Chess forum by Grandmasters

Benko course - updated version

Is an update to the Benko course still in the planning? If so, is it possible to know more or less when to expect this course to be ready?

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I've been wondering about when we'll see the Benko course updated too. Ideally the "Wish us lots of energy" thread would be renamed to simply "Roadmap" and the main post would be edited to include things like the Benko update. I don't think a precise day is required - just the month would be fine.

Hey Yair, Peter and everyone!

After lots of meetings and analyzing the games and results of ChessMood students, we saw a very deep gap in the middlegame play...
So, we decided to start from there.

We are always following our principle "To give our students what they need."  Giving what they need, it's much difficult to market, but we want one thing: To see our students succeed. And we wholheartedly believe, that courses like BlunderProof, SLP, WWP and others will improve your results the most. 

About Benko, and other opening courses, we'll let you know when we have an estimated date.

 Of course we will update them, but we are giving priority to the upcoming courses scheduled in the courses page. 
Thanks for your understanding! ?

Hey everyone! 
I'm very sorry for delaying the Benko… 
With Gabuzyan we even prepared the whole material and he was ready to start recording, when we started to analyze our students' games and saw what they were doing in the Middlegames… :( 

Also, I want to be honest and transparent with you. As always was and were with you like a brother first and then coach. 
Friends, you don't see what's going on here, many things… The financial challenges we're facing, how much we're losing every month, how much I'm struggling, how I'm coming to office at 6 AM and leaving and 9 PM, 6 days a week :( 
How my wife haven't time to go the city where her parents live. How I didn't see my parents for 1 month who lives 2 km from me :(  
We have lots of challenges, friends. And if we don't grow, if many new students don't join us, ChessMood will be in big danger :( 

So there is no point, to spend 2 months, record and edit a course, and then declaring bankruptcy and goodbye :( 

Friends, I'm facing lots of challenges, and fighting them. And believe me, time-to-time I have to make unpleasant decisions and choices. I could just stay in Thailand, and enjoy my cozy life… But I'm doing all this for you, for the chess world and I'll keep doing it. 
Once we stay back on our legs, we'll get more time to spend on advanced courses. 
For now, I'm hoping your understanding and support. Even if you're sharing ChessMood with your chess buddies, its already a lot for us! 

Thanks again, 
Your Avetik 

I came up with an idea! 
What if you just write downs in this post all your worries. I mean variations were you feel trouble. 
And Gabuzyan either will record 1 advance section (before recording the full course), or we'll have a webinar. 
What you say? 
If sounds good, go ahead to comment your worries in Benko :) 

All right, champs! 
So, we've added a video in the advanced section of Benko, and we'll hold a webinar to answer all remaining questions. 
Please, take a look and try to attend to webinar, so we'll not need to come to the forum each time for another small question. 

Cheers! 

Profile....

Hi, I must change my e-mail address on my profile but impossible. Nevertheless It's easy to modify rating, name or bearth date....but not e-mail. Thanks for your help.

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Dear Jean-Marie,

Please for this kind of technical questions contact our client support, here is the link https://chessmood.com/contact

Good luck!?

Converting better endings

Hello ChessMood family In the past few games I am not able to convert better endings {Like I was 2-3 pawns } Any advice/suggestions are welcome Thank you in advance

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I found it useful to always tell me: "no need to hurry!" When you're winning by quite a margin it may be tempting to get impacient and give away little things in order to get to the finish line. Like "okay, I give back one pawn but get to trade this annoying piece" or "okay, this gives me a weaknes but I get to advance this pawn"... and so on... One of those "trades" won't harm you but if you start thinking this way it is dangerous that they add up and you may end up with an endgame that is hard to win or even drawn. So I think it is better to keep calm. Even if it takes some time and you feel that you should be winning more quickly, your advantage won't slip away and sooner ot later it will be enough to win. I hope this helps a little...

Know which positions are drawn and try to avoid your opponent getting them: rook's pawn draws, wrong bishop for corner, philidor position in rook endings, well known fortresses...

Practice your endings by trying out the Daily Puzzles. Lately quite a few endings in these puzzles. Very tricky, always with a twist here or there. Plus you get to earn 500 more MoodCoins each time you get the puzzle right all the way.

Hi Pragkya,

Since you are asking about winning positions (2-3 pawns is a huge advantage) firstly I will inform you that the course WWP (Win Winning Positions) is on the way and we will have it in the near future.

On my end I will recommend exchanging the pieces if you have extra material, and if there are dangerous passed pawns be alert and don't let them be advanced too much.

