicilian 2..d6 8..a6

Hi all,

following game: 

https://lichess.org/10ivUkwV/white#17

After 8..a6 9.a4 Nd4.. we can't go for the original plan of Nxd4 followed by Nb5 because a6 defends.. any ideas how to continue here?

Thank you for your help.

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Hey Fred)

Interesting question.

But why to play 9.a4?

It feels to me that 9.f5 is more natural and in our attacking style.

The Golden Method

Hey Champions!
When you play online chess how many games do you play during one session?

On Tuesday will share you in our ChessMood Blog my Golden Method, but before that, I would love to hear your thoughts. 
 

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Hi all! Good morning! In my recent online games since joining Chessmood 3 weeks I played an average of 14 games (3min+2sec) whenever I can. In the last 3 weeks I had 6 sessions and my rating went up 80 points at the moment in lichess. Before I used to stop after winning 2 or 3 games. Now I try to play longer when real life allows me.

I used to play very long sessions of 20 games or more almost everyday. After joining ChessMood, I found that I wasnt focused and lost concentration after about 10 games, and would lose my mood, and then loss my rating LOL. I now only play 2-3 games at a time, 3-4 times a day, so I can make sure I can concentrate more consistently.

Due to time issues I play only one or two games of 15/10 on chess.com. My motto is to play good moves instead of playing a lot games. I play daily one or two games. After every game I check following things.

1. Blunders

2. Tactics which I completely missed.

3. Candidates which I considered but I was failed to see the whole line.

4. Opening move orders and ideas. Now a days due to lack of time I mix up plans in openings but soon I hope to find more time then this problem will be solved I know.

5. I also try to focus and control excitement level when  I realise that position is winning for me or i have an advantage.

6. Now a days bec of chessmood I am trying to play with right mood even if I get minus positions and I saved many with rightmood concept.

My conclusion of recent games shows bad tactical skills and positional skills are superb and improving day by day. So, I think with classics in future I will consider tactical training and combinative training. 

I usually play 2 games. I take my games very seriously and make sure that I am in the best conditions to play my best games. I need to try and extended my duration of focus so that I can play more games of good quality

hello

Lichess rating of game 1704

👍

The method worked!And I usually play 8 games.

Middlegame meandering

Hi all,

This game is fairly typical for me (although I was happy to beat a player ranked a fair bit higher than me):

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/daily/713254983?tab=analysis

I'm usually fairly solid in the opening (largely sticking to my ChessMood choices of Scotch for White and French or Dutch for Black, and falling back on general principles if I come across something that I'm not familiar with).

Once we move to the middlegame I'm often not sure what to do.  I tend to muddle through and then have an OK-ish endgame (I am conscious of the fact that I don't always finish games off as quickly as I could and that this is likely to bite me in the backside as I progress up the rankings).

So, I think that my strongest area is the one that is least important and I'm weak in the areas that matter more!  

I appreciate that it is undoubtedly far too complex to cover fully in a forum post but would you mind offering some suggestions as to how to think in the middlegame?  What are your priorities?  Do you form a plan and then try to make it happen?  Or do you see how things develop and then try to exploit any weaknesses?  If there aren't any weaknesses what strategies do you use for creating weaknesses? 

If there is a useful middlegame resource that you have used - do please share it (keep in mind that I'm sub-1,000 Elo in Rapid at the moment 😉 )

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At the simplest level, in the middlegame you should try to increase the activity of your pieces while also limiting the activity of your opponent's pieces.  Of course the precise way in which you do that will depend on the specifics of the position.  Often the pawn structure will give a big hint as to the general approach required.

Yes, it's often good to have some sort of plan but we need to be careful with this “plan” word.  For starters, things can change quite quickly and we need to be flexible to the changing situation on the board.  And in some positions we might not see a clear plan other than “improve the position of that piece and reassess”.

In terms of resources, ChessMood's 7Q Method course is quite nice.  Also, if you watch the CM streams and Model Games then you should develop a general feel for how to play the middlegames resulting from the CM repertoire.  There are various good books, but I don't think you'll get a lot of value out of them until you're a little stronger.

I noticed that you have a lot of Daily games going on chess.com, but are not playing many live games.  Daily games are fun, but they aren't going to be of that much help when it comes to improving your overall playing level.  You really need to be having several rapid games/week to see improvement.

