Chess forum by Grandmasters

Missing courses from Gm Avrukh?

I thought that there are 12 explained games in GM Avrukh's course but can only see 10. Anyone know where the last two went? BTW, excellent analysis by a world class coach!

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Hi Ovi,

There are 10 games + intro and conclusion, that is why we write 12 episodes… 😃

We are glad that you liked it! It's not easy to have such star coaches with us!

French 6..Be7 7..a6 8.d5 exd5 9.Nd5 0-0 continuation?

Hi Chessmood Team, i just played a game when i relatively won fast vs this line: https://lichess.org/4rPkQfUG/black I checked a bit and after 10.Bf4 is a quite wild line of our friend stockfish beginning with 10..Nd5 Qd5 Nc6 0-0-0 Qa5 Bd2 Qc7 Nf4 Bd6 Qc4 Bf5 Nd5 Qd8 Bc3 b5 etc... with some only moves to prevent advantage. Would you go into this or would you recommend sth different? Maybe already before move 10. Thank you for your help. Fred

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Fred, you played very well and we would not do it better or in a different way. You played very principled moves and we can only congratulate you for such a game. The central d5 breakout is a common theme in this structure that we usually play after 0-0 instead of a6.

Still, if you start watching variations on Stockfish, that's a Never Ending Story… Plus I doubt that you are going to see this line again since a6 is not such a good move…

Position in the speed boat course

Hi , in the diagram included , it s black to move but what happen if c6 is played ? How can white take advantage of the open file as d5 wont be available to attack e5 which is favorite technique of GM Gabuzyan ?

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Hi Denis,

The c6 move will allow white to fix the pawn on b7 forever with the c5 move. Black will not be able to move the rook from the f file as there is always an Rd7 threat. On top of that b7 fixed pawn in the future can be attacked by a white King through a weak b6 square.

Daily puzzle survey

How many do the daily puzzle ? I really appreciate them ! And as a second question , how many are still in the forum and not on discord yet ?

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I do it every day. I am as well here in the forum as on discord.

Hi Denis, I am still here (essential member). And yes, I am doing the daily puzzle almost every day. PS. I took a first look at discord. If necessary, I should be able to change.

I do the daily puzzle fairly often. Am on discord as well as here.

I try and do the daily puzzle every day... Miss some days though. I'm on discord as well as checkiny the forums almost daily. Maybe I'm just an old fogy... Because discord is more of a distraction, so I keep it closed... Unless I actually have a question that works better in a "live" chat room. Other than that, discord isn't useful for me at all. An interesting question would be... Do people who prefer longer time controls and/or daily/correspondence style chess games prefer forums or discord? My assumption would be that many who prefer classical chess and longer time controls prefer the forum style interaction and not the feeling of frantically being in a constant "catch-up" state each time you visit discord.

I do the daily puzzle. I like the forum much more than discord.

Isn't discord the same as forum here only for pro members?

opening

dear Avetik sir kindly upload some model games in the black mood opening section how to play against english opening. thankyou

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Mood coins

I doubt I will ever get enough mood coins to do anything but I really don't know how they are used. I don't see a store. So what is the value of mood coins? Allen

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You can buy any course for life . The value is about 1$ per 1 k MoodCoins . When you click buy course , you have the option of paying with MoodCoins . After less than a month , I have 15k as I do the daily puzzle everyday and I m solving almost everyday on the first try .

Improve, revise and test your endgame skills ♜

Friends, I found interesting website, where you can improve, revise and test your endgame skills, also you can find much puzzles there.
Here is the link: https://blitztactics.com/positions

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mobile view video frame bug

hi, on my ipad the video frame does seem to embedded properly anymore. i tried it with safari and chrome browser. i attached a screenshot. thanks iris

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🙏 Thanks will check it out

Did you tried full screen? At least to watch the videos properly. We are looking into it.💪

Iris, is this still happening? Can you attack the screenshot? 😀

Hi all ? I'm ChessMood Dev ? thanks for bugs) we will fix them: Also for faster response you can write any bugs on the discord bug-report channel

Tactic Ninja

At the end of the tactic ninja course, you recommend to re-watch it a second time from the 1st section, and solve the positions proposed in the videos. If we are able to do it within several seconds per position, switch to next section. But which videos should we re-watch in this context, only the ones named "test" or even the ones with really simple tactics explaining the pattern? Also they are really complicated positions in some sections, should we also be able to solve them within several seconds...?! If not, can you tell me which videos to take into account, and from exactly which videos are extracted the ~700 quizz positions? And what about the in between interactive quizzes?

