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Chess forum by Grandmasters
Attack with Scotch Game / 38...d6
Dear members and coaches, in the line of the course (please refer to video course " Attack with Scotch Game / 38...d6" https://chessmood.com/course/scotch-game/episode/659) white plays 9..c4 and black best answer is Nb6. Then 10. exd6 is designed to enter a better endgame for white, but black can just take the pawn with 10. cxd6 not trading queen and avoiding to help white to develop the bishop. Should we go on with 11. Nc3 and simply develop the pieces ?
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It's solid for black and played by black by strong GM as Aronian, Le, Dubov. I've one OTB game with idea 11. Be3 Be6 12.Nd2 with idea long castle and sharp game. Probably more solid is 11.Nc3 Be6 12. b3 d5 and about equal but with better pawn structure
Hi All, What is best way to meet 6.. Ne4 ? i.e. 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nf6 3 d4 cd 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nxc6 bc6 6 e5 Ne4 I do not remember seeing this in course and seems playable. Thx
Hi Marius, Yes, we just go on with Nc3! The thing is black pawns on c6 and d6 are a little vulnerable and we continue developing the pieces to good central positions. In the future white bishop can go to a long diagonal via Be2-Bf3. Good luck!
Missing Quiz in Bishop Endgames?
I think the button to the quiz for Bishop endgames is missing and so there is no way to access the quiz currently. Hope this can be fixed, thanks. https://chessmood.com/course/bishop-endgames
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Hi Dear Casey, We have quizzes for almost all the courses, with few exceptions. Bishop's endgame course is not that concrete and is really more conceptual, for that reason there will not be a quiz on that one. Good luck ?
Improvement advice
Hello everyone. I am a 16-year-old player and from a negligent country in the chess scene, where very few tournaments occur. At the moment I am rated 2011 Fide and 2500 on chess.com. What are the best courses on chessmood to get to 2300fide/2700chesscom?
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Hello Aleksander, I would recommend the following: If you are looking for the openings, the main sections in other words not the simplified versions. A lot of content of middlegames for your level: Commented classical and attacking games, as well the endgames. And as well all the courses of middlegame mastery. Blunderproof. And tactical courses can be decent as well. Good luck!
How to transfer MoodCoins from one account to other accounts
Do you guys know how to transfer MoodCoins from one account to another? If you know how to do it, show it to me, please! Thanks in advance!
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Hi Antonio, That option is not available ? Good luck!
Pawn Structures
Hi, first of all, this chess resource is ausome, congratulations! I subscribed Chessmood for my son who is 13 years old and 1430 elo FIDE. He wants to be FM at 16, so he is determined to study and practice 3 hours a day (now with ChessMood he can do it nicely). His coach suggested a book to improve his knowledge about Pawn Structures (for the middle game), but my son doesnt really love reading. What course or videos of your collection could help in this topic?
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Studying the classic games will help with understanding of various pawn structures, as will studying the various opening systems if done in the right way. Fortunately ChessMood does a great job of helping one study their opening systems as they feature quality model games with excellent commentary. A lot of this knowledge about pawn structures will be picked up subconsciously. Recently it has become somewhat trendy to formalise the study of pawn structures, perhaps largely due to the (reportedly) excellent Chess Structures book by Rios. I'm pretty sure it's possible to reach FM level without following that precise approach.
I think that almost all opening videos discusses about pawn structures that can be formed while playing that opening, if that pawn structures isn't what you meant then I don't know
Hello Benjamin, Thanks for the kind words! What I would recommend from the middlegames from our courses is the 100 commented classical ones, when we cover games of strongest players with our commentaries. As well in the near future, we are going to have a course " Middlegames roadmap " where we will cover different middlegame topics as well. Very importantly I recommend watching daily lessons with a GM which is among our courses as well. Good luck to your son in achieving his goals!
Magnus Carlsen
Why did Magnus decide to not play in the World Championships?
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Well, you could read the following article and I am sure that you will understand the reasons>
https://chess24.com/en/read/news/magnus-carlsen-to-give-up-world-championship-title
?
