Chess forum by Grandmasters

Troubles with specific openings

Wanted to get some thoughts from the chessmood family.  I've noticed that I tend to have a lot of trouble with our anti-sicilian lines, but other openings (Benko/Scotch/Dragon) I have great results with.  I suspect part of it is that the Sicilian lines can transpose to each other quite often and I tend to lose the thread of which approach I should take, so I'm going to be going over all the courses again with lots of attention to where the positions can be similar, and also looking for any Sicilian-themed webinars, but I wanted to get any other suggestions people might have. COGRO!

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Just had the webinar on the Bc4 (non GP) lines.

Hello Karl,

This is a fantastic thing to do, re watch the courses... I watched some of them several times and still I keep forgetting lines... As for the webinars I took the liberty to select for you a couple of them that made a great impression on me:

Here you have the link for the Accelerated Dragon webinar, which I watched 3 times already!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pZMiyAOm78

Next, yesterday's spectacular webinar regarding an early Bc4.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QnlcxWURao

Let's keep growing while being happy!!

Hi Karl, yes you're right I have the same problem. There're a lot of transpositions and variations in Antisicilian. Rewatching courses is fine. I think a very efficient way is to go after your specific game to a certain variation in course, might take more time but you will remember this variation better. Also, I'm paying attention to pawn structures it helps too. And the last thing I noticed I'm getting often good positions out of the opening but not finishing them in the best way.

Thanks for the thoughts everyone!  I started rewatching the anti-Sicilian courses yesterday and then played this game that lichess said has no inaccuracies mistakes or blunders!

https://lichess.org/eaoxh1Og/white

How did you find ChessMood

Let's share our stories here about how you've discovered the existence of our lovely ChessMood and how you decided to become a member of ChessMood family :)  

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Before a year and a half, my chess was very weak and I wanted to improve it. So I started watching videos on the chess with Suren chanell, which chessmood is also recommending. One day, I discovered that a channel called "Chessmood" was appearing on the "other channels" list, just next to the playlists. I got amazed by the way GM Avetik was explaing the few, but excellent chess videos the channel had once. The next day, I typed chessmood on google chrome, and as I was exploring the courses, I hoped I found a very good source to learn. GM Grigoryan's message "try to learn chess from trustworthy sources", and the articles motivated to become a Pro member and take as much value as I can. The 1,5 year I am a Chessmood member, by watching the courses and the streams, being or not being Pro member, I raised my online rating around 350 points from 1500 to 1850 (I have highs of 1960) and I owe a big thanks to all GMs not only for the excellent courses and webinars, but also for the instructive articles and commented games. It would be very interesting to hear how you found our chessmood family.

My story is funniest. I have a facebook chess group and there I help beginners and below 1600 players. Even though I am also 1465. But still I help them in proper way and I never misguide them. One day coach @GM_Avetik_Grigoryan texted me and told me about his group and I asked are you seriously a Grandmaster? He said yeah, then I thought in my mind no he can't be a GM because GMs normally do not like to talk with novice. This was my thoughts in past. So I googled his pic and everything and then I realized yeah he is GM hehehe. I felt so happy that a GM is not only talking to me but also he is treating me so well like I am not novice but a decent player. Then he made his website and asked me to join. Again my bad old thoughts came in my mind. I thought oh! now he is doing marketing. The reason for that is most GMs are doing that normally. So I never trusted anyone's contents. So I felt same about him. But in front of him I said yeah I will join sir. In the end I never joined chessmood. Suddenly one day my friend asked me to check his content I said nah. He said check the very first video. So I thought ok let's give it a try. Once I saw the content I felt so angry on myself that I did not trusted coach's words and I felt so sad too. But then I joined chessmood and it's gonna be for forever. Chessmood helped me in chess and gave me super chess training partners and I am improving day by day but all credit goes to chessmood family!

I got to know about Chessmood via some of my chess groups

The Perpetual Chess Podcast
https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/new-blog/2020/9/1/episode-192-gm-avetik-grigoryan

It was the 30December 2020 and At that time all of the courses were opened for 3 days for free.

GM Bassem Amin our African champion wrote about the site and advised us to seize this opportunity to watch as much as possible in these 3 days.