Impulsive moves

A few things from the Blunderproof chapter: Advice that is often given to juniors is 'sit on your hands'. Not always to be taken literally and no doubt uncomfortable, but in 30 mins to try to quell excitement and impulsiveness, particularly in those that spend only 5 minutes during a 30 minute game. Some tips to help during high stakes moves which can be tried out: Full move check - look at every opponent reply. Coupled with the above say forced mate in 3: I move, can they stop my second move, I move again, can they stop my 3rd move? Were there any first moves that would with another move give a counter to the final move? In a combination for each move, how many different replies do they have (so not to overlook one) - also to avoid unforced recaptures. Where is my king / other hazards? So not to fall for intermediate checks / zwichenzugs. Also having in mind the opponent's trumps (such as what they really want, or only way to win if you let them). If I let my opponent play several moves, what would they do? (for non forced sequences). Unexpected replies players by the opponent - re-evaluate, what did I miss, what does that move change / threaten. 'Delta' checking - for each of the moves in my calculation, what lines open/close, pieces/squares get protected unprotected. Before moving what moves would an 'idiot' play here? (overlooking the obvious) - same also after their move (pretend they are an idiot, how would I punish this) to avoid missing blunders as opponents don't hang pieces, right? Break concentration - stand up, look away (walking away on your move might give suspicion of cheating). Look back at the position afresh. Practise long play not just blitz - blitz encourages impulsiveness.

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I'm inviting you to ChessMood Open 2022!

Dear champions! 
I’m super excited to tell you that this autumn we’re holding the 2nd ChessMood Open with a $20k+ prize fund! 
 

All the information is in the website link below. 
https://open.chessmood.com/en/ 

I hope many of you will be here to play chess and have lots of fun. 
Also, we’ll invite you to the ChessMood home-office for a big barbeque party! 
 

Looking forward to meeting many of you soon in Armenia! 

Avetik 

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Very interesting! Last year I've heard about it too late, but this year I'm seriously considering to participate ? Just need to find couple of chess companions from Lithuania

Creating flashcards

Without having to go into a summary of a memory course, one of the most important ways to learn is repetition. It's very easy to view courses once or twice, and then go on to something else and a couple of months later to have forgotten most of it that you've not used in games. One of the problems of revising is keeping things convenient that it's quick and easy to review when you need it. The other thing is managing what you need to review (things you forgot should be look at more than ones you remember). Again this is spaced repetition and other tricks to help here.

One system to do this is the flashcard system. It's described in the book 'Chess Master At Any Age' which has some neat ideas in it (although the flashcards are the best), but the main point is a symbol system (he trademarked it) that makes it easy to draw positions. Alternatively it's possible to get stamps of the pieces which correspondence players would have used, but symbols are way quicker.

Here is a link to an image showing the symbols: https://i.imgur.com/7HBqF5g.jpg

Note you don't have to use filled / unfilled, I use red pen and blue (felt-tip) pen which stands out over a printed board (you could also hand draw a board as in the image, but printing looks neater).

The cards themselves, should have a title, the position and who is to move, and some comment, possibly some analysis or the line (but too much and it defeats the purpose of a quick review). You can make them small to carry in a deck, but I prefer large and in a folder (although maybe I'll print some smaller ones for things I need to review often0. I used to use this as a method to review things long ago before I moved to a database (PGNs), but I feel databases aren't so useful for learning from and are hard to review and you need your computer..

I've attached a pdf of the paper I'm printing to make flashcards from the chessmood openings. It has a main board, and 3 smaller boards. I use the main board for the main position of the (sub) line and the 3 boards for further moves or analysis. This works well so far, but the real proof [of the pudding] will come when I start trying to revise from the format - so how good it is to help remember chessmood openings I am yet to see. However feel free to try it and see if it works for you.

Also you can use the same thing to take notes from the other courses for review later rather than having to find them again in the videos.

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Hi David,

How about chessable and creating your own course. You can have chapters, that represent main lines in your opening. You can input one ChessMood course as one opening.

In chapters you can include alternative variations (if two lines are suggested), informational variations (to show what you should not have played), the model games and even traps as tacticts.

Chessable offers mobile app so you can practice / memorize without computer. I suppose anyone has mobile phone nowadays. The app offers you first to learn and then to repeat. The moves you have missed it will ask you more often to repeat.

This is very modern way to remembr moves in the oppenings and if you enter comments to moves you can even review the course without rewatching the video.

Bottom line, I find chessable much more useful for memorizing openings than chessbase.

Have you tried Anki? I agree with your comments about the need for review. What I am currently doing is to create a word table with two columns (front and back) when I come to a position to remember I clip the diagram with snagit and then put the diagram in the left column (front) I then write a question to answer below the diagram. In the right hand column is the answer. I then print the pages and cut the diagrams and tape onto flash cards. Another method is PowerPoint slides. The advantage to PowerPoint is that you can add video and audio to your notecards. Of course neither word or PowerPoint has spaced repetition. I am considering trying Anki cards. Any experience?