He thinks its not worth it anymore as he already proved himself 5 times and he just wanted to test the next generation. Its a shame because a match against Nepo would have been so much more interesting and close now but I guess he didnt feel like it. After all he celebrated winning the Lichess bullet Arena than winning against Nepo, that was a clear hint about his intentions
Blitz Survey-Please Be Honest!
Hello All CM members Would like to do a few surveys to hopefully help each other out by learning from others' though processes. First question is what is your immediate thought when encountering a player rated 100-200 points higher than you before a blitz game??
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My immediate thought is that I know that if I play my best game now, I have a good chance to win this. "have to play as good as I can, cannot be intimidated!" Also, a good opportunity to see what a player 150 points higher plays like especially if I get a rematch or two.
Contact with Avetik
Hi does anyone know the most efficient way to get in contact with Avetik I messaged him on instagram but haven't gotten a response. Thanks in advance for your help.
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The contact us link. If it's important enough he'll be forwarded it. Remember the GMs are extremely busy so may not be able to reply to all messages personally.
Dear Avetik, You said to me that you never make impulsive moves. Please explain Sam Shankland in Olympiad today making immediate move v Robert H. your Armenian brother when he had plenty of time 2 mins+ left on clock moving his king into check convinced his opponent had played check on h1 when he had in fact stopped his queen on g2 ? Thx Mike
Dear Ding Liren, please through Wang Hao. He knows my phone number.
:) :)
Jokes aside, contact us is the best way, and whenever there is something urgent, our clients' happiness team forwards me the email.
Cheers!
Looking for playing partner
Hi, I am Joshua Tan from Malaysia, I would like to look for playing partner, my Lichess rating is around 1650. Want to test out what I have just learned in French Attack...
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hi, I am Wiktor from Poland and i really want to have a playing partner too. my rating is 2000 on chess.com tho. if it is alright to you then we can play anytime. my nick on chess.com and lichess: xWitekx02 :)
Any training partners available?
Hello guys, my name is Wiktor Przedlacki, im from Poland and im 14 years old. My rating is 2100 chess.com and 1400 fide. I would really apreciate it if someone with similar rating to me could be my training partner. thx :)
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New success story: Karthik raised over 450 points in less than a year, even with an active job
Hello champions! ?
We’ve just uploaded another success story! ?
This time our hero raised about +500 points in less than a year, having a full-time job! ?
? How did he manage to do that?
? The challenges he faced and how he overcame them?
? His improvement algorithm
? How he used ChessMood courses and much more you’ll find by clicking the link below ?
https://chessmood.com/feedback/karthik-ramesh
Have a great day! ❤️
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Great job Karthik!!Keep on like that!!
Congratulations Karthik. I see your improving graph of lichess is the blitz ratting. Are you focused in blitz or you use longer time controls. Also through my experience if you want to improve your FIDE rating and perhaps be a FM you should play more OTB tournaments. Online chess leads to lousy play while OTB 90+30 facing another guy who has similar objectives than you, during hours is a real psychological warfare. I use online games to check openings, normally 10+5 or 5+3. But I only notice OTB improvement playing OTB. Another method to improve my tactical awarness is to solve studies instead of game puzzles. Iss much more effective and after focusing 2021 in study solving my tactic rating on chess.com jumped from 2060 to 2850!! Good luck
Sight of board training
The GMs might have missed this one since it was under the blunderproof thread in main: ' One thing I've noticed about my chess (or at least when I was rusty a few weeks ago), is that watching a game and joining in the middle I get quickly focused on one thing, that I'm not taking in the board and the relationship between the pieces, except where the action is. That perhaps is less of a factor while playing as that gets built up. I'm wondering if there is any training for taking in all that's happening, starting from simple positions up to quite sharp one. That has to help the tactics. Doing puzzle rush helps somewhat, but the first 30 odd puzzles (and many of other puzzles) are about focusing in on the obvious point of action and sacrificing something (or back rank mate), nor do they have a good level of complexity increase so you can find where you currently are in what you can take in and train from there.' I asked about the sight of board question to GM Shankland in a Q&A session. His opinion was train it blindfold with simple tactical positions (so you are not confounding it with difficult tactics and calculation). Use a training partner to one by one give you the piece positions to build what's happening up in your head, then try to solve it blindfold. My own thought is if you don't have a partner, you could try for example to save a tactical database file as pgn, view in a text editor, cover the screen so you can't see the solution and read the FEN tag (which while gives you multiple pieces, it's not so easy to see straight off and you'll need to build it up in your head before solving).