If this game is what is typical for you, there is not much to worry about. I think you handled the middlegame pretty well and you had a clear plan through the game: you exchanged you light-squares bishop, closed the center, attacked consistently your opponent's king in his short-castle. The execution might sometime be imprecise - I'll let you analyze that with the computer - but I think the whole thing looks good. I suspect that you identified the middlegame as something you want to work on because in some inconcious level you already begun to work on it. Just continue that way and be patient. When you analyze your game, you can do it thematically, identifying some things you want to look more precisely - in my case, I remember at some point when I was analyzing my games, I was only looking specifically the lines where I attacked the opponent castle, searching for the best execution, best move order, etc…
Just analyze your games and work on the execution of what you wanted to do. 

That is, if this game is really typical. But you win against a stronger player. To identify your weaknesses more accurately, maybe you should look more at the game you've lost?

Interresting unbalanced position

Little story here: in my last tournament, 4th round, I got paired with a teenager on the grind, scary pairing. I messed up the opening and ended up in a very bad position. And then, my opponent sacrificed a piece to get three connected passed pawns (on the second and third rank). Seeing that if I accepted the sacrifice it would take me a long time to develop and put my king in safety, I refused the sacrifice and castle instead. Bad move, I should have accepted the sacrifice (as they says in the Spartan Shield course), but I did get a more dynamic position, a safe king and domination on a central open file. The position was still losing, but I somewhat tricked my opponent and ended up winning. 
(for thoses who want to see the game, I'm playing as black here https://lichess.org/study/jm66maw4/lcnEMoDU ; nice SLP)

After the game, I analyzed the game with my sparing partner and we had a big debate on the pros and cons of accepting the sacrifice and about evaluating the resulting position (computer says it's equal. The sacrifice was a mistake and white loose its advantage). The position is very unbalanced, so in practical play, is it easier to play for white or for black?
Yesterday we played the position two time, each playing as white then as black. As black, I ended up succeding in creating a blockade and winning a key pawns, getting a winning position. As white, I pushed one of my pawns to promotion, but she could sacrifice back her material for the pawns and we ended up in a queen endgame with three black pawns against two for white. Drawish, but black is the one pushing for the win. (I should say that I played as black first, so I learned from her mistakes as white). 
Conclusion: I conceded that in practical play, the position was slighly better for black; she conceded that the position was way harder that she expected as black. 

We don't see that often that kind of position, so I wanted to share it with you, hoping you find it interresting. Here's the position:
https://lichess.org/editor?fen=r4k1r%2F4nppp%2F3Qbq2%2F1B2p3%2F4P3%2F2P5%2FPP3PPP%2FR3K2R+w+KQ+-+1+17&variant=standard&color=black

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Hi help

What should we play as black here? 

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French with d5.

Struggling

Hi All,

I have gone through the Tactic Ninja course and the starter opening courses for White and Black. I am currently working on the mating matador course. I managed to get my rating up to 1000 on my own, but not only have I not increased my rating, I have dropped 70 points since doing the ChessMood courses. I'm so confused that I'm making mistakes in the positions, some are just dumb mistakes I admit. There are so many variations that I can't keep track of them all. I seemed to be better when I was just going on intuition and some basic theory. It all makes perfect sense in the course, but my games don't go that way. I could use some encouragement and/or coaching. Steve

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Hi Steve!

First and most important advice: don't give up! what you are experimenting is perfectly normal. Every progress comes with some rating lost at first. It's because you're trying new things, take risks and changing the way you're doing things. You are building new intuitions, theyr are not matures right now, but they will become reliable with time and practice. That is when you will see your rating go up again. 
Even GM Gabuzyan struggled with that part: https://chessmood.com/blog/crossing-the-plateau-and-reaching-3000-on-chess-com
So study your things, practice, make revisions and fix the problems. Thrust the process and the results will come. 