From that time, I am a member here

At first I saw the Chess.com account Zaven_ChessMood online. I thought of applying this "Mood" in my username. So the next day when I opened chess.com I saw Sam_ChessMood then again that evening Hrant_ChessMood! I then found that they were all Armenian GMs. I googled then "Why Armenian GMs have ChessMood in their username". Then I found "ChessMood:Chess Courses and Events with ..." written there. And after that I also read an article in ChessBase India under it which helped me to find. This is not a baked story

Chess board in forum posts

I've noticed that some post chess boards in their forum posts. It would be nice if someone could please tell me how this is done! :)

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One way is add new file and select a pgn or picture file. The post editor isn't very good and hopefully will be better when the new website is released.

A Few Proposals for Improvements

1. Make a new menu option with list of best games of the month.

2. Stream with GM Gabuzyan, I would ask Gabuzyan to play less games (max 3 games) per session but each game would be analysed afterwards, preferably in the style of Daniel Naroditsky's Speedrun.

3. Make a possibility to tag the games submitted by members with ChessMood tags related to courses, so that games could be linked from the course page. I would only tag the games of some value --> that would require that ChessMood team would tag the games. (one of the tags could be best-game, which would solve point 1 as well).

4. Make a possibility to submit important games related to ChessMood courses from current and past tournaments . Also require to submit pgn's so that they can be viewed immediately instead of links, that would drive people to other websites. 

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Hello Robert,

Thanks a lot for your suggestions. I just started moderating the forum and helping with admin duties yesterday, but I appreciate it very much. I am taking note of all of them and dully inform the team.

One thing is for sure, giving more importance to the games of the month is one of my main objectives, there are some other posts related to this and we will do something soon about it.

We value your support and feedback very much, many thanks once more for your input!

I like the idea of tagging posts to link them to the courses.

I think this would be very useful for questions relating to specific openings.

Right now, there is no nomenclature on how to write the title of a new discussion.

This makes it very difficult to find all (older) questions and answers relating to an opening.

Sicilian GP setup: black plays d6, e6 & Nf6, holding back on Nc6 and no g6

Hi CM team!

I recently had a game that started like this:

1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 d6 3. f4 e6 4. Nf3 Nf6

At this point I figured there's no choice but to decide on the development of the f1 bishop, andthe game continued:

5. Bb5+ Bd7 6. Bxd7 Nxd7 7. 0-0 Be7 8. d3 0-0 9. Qe1 a6 10. a4 Qc7 and here I continued with 10. Qh4, figuring that the discovery on the queen is not imminent as the e7 bishop hangs, and I could always put the queen on h3 if needed.

A few questions:

1. Do you recommend going 5. Bb5+ and exchanging on d7 in this case?

2. Do you still recommend going for the d3 setup in this position or perhaps betting to go d2-d5?!

3. What about the king's side attack and what to do with the queen?

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Hi @Yair_E,

I think about first two questions what you did was logical, about the Queen I am not sure Qg3 and Qh4 moves are logical :)

The position after 4...Nf6 is covered in the course. My notes say: "Here neither Bc4 nor Bb5 is promising." 5.g3 "Switches to closed Sicilian, against which e6/d6 is not the most critical setup. See model games."

Yair, you'll love the daily lesson #42 :) 
Overall after 1.e4 if Black goes random moves, our setup is 2.d4 3.f4 4.Nf3 5.Bd3 6.0-0 and then e5 with f5 and checkmate, or include moves like Nc3,Qe2,Bd2,Rae1, or just one of them :) 

Modern Maroczy Bind

One of opponent played against me 13. Kf2?   How should i continue? I haven't  seen the advance section yet if it is there then i will watch .. 

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6

5. c4 Nf6 6. Nc3 d6 7. Be2 Nxd4 8. Qxd4 Bg7

9. Be3 O-O 10. Qd2 a5 11. f3 a4 12. Rc1 Qa5

13. Kf2

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A line I can recommend against 13.Kf2 (which is a good move for White) is 13…Be6 (best place for the bishop), 14.Nd5, Bxd5, 15.Qxa5, Rxa5, 16.cxd5, e6 (e.g. played by Gawain Jones)

https://chessmood.com/course/modern-maroczy-bind/episode/591 yes it's in Advanced section! I just checked the move also on chessbase and I think it's kinda a new move. I'll watch the course as well :)

Hello Shahinur,

Yes, I do think it is time, I have been following your progress, with all the tournaments that you are playing and getting very good results... No need to remember everything of the advanced section, it is impossible in most of the cases, but if you get the idea it will help you for sure! I only learn some variation at 100% when I am preparing for some opponent and I know the line that they will play...