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I suspect that a lot of what makes up rapid sight of board "just" comes down to pattern recognition. If you internalised a massive library of patterns then you can quickly assess the most obvious stuff and then start branching out to what else is happening on the board. Not just tactical patterns, but positional patterns, attacking patterns, defensive patterns, endgame patterns etc.
Hi David, The Steps Method books - especially Step 1 have a lot of good board vision exercises.
I've experienced similar issues, and something that helped me a lot was doing the tactical puzzles on ChessTempo on blitz mode. This forces you to first of all scan the board and simply notice things, as otherwise the nature of the puzzles are such that you're sure to miss something outside of the most obvious center of action.
One question is how do we measure sight of board speed? Perhaps 5 minute Puzzle Rush is a reasonable estimate. Another estimate is blitz rating, although several other things play into that. In any case, unless we can measure it we don't know if we've improved it!
The best games of July, 2022, and the prizes
Hello ChessMood family, hello champions and future champions!
Welcome to the "Best games of July, 2022" 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 June, 2022:
Mike Waddington
Buzzer
Paulius Juknis
Regis H
Vedant Garg
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Minor Piece Domination https://www.chess.com/game/live/50861980359
No spectacular moves but a typical attack in an exchange Caro Kann https://www.chess.com/live/game/50861961481
Hello! This is my first forum post. "A miniature in the Scandinavian defense" https://lichess.org/swxelEoZVVUX ?
Sometimes you win with out needing to think when you know your openings ?
My cool july games vs scandinavian (knowing CM theory helps) https://www.chess.com/game/live/50945504889 vs caro https://www.chess.com/game/live/50947765153 https://www.chess.com/game/live/51295236155 (Rh8 + Nf7 trick many are caught) https://www.chess.com/game/live/51466178305 grinding in maroczy as black https://www.chess.com/game/live/51033552359 https://www.chess.com/game/live/51290422049 vs alapin https://www.chess.com/game/live/52503583757 GP fun https://www.chess.com/game/live/51204667577 https://www.chess.com/game/live/51207596881 https://www.chess.com/game/live/51898156043 https://www.chess.com/game/live/52503078789 whiskey and scotch https://www.chess.com/game/live/51294623205 botvinnik setup https://www.chess.com/game/live/51463888979 https://www.chess.com/game/live/51467408817 https://www.chess.com/game/live/52761566199 weird benko https://www.chess.com/game/live/52505371859 not quite a Passini attack https://www.chess.com/game/live/52761022265
My Best July Games: vs Philidor Defense https://www.chess.com/game/live/50938168939 vs Italian Game https://www.chess.com/game/live/48949145955 ?
If there is a special prize for funny games: First time I quadruple heavy pieces on a file (after 33rd move) :-) https://www.chess.com/live/game/51377961853
https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/51586159279 Dutch crushing the London. Opponent resigns in 13 moves!
Mating attack after Rf7 https://www.chess.com/live/game/51620444001
French attack-advanced variation with 5 c4. Not a perfect game; I tried 11 Bb4 to pin the knight and so indirectly protect d5, but it's a mistake (as I suspected, since I know we usually place the bishop on e7...) and it's better to just play a5. That's the move I thought of immediately during the game, but then as I thought about it I grew concerned (wrongly) about leaving the b5 square to the white knight (which it could be kicked away from easily anyway...).
Queen sac with lot of mistakes in stone wall dutch. https://chess.com/live/game/51653464485
BlackMood - French Attack with 3. e5 https://lichess.org/71ew5iICQcPt
Dark square domination using the Anti Sicilian repertoire https://lichess.org/TcviQZyq9NwJ
https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/52169429087 Dutch game (15/10 Rapid) 91.8% accuracy (though there were some mistakes) Amazing Rook sacrifice that led to a 10 move forced mate! I am very proud that I was able to calculate this out and not only find the sacrifice but also to calculate it out to the mate. I knew that even if I had missed something I would at least draw.