French Attack - French Bishop Exchange 7. Qxd3

For the Simplified BlackMood Opening - What is recommended to play here? 7...c5? 7...c6? I've been playing c6 but I am not sure if that is best. Thank you! rn1qkbnr/1pp2ppp/p3p3/3pP3/3P4/2PQ1N2/PP3PPP/RNB1K2R b KQkq - 0 7

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Hi Leo 7...c5 8.0-0 transposes to subsection 11 "Our different Options", thus would c5 is playable as also stops an agressive b4 push

Deflection vs Distraction

Im going through the tactics course and Im having a hard time differentiating distraction tactics from deflections tactics. Could someone please help me distinguish the two? Is there a definition or example I could use to better understand?

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Hello Chris,

It's not surprising that you got confused as the topics are really close to each other.

In conditions when deflection forces to take a piece away from the concrete position by capturing or attacking something it defends, in case of distraction we attack that piece forcing it to move.

Good luck!

New article: Underdog to Champions - How GM Ivan Sokolov transformed the Uzbek team into Olympiad champions

Champions, yesterday we interviewed the legend GM Ivan Sokolov, gold-winning coach of the Uzbekistan team, is out!?
 

He talked about:

✅Training the Uzbek team before and during the Olympiad.

✅Why it’s easier to build team spirit amongst younger players.

✅The common mistakes chess improvers make.

✅Advice on speeding up your chess growth.

And much more 

Read it here ?

https://chessmood.com/blog/ivan-sokolov-interview
 

Or if you have time you can watch the full interview here ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tpq3GECp0M
 

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Avetik, very good interview and article! This was enjoyable to listen to, thank you for sharing.

how to play fearlessly against higher rated players

Recently i played below 1600 classical event and i performed their at 1460 rating performance and my rating boost from 1351 to 1403, my question when i gets good position against higher rated player than me that happens most of the time but every time i cannot play fearlessly with them so how to get out of this and if you gave me same position against lower rated player then i attack or crush them as fast as possible

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Check out chessmood articles, they have really good ones for inspiration and increasing your fighting spirit. Check especially the psychology section. I think you should read these: https://chessmood.com/blog/the-power-of-self-belief-in-chess https://chessmood.com/blog/winners-never-quit https://chessmood.com/blog/the-spirit-of-warrior https://chessmood.com/blog/chess-is-not-for-the-weak https://chessmood.com/blog/how-to-show-no-mercy-to-your-opponents https://chessmood.com/blog/why-you-should-reject-draw-offers

Books with Intermediate-Move Puzzles

Im going through the tactics ninja course and just got through the intermediate-moves section. It's the first time I got a lot of problems wrong in the test section, and I think I need more practices with this type of tactic. Can anyone recommend a book (or chessable course, etc.) that has a lot of intermediate-move puzzles?

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Hi Dave, I don't know any books off the top of my head with sections devoted to intermediate moves but you can train this on Lichess where there are over 44000 of them. https://lichess.org/training/intermezzo Hope that helps

New success story: The bumpy road to the IM title

Hello champions!

Today we’ve added another success story. This one is about our hero’s persistence and comeback to achieve the IM title. He talks about: 

?The changes he made to his training and mindset.

?The importance of selecting the right tournaments. 

?New opportunities that opened up after he became an IM.

Also, he didn’t just achieve his IM title, but also raised around 300 online rating points in 1 year!

Here’s the link to the story ?

https://chessmood.com/feedback/tianqi-wang

Keep the CoGro! ❤️

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PURE inspiring stuff. Suggestion: please interview this man for his amazing testimony of his chess struggles and achievement, then upload the video on Youtube.

Wow, very inspiring, I'm here still dreaming and working for FM title ?

Great story! Thanks for sharing.

Game analysis, had big edge vs GM in our line

Hi again, Participating in Riga RTU open OTB classical, had this game vs strong GM and outplayed him out of the opening (CM line ?) but really messed up later. As the saying goes you gotta beat GM in opening, middlegame and endgame in order to win. https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/pgn/2p6n2oARxz Comments welcome!

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Tough game. That Bxf6 sac was very hard to see. Just playing through the game quickly, one interesting idea that jumped out at me was to play 20.f5 with the idea of sacrificing the exchange (in the style of Petrosian & Bronstein) with Re6 to get a massive bind. Update: I put that position into the engine and let Stockfish 15 search deep (depth 48). Quite interesting to see that it thinks 20.f5 was in fact the best move, scoring about a pawn higher than 20.c4. See attachment.