Keep up the good work and keep inspiring other people!!

I am unable to open some forums

I am unable to open some forums. What to do? I was opening Study?Sparring Partner and some other forums but it didn't open up.

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This is what happening. I tried logging out and logging in.

Hi Sidhart,

Sorry for the inconvenience, we are aware of this bug, thanks for reporting it. We will try to fix it as soon as possible.

Chessmood suggestion for 1. f4 response

In one of the early streams, GM Avetik plays the From Gambit (e5 d6). I used to play this, and if White avoids the traps and plays sensibly (as 1700+ would), it didn't seem Black got enough for the pawn. Is this still the suggestion, or is d5 preferred (maybe even c5 since e4 d5 transposes)?

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Note, you'd also need to have something against the King's Gambit as well if 2. e4 gets played

Hi David

In one of the Stream series, Avetik played c5 to keep within the ChessMood normal approach of g7, Bg7, Nc6, d6, O-O with Rb8 and b5 plan. This c5 would then also allow transposing to Sicilian after e4.

Below are the 2 games from the stream

Hope this helps

[Event "Live Chess"]

[Site "Chess.com"]

[Date "2020.07.09"]

[Round "?"]

[White "leoleavell"]

[Black "Ave_ChessMood"]

[Result "0-1"]

[ECO "A02"]

[WhiteElo "1987"]

[BlackElo "2031"]

[Annotator "Mik"]

[PlyCount "48"]

[EventDate "2020.??.??"]

[TimeControl "300"]

1. f4 c5 {[#] Normal approach of g7, Bg7, Nc6, d6, O-O .. Rb8 and b5} 2. Nf3 g6 3. e3 Bg7 4. Be2 Nc6 5. O-O d6 6. Nc3 Nf6 7. d4 O-O 8. d5 Na5 9. e4 a6 {protecting b5-square, also supporting b5 pawn push} 10. h3 b5 11. Nd2 Nd7 {control e5-square} 12. Bf3 Rb8 13. Nb3 Nc4 14. Be2 Ndb6 {Supporting Nc4, then b4 winning b2-pawn} 15. Qd3 f5 {[#] put pressure on e4-pawn after b4 removing Nc3 defender .. also activate Bc8 to Bf5} 16. Bf3 b4 {[#] Look for a5 and a4and Ba6 working on f1-a6 diagonal as no more Be2} 17. Nd1 a5 18. Nd2 Ba6 19.Re1 Ra8 {Supporting Ba6} 20. Nxc4 Nxc4 21. Qb3 a4 22. Qxa4 Nb6 23. Qb3 Bc4 24. Qe3 Bd4 {Wining the queen Ave_ChessMood won by resignation} 0-1

[Event "Live Chess"]

[Site "Chess.com"]

[Date "2020.07.02"]

[Round "?"]

[White "sergeygitsu"]

[Black "Ave_ChessMood"]

[Result "0-1"]

[ECO "A02"]

[WhiteElo "1916"]

[BlackElo "1907"]

[Annotator "Mik"]

[PlyCount "76"]

[EventDate "2020.??.??"]

[TimeControl "300"]

1. f4 c5 {[#] Keep consistent with g6, Bg7 and Nc6} 2. Nf3 g6 3. e3 Bg7 4. Be2 Nc6 5. O-O d6 {[#] Against reversed Dutch setup with d6, e5 and Nge7} 6. d3 e5 7. c3 Nge7 {[#] Plan O-O with h6, Be6 and Qd7} 8. e4 O-O 9. c4 h6 {Stops Ng5} 10. Nc3 Be6 11. Nd5 Qd7 {Be6 is better then Be2} 12. a3 Rab8 {Usual Rab8 and b5 pawn push} 13. Bd2 b5 14. cxb5 Rxb5 {Removed one of the defenders of Nd5 and b2-pawn is under attack} 15. d4 Rxb2 {wins a pawn} 16. dxe5 dxe5 17. Bc3 Rb7 18. Nxe7+ Qxe7 19. f5 Bb3 {practical - better not to give opponent any chances} 20. Qc1 Nd4 21. Nxd4 exd4 22. Bd2 g5 {[#] Bg7 controls f6 and e5 .. on queenside Be2 is bad push the pawns c4, c3, e3} 23. h4 Bf6 {cover g5 and allows Kg7, Qe5 and Rh8 using open h-file} 24. hxg5 hxg5 25. Bf3 Rb6 {Look for Rh6} 26. e5 Qxe5 27. Bxg5 Bxg5 28. Qxg5+ Qg7 {Have super connect passed pawns d4 and c5 .. still have Rh6} 29. Qf4 d3 30. Be4 Qd4+ 31. Rf2 Qxa1+ {wins the rook .. gameover!} 32. Rf1 Qd4+ 33. Rf2 d2 34. Qg5+ Rg6 35. Qxd2 Qxd2 36. Rxd2 Rg4 37. Bb1 Rd4 38. Kh2 Rxd2 {Ave_ChessMood won by resignation} 0-1