Can I send the moves of a classical tournament game I played?
https://lichess.org/oGxsASRq#52 How to fight fire ? PLAY WITH THE FIRE!!!! 26..Rxh2!! And soon won :)?
French Bd3 https://www.chess.com/live/game/52255796111
Bg3! Closing the box https://www.chess.com/live/game/52394438677
fun finish!
Here is one of my games from the World Open a couple of weeks ago.
https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/52295413739 I sacrificed my knight and the rook for a mating attack
I love our Scotch! And the opening too... :)
French attack, dream variation. I missed a stronger continuation at a certain point but still not too bad
Quite proud of this double rook exchange sacrifice :))
My opponent thought he/she was facing the Dutch defense. They soon found out it was the Dutch Attack!
As all courses are unlocked, I just learnt French Attack (until section 2 only) this morning and won a game in the afternoon. I played 12 times before but without deep knowledge into it. Definitely will sign up a plan and increase my ratings. ?
https://www.chess.com/game/live/524616
Scotch. Missed exchanging the knight for black better bishop...but at least I saw 21 Nd5 with the idea Qxd2 Nxe7+ Kh8 Rxh7+ Kxh7 Rh1#
I was black in all the games.
Very nice checkmate! https://lichess.org/kUy5CNopLCpJ
https://lichess.org/5gKcRDlkADH2 playing the scotch
https://lichess.org/t8aboVVzP9CR
https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/pgn/4bV1DbqPoL nice ending -Underpromotion i am white btw
https://lichess.org/zi7zjajG#0
Attack!
https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/52461654799?tab=review I think this is the best game I've ever played in my life!!!
Hello Champions!
Thanks for sharing your best games! It brings us great joy when you apply the ideas you learn to win your games! And there were amazing ideas in the games you all have played this month. Keep it up!
Moving on to the prizes for the best games of July 2022:
The first prize goes to Aram Sevag. 12…Rxa6 was an interesting exchange sac, and what followed after that was a beautiful attack! Well done Aram!
Regis H grabs the second prize for playing a model game in the Anti-Sicilian with the White pieces, demonstrating important ideas. And 23.Rf7!! was a killer! Nicely done Regis!
https://www.chess.com/game/live/51620444001
We say ‘Dutch Attack’! John Fallon takes the third prize for this attacking game in the Dutch – right from building an attack to a simple but elegant finish with a Queen sac! Great job John!
The 4th prize goes to Ayush Shirodkar. What a beautiful way to mass the pieces minor pieces on the enemy King and finish the game with a checkmate. Well done Ayush!
https://www.chess.com/game/live/50861980359
The 5th prize goes to Jay Garrision, who played a fantastic miniature in his beloved opening – Scotch Game! It shows the consequences of playing the dubious move 6…Nd5, instead of the main move 6…Qe7.
Congratulation, and thanks again, everyone for sharing your games! Keep the Cogro!
Good luck for the August month’s contest!
Would the partnership between Chessmood and Chessdojo happen?
Hello! :) I was a PRO Member in the past (before the new prices) but I couldn't renew my membership at the same price because of technical issues. With this new offer, I'm pretty tempted to return to Chessmood. However, I've read a partnership could happen between ChessMood and ChessDojo which will give all the Chessmood courses for free to the Dojo members. Before renewing my Chessmood subscription with this one-time offer, would it be possible to have more information about how will work this future partnership? Thank you! ?
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Are you a Dojo member?
First and last up (as the offer is terminated in 15 hours) ?
Both site have their pro and cons currently i m in the dojo training program saw some videos during the free testing period lot of nice things inside. Currently focusing more on one things don t like to divide my attention too much did it a lot already in the past (purshase lot of chessable course without finishing half of them...). But what i saw from the video seems really interresting. Read lot of blog post lot of interresting things their too. Hope the partnership goes trough and we get a nice training plan which incorporate the best of both site. Thanks for the free preview (I divide my attention again but was worth it ?)
ChessMood + ChessDojo = ChessMojo?