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All the positions of the course are in the Quizz, the 700 plus… All extracted from the course.

What I recommend to my students is to do the quizz, after you watched it once, or twice, and write the puzzles that they could not solve or where they spent more than 10 min. (Usually they are similar, which gives us a clue regarding what they do not understand).

The second time, when you rewatch the course, you can go fast forwarding to get the position to solve in the screen, from the easy ones to the test, and solve one after another.

Another possibility is to do the in between interactive courses too in a session. This is something very practical too if you are more advanced.

What I would recommend is (depending on your level always that I do not know):

1.Watch and fastforward to solving positions.

2. Do all interactive courses.

3. Do the quizz, writing the number of the quizz that you cannot solve or took you more than 10 min.

4. Do again all the quizz numbers that you had difficult with.

I hope this answers your questions, but again that depends on how much you already know…😀

Good luck, cogro!!!

How to purchase events with MoodCoins?

I know how to do it with a course, but how to do it with an event?

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Events are exclusive for Pro members. It is not possible to purchase events.

A fresh idea against the Scotch? (Chessbase article)

Hi guys, I came across this article on Chessbase https://en.chessbase.com/post/a-fresh-idea-against-the-scotch As far as I went through the in depth course on the Scotch (not for 100% yet) this seems to be a line not yet covered indeed. Lars Schandorff claims that in the 4. ... Bc5 line "White's rather primitive idea" (Oh really?) of Qe2 and Be3 can be tackled with the simple 6. ... d6 7. Qe2 a5! Our friend GM Gabuzyan is even mentioned after in the line 8. Nd5 a4 9. Nxb6 cxb6 but then the knight is forced back 10. Nd2 Nf6. This seems pretty logical indeed but white's positions feels a bit cramped. Do we have a good line against this 7. Qe2 a5 ? Any ideas / recommendations?

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Already discussed here: https://chessmood.com/forum/pro-channel/about-scotch-4bc5

Yeah, I see and also in https://chessmood.com/forum/pro-channel/scotch-bc5-line-with-nf6-early-a5 which is mentioned in that post. Interesting idea for black indeed.

Error in the Petroff defense course?

I enjoyed the course and I think the 5.Nc3 move is very a good choice for white. However i believe there is a small inaccuracy in the third video of the first section, when it explains why 5...d5 is bad. After 6.Qe2 the knight on e4 is pinned and white is threatening to play d3 and take it with the pawn. Here the video says that 6...Qe7 is the only move to keep the knight, but after 7.Nxd5 black is losing material. 6...Be7 is a move that unpin the knight and only loses a pawn. So, indeed 5...d5 is bad, but black is not losing a full piece.

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Puzzle rush and sight of board

I've been playing puzzle rush on chesscup.org and noticed a few things. Simple things especially geometric motives: forks/double attack, discovery, back rank mates; and common sequences I see instantly (the puzzles sub 1500). Also piece being en-prise (particularly one just moved) or leaving something en-prise, king/queen safety I see quickly as my attention gets brought there quickly. I struggle more with when on a busy board involvement takes place outside an area (i.e. I've not noticed a piece), or when there are several functional relationships (e.g. protects/pins) and I miss one or a combination. Also the problem of locking onto an aspect (e.g. it must be a mate) and missing something else is an issue. I guess I don't tactically suffer and can solve complex problems because I can revert back to consciously thinking about the problem (checks, captures, threats) and trying different sequences, especially if it's a puzzle and I know there must be something there. So my thoughts are on how I can improve what I can take in from a board. Like speed reading, the more words you can take in/comprehend during a single fixation determines how fast you can read. I suspect it probably is a lot to do with neural recruitment - the more neurons dedicated to sight of board the more you see without having to think about it. Thus strategies related to neural recruitment are probably going to be beneficial, but it's just working out a training process (something like seeing puzzles that are just above my instant solving ability and training those or seeing aspects of those in a variety of ways until it becomes in-built). The benefits of this will be less blunders/things missed in low time, better calculation/visualisation as more will be appreciated and also freeing up thinking for higher level considerations to the position itself. Short term though it might destroy my blitz play (I'm noticing that), though I did notice my long-play way was better as I was seeing opponent's ideas quicker, though maybe hard to draw a conclusion with a sample of 2 games. Sadly you can't start puzzle rush from a certain rating of puzzle to get more practice on higher puzzles, select puzzles from a certain rating etc. But maybe treating some lichess puzzles as puzzle rush (30 in 3 minutes is up to 6 seconds a position, but probably 8-9 on the latter ones as the initial ones can be solved instantly) would help.