Aggressively punishing the opponent for opening mistakes

This is something I need to do more of. I was watching one of the old streams in early 2019 about improvement suggestions for PRO members (hint would be nice to have another one of those events). I like the bit about 'become a wild animal' as soon as the opponent makes a mistake :) I guess better to be too aggressive and overdo it (and learn what can be done) than too timid and never try.

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Finally reached 2000 blitz on lichess

Finally got there. Next stop 2100.

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Congratulations! Way to go my friend! I am also going for the 2100 before April. Now I am at 2041 but still I get absorbed in some positions and I start to think for long time forgetting about the clock! Let's make sure we get there!

Congratulations!!! @David_Flynn 

Have you already read that useful articles about how to increase the online rating? 

Pirc with 3...e5

After 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3, how do we continue after 3...e5? To my surprise, this is a popular move, played over 25k times in my database. 4.Nc3 Nbd7 is a position we sought to avoid after 1.e4 e5 2.d4 d6 3.Nf3 Nf6 (by playing 4.dxe5 instead of 4.Nc3).

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4.dxe5 Nxe4 5.Qd5 Nc5 6.Bg5 Be7 7.exd6 with a better pawn structure for White

Peter, it transposes to Philidor, which is covered in the Philidor course. 

Streaks and slumps

I'm wondering if people have the same experience I do - I go through periods of streaks and slumps and I can't really figure out why.  Some of it is definitely my day-to-day mood (right mood right move!) but it's not all of it.

There are days when chess almost feels easy for me - my pieces all work together and everything flows seamlessly.  But there are also days when I can't make the right move at all.  As an example: last week over 3 days I won 4 games and lost 13 on lichess.  But then, over the last 4 days I won 22, lost 7 and drew 4.  

It's like night and day.  I really think if I could figure out the root cause it would make a huge difference.  Does this happen to anyone else?  If so, have you been able to figure out the reason/ways to combat it?

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Ignoring 'mood' and what frame of mind you are in, could it be just coincidence and you notice several wins or losses together more than a mix of the two? Thus simply just randomness.

I have this situation very often, I also struggle, but inside myself I know what mistakes I make, in general I know the reasons, I just need to work on them.

For me the hardest job is to break bad habits. I need to study this article very well :) https://chessmood.com/blog/organize-your-day-organize-your-chess-journey 

Karl, streaks always will be. It's important the size of the streak :) 
If +100 points and -100 points, it's a signal that something is wrong. Otherwise - 50 points is fine. 

Interesting a4 move in the Sicilian Rossolimo Bxc6 line .

I was playing a strong player rated 2500 in chess.com and I played the Sicilian Rossolimo which was recommanded in the course. My opponent played the interesting a4 move and play two game which give me some trouble in this line. 

https://www.chess.com/live/game/6318676707

https://www.chess.com/live/game/6318789906

The first game, he played a4 and I reply with a5 to stop the advancement of pawn. But he reply with an interesting maneuver Bd2 and Bc3, Na3 and Nc4 that put big pressure on my e5 pawn. 

The second game, I tried to avoid playing e5 but he instead played e5 himself. I was not sure how should I continue the game. I tried to check what if I meet his a4 move with a5, but he has an interesting idea of Ra2 after Nf8 Bd2 Be6 and b3. Where he still prepare Bc3 to exchange my bishop on g7.

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The game

It is already shown in the model games (e.g. Sjugirov vs Grigoryan) that a4 is conceptually wrong because white would like to reserve the opportunity to play a3 b4 later. My take is that we can be flexible and apply the plan B structure in which the course recommends, playing f6 and Nf8 to e6 to f4 and possibly stage a home invasion against the white king later on. I think you did the right thing by playing answering a4 with a5.