Greymood
Hello all! Ive been playing a bit (along with studying) for about two years and just found this great website. Im starting to work my way through the courses such as mating matador and tactics, etc, which is all topics Ive been exposed to but enjoy the presentation and review from chessmood. Alongside these courses I decided I would invest the time to follow and learn chessmood recommended openings and watched the blackmood course, as there were only two openings to learn from black and i dont want to focus too much on this aspect of the game at my modest level, per what seems to be the conventional wisdom.. At the end of the course description, they said there would be courses on using the black openings for white; however, these courses arent yet available. If i wanted to use this approach so I didnt have to devote any more time to opening study over other topics (there is considerably more work on the white side than the black side), would opening white with 1. e3 be valid, and then following with either 2.d4 or 2.f4 as appropriate to emulate a reversed Dutch/French? Again, I am interested in this so that I can minimize my study of openings and devote effort to the other aspects of the game, and so thought this is perhaps a reasonable streamlined approach to a workable repertoire for both colors for the price of 1, so to speak...especially since the course description alludes to the idea of using blackmood for the white side. Thanks so much for any feedback. Cheers!
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sparring partner
hello people I'm looking for a sparring partner to play chessmood openings with, I'm 1700 fide.
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Hi Lucio,
Please use the following thread to post your message. https://chessmood.com/forum/main-channel/studysparring-partner-1362
This is the official thread for looking for a sparring partner.
Please let me know when you did it in order to delete this thread.
Thanks in advance and good luck in finding a partner!?
4 things required to become an expert
https://youtu.be/5eW6Eagr9XA Chess related for those interested in watching. The TLDR summary is that to improve your chess you will have to do a lot of work. The good news is that with Chessmood the quality inputs are provided here for us. The rewatchability of the classic games and various courses is significant. There is too much to gleen from just one viewing. Happy studies everyone.
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I think one major quality that sets a good player apart is that he / she doesn't fall apart when he / she falls behind in material or when in a losing position. Hikaru calls it tilting, right? The psychological aspect cannot be ignored. Not easy to attain such a focused state in a real game regardless of the evaluation bar, but can be done.
When will the blackmood openings course will cover the dutch vs everything else?
Hello, in the week where you Opened all your courses I did watch almost all the Dutch course and I enjoyed it a lot. I am probably going to buy the discounted yearly plan as a result since I believe there are many courses here that can help me improve. My question is when will the Dutch course will cover all the other starter moves similar to the black main course (about the Sicilian and the symmetrical English)
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We will add it soon! also, till you become a decent player play this Dutch and keep improving once your are a decent player then start learning and playing the Benko Gambit given in our courses! and also we will surely do about dutch soon
French - Schlechter variation main line deviation with 6.. Be7
I very rarely get the main, main line with 3. Bd3. Instead, I get all kinds of deviations where I feel it's quite unclear if white has any advantage. For example, I just got this: 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Bd3 dxe4 4. Bxe4 Nf6 5. Bf3 c5 6. Ne2 Be7, and black later took on d4 and pushed e6-e5. Any ideas against this?
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The french is rarely played and ChessMood's Variation even more rarely. After the sequence of moves you give you get as White a majority on the Qside against Black's on the Kside. (The engines assess the position as equal.) One way to play that position is possibly (?) to take account of theses strategical imbalances ?
I think it's covered maybe in advance section by GM Avetik. 7. Nbc3 0-0 8. d5! GM Onischuk idea d:e 9. Nd5 Nc6 10. Nec3 Nd4 11. Be3 Nf3+ 12.Qf3 Be6 13. 0-0-0 If not take 8..e5 9. 0-0 Ne8 10. g4! Nd6 11. Ng3 but very advance.
Twitch streamer from Malaysia
Hi there. My name is Frankie. 54 years old. Married, gamer dad, IT Manager from a country that has no GM. I stream chess at twitch.tv/durian_defense .... just wanted to ask if anyone else here streams on Twitch? If yes, great! If no, that's no problem. Just curious. I bit the bullet and signed up for the yearly Pro Plan during the 72 hour offer period. I am looking forward to being a productive and useful member of the Chessmood community. Just want to share an interesting t-shirt I saw a motorcyclist wearing the other day. His shirt read the words: "Good food is good mood". So a useful piece of the puzzle to playing chess in a good mood is ... good food! Eat well, eh? Regards Frankie "Durian Defense" Kam Malaysia Chess com Blitz rating 2050.
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Welcome Frankie! I'm not a streamer, but probably some other members are.