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I do aimchesss daily tactic challenge . Its a 10 min max with 3 mistakes max. First ones as easy as chesscom but they get really harder after 20 . You can only do it once a day but can compare with others as we all do the same problems . Never tried chesscup. I used to do chesstempo long time ago with a short timer for hard puzzle but I was blundering too much which can be good in long term .. i m slow usually on these rushes , but I prefer solving less and being sure of my move . It shows in bullet where I m lower rated

One thing I did that might have helped improve my puzzle rush score was collect puzzles that I got wrong and put them into a Chessable course that I'd run through every so often. I didn't collect all my failed puzzles but instead focused on, in rough priority order: - Easier ones that I somehow overlooked. Typical reasons were things like a distracting feature, a backwards defender, or a novel configuration of pieces even though the motif was simple. - Interesting patterns that seemed to be recurring and potentially useful. - Some puzzles that required just a tiny bit more calculation than normal. Notably I typically did not add the hardest puzzles to my collection. I eventually collected a couple of hundred puzzles.

Opening against 1.b4

Hi Avetik sir, What to play against 1. b4? Can you make course on it? Before that please share quick ideas against it. Thank you for your support and understanding!

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Omkar,

After your comments in the QA session last day where you stated that you want to become a GM in 3 years, we would suggest you to study a lot more the courses that we already have. I checked the courses that you already worked on and you need to speed up your pace, otherwise it will be very difficult to even get close to your goal.

We will occasionally do a short course on b4 probably in the near future, but do not worry about b4, it is not a good move, just play healthy moves in the center. Personally the only thing I used in my games has been e5, Bxb4, Nc6 winning a tempo on the Bishop that will take e5 and that's it. Healthy development after that. No need to know more since you will almost never face this, and even if you face this opening, having a good center will give you a good game.

What you need to focus on is the program that we provided you and follow it trough. You can do it! Do the most effective things… 😀

New Sudy Plans, Advanced Dutch/French. Let's Go!

Hi ChessMood family! My first post! Am in the category of player looking to reach 2000 OTB rating, and so was very interested to read through the new study plans recently posted. Have to say that whilst reading through the plans I was very excited to hear that the advanced dutch and french are being recorded. The 'starter' courses for the dutch and french attack are just awesome, so can't wait for the advanced courses to be released. Hopefully soon?!! Looking forward to growing my game with the help of ChessMood. Let's go!

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Mating Matador Bug

Mating Matador Section 21 - Morphy's Mate Example 1 Quiz 1,2 All rook moves along the g-file >= g3 are mate, but if I play Rg5, Rg6 or Rg7 it marks it wrong

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It might have to do with you need to take something for example Rg3 might be threatening to take the f pawn so the bishop can check the king. Also you can check analysis to see what is wrong with the moves

Tactics Question

Hello everybody, I have a question about tactics, I do tactics on tactics.chessbase.com, and I have a rating of over 2400 on it, and my question is: should I do those tactics on board or not? Thanks!

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Hey Pratik.
If you're doing simple puzzles/warmup exercises, then you don't need to set up a chessboard and solve. It would just take more time.

But if say, you're solving a position that requires deep calculation and can't be solved quickly, then you can consider setting up a board. Atleast, this is what I would do.

Grand Prix 2. ..Nc6

Hi all, where can I find this variation: 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nd4 4. Nf3 a6 ( I only find 4. ..Nxb5) Thank you. Best Thomas H.

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https://chessmood.com/course/sicilian-defence-part-2/episode/312

Proportionality and effect of training

How much difference is there between working on chess for say one hour a day or two hours a day? Of course I know there is a difference but is it proportional with the time invested or is the first hour the most effective?

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How to be more stable in performance

Hi, I have this problem of being unstable in my performance, for example I could beat 1800, 1900 in classical chess, but next tournament I could lost to 1400, 1500, what is your suggestion to tackle this issue?