Wenstin, after the opponent castled, we don't worry anymore for Be3,Qd2,Bh6, as was showed in the course. And our main plan against random moves of opponents are 0-0,Ne8,Nc7, Ne6 (or Bg4 then Ne6, or e5 then Ne6). 
For example: 7.a4 0-0 8.a5 Ne8 9.Nc3 Nc7 10.Be3 (If 10.h3 then 10...e5 with Ne6) Bg4! 11.Na4 (11.Bc5?! Ne6 12.Be3 f5! 13.h3 Bf3 14.Qf3 f4 with Nc4 - a very strong compensation) 11...Ne6 12.Nc5 Nc5 13.Bc5 Bb2 and Black is fine. 

Thank You

Hello ChessMood Family,

I am happy to inform you guys that I crossed my goals in both rapid and blitz on Lichess. I crossed 2300 in Rapid and 2200, nearing 2250 in Blitz.

I couldn't have done it without the ChessMood coaches! Thank You very much ChessMood community. As Coach Gabuzyan said in his article, online chess ratings indicate if your overall skill is improving, and I feel it is.  

Thank You

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Congratulations!

Aww that's so nice of you! Congratulations and keep growing! :)

Congratss!!!!!! I swear, I prefer to hear this kind of news each day than a big box full of chocolates  (P.S. I adore them the most) :D I'm soooo happy for you and the people who achieved their goals with chessmood openings! I know they are many :) 

Super! 
Congratulations, Sriram! What's the goal for this year? 

SLP demonstration stream - Tues 16th 3pm GMT

As this hasn't been announced yet and isn't a regular event.

There is a SLP (saving lost positions) stream on Tuesday 16th Feb at 3pm GMT. If you've watched old streams before (or been a member that long), a piece will be given away in a very obvious manner to a strong player and then will be systematically punished for having the audacity to take it. It also appears that hippo style positions get adopted (pawns to 3rd rank, Ns to second rank, with a fianchetto) so is also a lesson on the dangers playing against of such positions.

There was talk of a theme tournament on this basis at some point so would be good prep if that arises.

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Spam posts - do not click on links

There are daily spam forum posts from bots, and it'll be 'whack-a-mole' until there is a better registration system.

Don't click on any links in posts unless it looks like a bonafide post about chess from a regular member as tempting as the description of the link may be. Even then be wary. Some of the links may well try to install malware on your system.

They'll post in the main channel at least as they won't be pro members.

Another solution (with a moderator) would be only release main channel posts to the forum when they have been vetted. This would be a little slower for non-pro members, but as most of the posters are pro and the only benefits of non-pro outside of special unlock days are seeing the free courses, as long as they do get approved is unlikely to be much of a problem. Most main channel posts from non-pro members would be about the site and membership so a moderator might be a good person for an initial answer anyway.

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(and yes I might be stating the obvious which could come across patronising to a few, but it's amazing how many people get fooled by obvious scams so I don't assume anything :) )

When motivation drops What do you do

What do you guys do when you for a while loose motivation? Do you take a breake? Do you change your approach or something entirely else? I have not lost completely motivation just it s up and Down. Btw the artikler about sports psychology was interesting 

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There are several factors in motivation including:

1> Do I know what I'm doing, or is it an uphill struggle (lots of having to think, work stuff out, every task finds more problems). It's hard to work through difficult tasks than ones you can just turn off and do. Can it be rearranged to mix different types of work.
2> Am I making some kind of progress. Even if it's not an improvement, am I moving towards something (even if it's a point I can say I'm done). How far am I from that point, how am I moving towards it. Some people need to also reward themselves for progress.
3> Competition - think of parts of the brain competing for attention. You'll notice this if you try to do something while you're hungry, but when you eat that part of the brain is now fulfilled and stops bothering you. If you do something enough it will be fulfilled, but nothing else will and other things will start to try to compete for attention.
4> Time to grow - It's suggested that it takes several hours for new neurons to grow, as well as reinforcement to happen. Sometimes you'll take stuff in and need to sleep it off. Any more and it gets tiring and frustrating.
5> Tiredness
6> Necessity - more motivation towards deadlines
7> Balance - exercising, sleeping well, eating healthy
8> Follow the shiny thing - novel, interesting, latest and greatest, getting ahead of the crowd, solves other problems - all these things can make this task more or less interesting compared to others. Often the curse when it comes to trying to complete chess books when another one comes along.