Now for the openings, I have to say I don't play the chessmood openings yet (I intend to learn them at some point) so I can't go in the detail, but the main point will be: you don't have to learn everything quickly. Try to get a general idea of the philosophy of the opening ("I want an open center and get a lot of intiative" / “I want to lock the center, be solid and break on my terms” / “I want to build and opposite side castling attack”, etc…). In the game, try to realize it without relying to much on memorized lines. Look at what your opponents do, it that let you doing what you want or is an obstacle, try to figure out solutions when they pose problems. After a short bunch of games, look at the first moves you had and go back to the course to see what you were supposed to go. It should help you understand better the moves of the courses, because you compare them with you're own experience. Then repeat the process: a few game, then go back learn a bit. Learning openings is an incremental process. If you try to learn everything from the start, you will get overwhelm, so learn bit by bit: a little bit of theory, a little bit of practice. 

Finally, remember that at your level, opening are not the most decisive aspect of your progression. You only need to survive the opening, if you have a slightly worse position, that is not the end of the world: you're opponent will likely blunder a piece, oversee a tactic or mess up the endgame and that is where you will get back. The tactics and other courses will help you there, just remember to practice regularly. 

Good luck!
 

Hello!

From my experience, at your level just work on the Tactic Ninja, Opening principles, and potentially Blunderproof courses.

It is simply not worth it to study anything else. You don't need openings then, just opening principles.

After that, study tactics.

If you blunder a lot, study Blunderproof.

After that, just play and analyze your games.

Once you hit 1200, then I recommend you learn the starter openings.

Hope this helps!

You're below 1000 and many people below 1000 blunder a lot. To not overwhelm yourself, first, take a breather, and don't be unhappy since many times when you're doing badly is because you haven't gotten the experience yet. Once you've gotten the experience, your rating will skyrocket. Don't get elo anxiety. I recommend you doing the Blunderproof course first to mitigate any blunders you make, and make sure that you have understood everything in the course. Take your courses slow and steady, don't rush through it and understand deeply what you've learnt.

Good luck and hope you reach your chess goals!

Dear Steve,

Since you are looking for encouragement, here comes a simple advice. Just don't forget the most important think in chess is to enjoy the game. Chessmood gives you the best tools out there to improve your understanding of chess. The rest will come with practice and more practice. My piece of advice?  Fasten your seat belt and enjoy the trip! 

Advise with the French attack

Hi, CM family!

I was analyzing some lines with the french attack and have reached a position that I really don't like with black pieces, and I don't know how we could iimprove our final position. I would really appreciate your ideas.

This line comes in the advance variation against the move 5.c4. According with the blackmood reccomendations:

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bd7 4. Nf3 a6 5. c4 dxc4 6. Bxc4 Bc6 7. Nc3 Nd7 

Now comes the critical move. What if White tries to hit the center with 8. d5?

Here I calculated: 

8... exd5 9. Nxd5 Nb6 (attacking the knight, the bishop and seeking a possible trade of queens). But White can continue with:

10. Bg5 

Here we could go with 10…Be7, Ne7 or Qd7, but in all cases, White response would be

11. Nxb6 (attacking our rook on a8 and ruining our pawn structure on the queen side if we take with the c pawn). It's not very useful to play the intermediate move 11…Qxd1+

since White can capture with the rook 12.Rxd1 (this is one of the advantages of having moved the bishop to g5, that now they can capture our queen with the rook and not the king).

Finally, after taking back the knight 12... cxb6 13. Be3 (attacking our pawn on b6)

You can see the final position of this line in the attached figure. I stopped my evaluation of this line here, but I cannot find how to improve the final position, which to me seems very favourable for white pieces. Their pieces are more active, they can castle short in the next move to activate the rook on h1 and a better pawn structure, with a pawn majority on the king side. (we have pawn majority on the queen side, but our pawns are doubled, so we cannot easily create a passed pawn). Possible contuation for Black?

1. If we take 13…Bxf3 14. gxf3 is not that good, because we give away the bishop pair and our pawn on b7 is very weak after Bd5  

2. If we protect the b6 pawn with 13…Bc5 then it comes 14. Ng5

Thanks for your comments or ideas

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What should i play ?

Following blackmood opening what should i play in this position ?

c4 , Nh6 or a6 ?

a6 seems a bit weird here 

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To me, the move c5 here looks good because you pressure the pawn on d4, and you can then go Nc6, Ne7-f5, and Qb6 and then pressurize white's center. This is like a french defense so follow french defense ideas and plans.

This was mentioned in the course and in the PDF you sent.

Play now Nh6, with a later c5.