Good job Paulius! Keep it up and keep the Mood!

How to play against reversed stonewall

How do we play against the reversed Stonewall, with 1. d4 Nf6 2. e3 g7 3. Bd3 Bg7 where often white's aiming for a quick e3-e4, sometimes with c2-c3 inserted, especially if black plays Nc6? Should we go for the King's Indian kind of lines of pushing e7-e5?

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Hello Yair, It's the eternal question of what to play if they use the reversed lines than reversed and reversed hahah ?? The answer is to play good healthy chess, build a strong center, and develope the pieces. Our course about the opening principles is a good guide. Back to the question, if you are a Blackmood player choose some setup like e6 - b6 - bb7 - f7 and use the weak e4 square. If you Blay Benko you can build fianchetto and try to fight with c5, or after fianchetto d6-e5 like Kings Indian. The choice is rich, just go for healthy chess. Good luck!

Game analysis, french Bd3, IQP what could be improved?

Hey folks! Participating in yearly Riga RTU open 2022 and had this game in CM Bd3 line against the french vs young improving opponent and want your opinion what were the critical moments (imo missing Nc5 idea) and what could be improved to push for an edge. Thanks https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/pgn/2wFSppDtEi

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Grand prix 2..e6 with Nh6 question

Hello chessmoodians! I'm participating in Riga rapid tournament and in one game IM played against me, I'm white: 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 e6 3.f4 d5 4.Nf3 dxe4 5.Nxe4 Nc6 6.Bb5 Bd7 7.Qe2 (with f5 ideas as in the course) Nh6 (imo best move for black) 8.b3 Nf5 9.Bb2 Be7 - I looked in the courses but couldnt find this natural move analysed in CM and it seems it's the main reply according to database So up untill here I remembered but now I played 10.0-0-0 which I dont think was best as 10...Nfd4 followed with good play for black. Looking at db I found 10.Ne5 game played by Vocaturo, so it would be interesting what plan coaches or members recommend after 9..Be7 Thank you EDIT: oh and btw I managed to win that game against IM ?

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Hi Paulius, In my opinion, that position is practically easier for white. I like the idea of Bd3 to keep at that moment, but all is fine with Ne5 and your 0-0-0 as well. White is not having problems, the opposite, white get an easier game.

New course: Spartan Shield

Hey everyone! 

We’ve launched the first sections of “Spartan Shield” ?️ course, where you’ll learn important defensive concepts. 

You might have already watched GM Johan Hellsten’s “Defend with honor" course, to improve your defensive skills. 

This one is aimed at below 1,600 rated players, where GM Gabuzyan shares the most important and basic concepts you need to know, for successfully defending on lower levels. 

So,
1. If your rating is below 1,600, this is exactly what you need to know for defending like a real Spartan! 
2. And if you’re an advanced player, or have already watched the “Defend with Honor” course, this is gonna be a good refreshment for you. 

Enjoy ❤️
https://chessmood.com/course/spartan-shield

Best wishes,
ChessMood team 

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Suggestion: Quiz for every section in the openings

Hi, currently we have quizzes only for all the sections in the whitemood simplified openings. If I studied the scotch, or the grand prix attack, I can't train only on those sub-sections, but I have to study all the course. My suggestion would be to make quizzes for every sub-section. The same could apply for the tactics course, where if I studied only pins for example, I can't do the quizzes for pins only.

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Hi Francesco, This idea sounds interesting and we may be doing this for future courses! Thank you!

Nightmare of Rossolimo

In Bc6 dc6 line after f4 ef4, Bf4 Ne6, Be3 Nd4,Rae1 Be6,e5 Nf5, Bf2 Qc7 ,can white play Ng4 and go for the f6 square?

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Dear Prady, Please provide a clear position or the link for the required video so I can answer on the question ?

Chess Olympiad

What are the chances of Indian team winning the Chess olympiad despite Vishy not playing in the main team?

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I don't know, but I like the look of the India B team!

Its considered to be the second favorite right behind team USA which is getting really strong having a 2700+ average rating with Caruana, Levon, Wesley, Dominguez and Shankland. But speaking from experience I can tell you that especially in team events everything can happen, I think India has a decent chance to win but it will all come down to the players form.

I think that Norway will surprise us this time with Carlsen on top form… What do you think??

India-2 are doing well, as expected. Interesting game by Wesley So in round 4 where he plays the crazy 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.h4 and then it transposes into a line of the half-accepted Benko (e3 line): https://www.chess.com/events/2022-fide-chess-olympiad/04/So_Wesley-Sindarov_Javokhir

Will Chessmood comment Olympiad? So many crazy, interesting games!