I'm going to the Chessmood blog and reading the motivating articles, there are many :) 

Tina, myself I spend 30 minutes each day (in the morning) on personal growth. 
Readying something, watching a podcast, hearing the greats. 
It helps very much. 

Overall, for motivation there should be a strong WHY as I spoke about many times in the articles. 
And I'll write a separate topic about motivation. 

I can also recommend you some good books, if you want. 

The keys are to seek empowerment instead of motivation. 
And that whatever we do, is to weather gain pleasure or avoid pain. 
So we should find out some pleasures or what kinds of pain we're avoiding with doing this. 

Avetik, sure you may recommends some books. I like to read also in the morning, which I am already doing. But I m open for new books 

Benko: 4. Qc2 with f2-f4 and a quick e4-e5

Hi CM team!

What about the following variation?

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 b5 4. Qc2 b4 5. e4 d6 6. f4 g6 and now 7. e5!?

The engine seems to, at least at first, give while an edge here, and certainly it doesn't seem pleasant for black.

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My engine likes the last position for black after Nfd7

An interesting question. 
Well, after 7.e5 Nfd7 Black is really fine at the end, but I have an interesting weapon to offer you. 

After 6.f4 e5!? The idea after 7.fe5 is to play Ng4! 
Sacrifice a pawn and get a good compensation.  If 8.Nf3 Nbd7! 

If 7.Nf3 then ef4 8.Bf4 Bg4! fighting for e5 square. Very interesting and playable positions. 

London System Be2 option 2 (c5) issue

For Be2 two options are given - option 1 7... g5 is equal after 8. Nfd2 and 9. exf4

Option 2 is given with 7... c5, however after 8. c3 g5 only 9. Nfd2 is covered. Better is 9. Bg3 and now the plan in option 1 of responding e6 is not possible as White now has dxc5. After 9... Nxg3 10. hxg3, cxd4 can be answered by cxd4, which wasn't possible in the option 2 8. O-O line since c3 has been played. Now the Bg7 isn't so useful. This perhaps why option 1 is more frequent.

In Win With the London System, not much space is devoted to the d6 variation, and it gives Option 1,  8. Nfd2, 10... c5, but now considered 11. d5, however the analysis breaks down at move 18, where 18... Kf8 gives an equal position instead of the stated inferior Nxd4.

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Note the London is the theme for this week's theme tournament.

bishop stays normally, take it easy :D maybe later will be used e5 move.

They're very playable positions, David. 
You can try them from the White's side in the tournament and ask questions during the webinar. 
The key is to try to open the position and not hurry up with castling and showing the cards. 

Software for memorizing the lines

Hey Champions! 
I see that many of you have problems with memorizing variations. 

There are different solutions, like Chessbase trainer, lichess or chessable move trainer. 
We decided to create ours. Some kind of dream software. 
The head of the technical department assured me, that whatever I want, they can create. 

Now, I would like to hear your thoughts. 
What kind of options you would love to have? 
What options from other Softwares you like? 

Any option, that comes to your mind, just tell us. 

We are going to build something super useful for you guys. 
Looking forward to seeing your thoughts. 

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This would really help everyone, Coach!  

Things I like about Chessbase opening trainer ("COT"):

1. You can start to train on any move, so you can drill sub-variations until you have got them, and then branch out

2. It has a strong engine you can turn on, which shows some ideas for why the position is good for you and some plans, that you can glance at when you get to the end of the line.

3. It has a hint feature, so If you can't remember, it nudges you by telling you which piece moves

4. It connects to their big database, so you can identify quickly top games in that position.

5. You can have the software play you through the lines (it goes over each 3 times on autoplay), which is helpful if you haven't looked at them for a long time.

Things I don't like about COT:

1. COT stores all your white moves, and all your black moves, in one big file, and links to your chessbase repertoire databases.  This is generally the right approach, but sometimes I'd like the opportunity to only load up elements of the repertoire.  It also gets confused where you play an opening both with white and black, and displays the lines jumbled up.  Also, where you have old lines there you used to play, it can be hard to get them out of the drills without deleting them from your repertoire databases.  

2. COT doesn't identify transpositions

3. COT seems to assume that as you are drilling  you'll want to add known theory/moves to your repertoire, and be browsing around in the trainer to add to your lines.  Chessmood repertoire is often going way beyond known lines, and when that happens there are confusing messages displayed.  What I want is a clean "line driller".

4. COT sometime suggests opponent's replies that are in known theory, but not in your lines, and tries to drill you on them.

5. COT seems to get fixated on one line, and as you are drilling, you need to repeatedly enter that same line again and again even after you have definitively remembered it, while there are still other variations that are not being displayed at all.  Let's say there are 20 lines in the segment you are drilling - COT might select them as 1 2 1 3 1 1 4 2 1 1 3 4 1 1 5 etc, so in 15 drills you'll go through line 1 7 or 8 times, and take forever to get to lines 6-20!  That obsession with line 1 might continue for hours, until you are screaming at it every time it selects line 1 to drill again.  Getting the algorithm right so there is good balance between the lines it selects to drill, the time to get through all the lines, and the ideal number of repetitions, is clearly tricky but COT doesn't do it well.

How about awarding us chessmood coins for each segment where there is say 20+ lines and we complete a drill perfectly?  How about a tree of PRO members to show who is leading the ability to remember (say total number of lines perfectly drilled in last 2 weeks?  A bit of competition would really encourage us! 

Fantastic initiative if you can come up with something that helps in Opening preparation. I found this simple yet effective site to do it https://www.studyopenings.com/.

Found the same problems when working with Chessbase Trainer as mentioned here.

Coach, I personally use chesstempo opening trainer and as far as studying the openings go, it is really useful. I just wish they had an area where you can easily enter in comments about the position that you can see. They have a comment area, but it is not very user friendly.  Overall, I do enjoy the chesstempo site for just going over the lines. Additionally, I am a huge fan of chessable and use their site quite a bit too, but it is a lot more time intensive to create your own "book." 

That is a good point just made about chessable.  It does seem you really need to spend some time just to get the repertoire in the program.  That being said, here I some quick thoughts I have.

BookUp/Chess Openings Wizard (COW):

Taking the best from here, I like that it is a positional database, not a move base.  ALL transpositions are caught.  Input is simple, and drilling the lines is a breeze.  Very simple to use.  I hate you cannot print out your repertoire in ECO format anymore.

Chess Position Trainer(CPT):

I like that you have a nice box in the left corner which summarizes your repertoire as white and black.  (There are some youtube videos about this program that illustrate that well) EDIT:: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OHSJ8ZL680 for example.  In COW, you have to remember what files you have but CPT lays it out much better graphically.  This is also the first attempt to systematize learning by making you keep the lines in your head.  It allows you to just follow their study plan and you can review things when they get older and you have to convince the program you still know your lines.  It is basic though.

Chessable:

It looks like they took the no special features drilling of COW, saw how CPT improved it, and then went all 'sciencey' and took FULL advantage of repetition learning.  I do believe that this is as close as chess has gotten to professional level memorization.  It just feels like you are doing this the best way possible.  What I do not like is the effort to enter things.  If you make a mistake or need to edit something, it is not so straightforward to fix it.  This may be much improved in Chessable 2.0 just released.

Chess Base:

I cannot improve on the post above me in relation to ChessBase.  I think you can start to see the blend of how each of the existing programs has some great features, but no one program has them all.  Chess Base access to Megabase et al is really a strong feature.

StudyOpenings.com:

As mentioned in the forums less than a day ago, this has some potential for an effective working system that is simple to use.  I would look at this just to see how easy the interface is.  It also seems to have some statistics but I have not used yet so I cannot comment.

Summary:

If Chess Mood is going to write a new program to do things like this, I think you can cherry-pick from each of the above.  All seem to have one great feature not all of them have.  So we need a blend of all of these things.

Comment:

This seems to me like an extraordinary step to be writing something like this.  I have no feel for how much time this would take or how detailed the final vision would be featurewise.  But chess.com and so on required a LOT of programming time to get to where they are, and would it not take away from things like lesson creation, etc?  I worry that you could be reinventing the wheel somewhat?  On the other hand, if you were to mesh all the above into one easily usable program, I think you might open up a new business for yourselves!

I will be watching this thread with great interest and high hopes :)

Hi Coach, is the project to build a software to memorize opening lines still in your roadmap or it has been cancelled. It he answer is, yes it is on the roadmap, then could we have some rough estimate when it could be available.

Tnx.