Chess forum by Grandmasters

Doubt

I have a doubt guys regarding the Sicilian for black.... So here are my doubts : 
1) What to do against e4 c5 Bc4!?
2) What to do against e4 c5 a3 with the idea of b4! So Simon Williams has covered this in a video course on chess.com for WHITE so would like to know how to play as Black!


Thx, these are all the doubts!

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Plz reply guys

Mistake in Recommended Reading

It says:

• For improving attacking skills

“60 Memorable Games” Alekhine book by A. Kotov Bobby Fischer’s

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I beleive this is acually 2 books:

Bobby Fischers 60 Memorable Games 

and

Alekhine by A. Kotov

Books on - We Recommend!

Hi, coach I am already following some books from we recommend page but there you did not mentioned any books to improve visualization skills? I know you sometimes said solve puzzles and do blindfold but there is depth barrier at which my link breaks in visualization and I am sure this happens to every club player too.  So any ways to improve this skill? I mean how to practice it in best way? If possible make a blog about visualization training techniques.

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Chess Calculation Skill not only Chess Visualization....  There is other sub chess skills like method to calculate, Evaluation, and others... Please refers books related to calculation topic from Grandmaster and Chess Experts. Is it right?

Thank you.

Where can we find the We Recommend page?

Is Chess Racist? :)

Is it racist that white makes the first move in a game of chess?

A famous question in recent months :)

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I do not think chess is racist but one thing I noticed now a days is some idiots says girls cant play well and can't fight against elite. But this is just rubbish.  They forgot Judit who crushed every strong GM including Magnus. Hou Yifan still fight against elite. A lot women stars are here who can crush anyone like a melon if they want. I think I am not worried about chess board racist thing but this male domination thing should be controlled. I hope soon a girl will become World Champion in chess. I know it's gonna be super tough but not impossible. Who knows some day a girl will dominate the entire world. 

So, let's checkmate the Queen from now on :)

...

Queen to King: You Know, Without me you are nothing !

King replied: I am not lazy ! I am on energy saving mode for the end-game :D

-------------------------------

This one is serious:

https://theconversation.com/why-does-white-always-go-first-in-chess-141962

Ι know that this was because the raising chess theory in the late 19th century could be reduced. Otherwise the theory would be double both for white and black.

I think so :D

Why ChessMood openings are toxic?

Because often you can win Grandmasters without doing a move yourself. 
No matter of your level :) 

I mean if you carefully watched the courses :) 

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5596997257 

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French 3.Bd3...gxf3

Hi, folks!

Here I am again with questioning our Chessmood openings via my own correspondence games played on lichess. This time to the position after straightforward answer 11....e5 in the proposed gxf3 move in the “main line” of 3.Bd3 French defense. It seems to me that Black is OK after the coolblooded 12. Bf4 Qxd4 13.Bxe5 Qb6 and next Be6, isn ‘t he? 

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Hey Martin! 
This question was posted some time ago by Nicolo. 
Black has compensation for the sacrificed pawn, but White has all reasons to fight, instead of agreeing a draw. 

Armenian Grandmasters

How many Armenian Grandmasters do you know personally? Who is your favorite?

P.S. Of course after Avetik Grigoryan :)

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Rafael Vaganian, and the Iron Tigran are my favorites

I missed Avetik's visit to US, so I've actually never met a GM in person. Would be amazing to meet Aronian; he seems like a very nice person.

I love Levon Aronian and his attitude. 

I have met Avetik (My favorite of course) 

Hrant Melkumyan

Varuzhan Akobian

Manuel Petrosyan

Aram Hakobyan

All of these GM's are amazing people and I feel lucky to have met each one.

We know all of them :D my favorite since childhood is Levon Aronian. They're all very nice people. I guess I have a good relationship with all of them :D

Akobian

Aronian

3 Petrosian (Tigran, Tigran L., Manuel)

Vaganian

I have never met an Armenian Grandmaster.

I have only shaken hands with one GM in my life, and he was Eduardo Iturrizaga, a strong GM from Venezuela 

I do know one as well, gm Sergej Movsesian, but he is a chess cosmopolitan, played also for my land (Slovakia) couple of years. Very nice guy indeed, polite, intelligent and speaking a lot of laguages fluently. Just, I have not heard about him much recently. Does he live in Armenia nowadays?

The CFO of a big company who became a GM!

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Wow, when I saw the title of this thread I immediately thought Joel Lautier.

Kudos Goh Wei Ming, I remember you from your short stint as an author/contributor for Chesspublishing.com..

Surprise weapon in the Rossolimo

In yesterday's GM Gabuzyan stream, GM Elijanov surprised us (at least me) with 9.a4 and 10.Nd2

The game went 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 g6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.d3 Bg7 6.h3 Nf6 7.Nc3 Nd7 8.Be3 e5 (Diagram 1)

And then instead of 9.Qd2, GM Elijanov played 9.a4 a5 10.Nd2 b6 11.Nc4 threatening Nd6+ (Diagram 2)

Here, if black plays 11...Nf8 as in the main line, after 12.f4 exf4 13.Bxf4 Ne6 14.Nd6+ black has problems. (Diagram 3)

How would you play with black? Engines suggest 11...Qc7 (preventing f4) instead of 11...Nf8 (Diagram 4)

What do you think?

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Definitely Gabuzyan knows better than me, I have been playing this opening for a long time, and after a4 I used to play Qe7, Nf8, etc. a4-a5 I don’t really know how it goes, but exactly in the position you are asking for I left my engine to think, and after 10-15 minutes you can see what it shows and I really like it :D

Hey! 
Sergio, 9.a4 is an option, but Black has different ways to get fine positions. 

a. after 11.Nc4 Qe7 12.f4 Ba6
b. 11...Ba6 12.Nd6 ke7 13.Nc4 Bc4 14.dc4 Nf8 with Ne6, Black is minimum fine. 

The main minus of White, including a4 a5 moves, is that Black can go to 0-0-0 in the future. 
Why? There is no more a3,b4 variation. 

I have shown you the idea with 0-0-0 in the Rossolimo course. 
https://chessmood.com/course/nightmare-of-rossolimo/episode/901 

Avetik 

Polish opening

Saw quite a few Polish Opening games during the Bundesliga. I didn't find much guidance in the forum on this. Curious how you feel about this opening and how you're able to meet it?

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I think it is not a good opening for White.

This is one of the ways to play against it as Black, (explained by GM Tiviakov):

https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/tiviakov_how_to_combat_rare_lines_as_black

https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/tiviakov_how_to_combat_rare_lines_as_black

Go to "Video". It's free

He explains how to play against it as Black

Hunan, we are going to upload a course about 1.b3. 
We'll play 1...d5 and then 2...Bg4. 

The same you can do against 1.b4. 
Additionally, when in the future you play e6, you'll win a tempo, because of attacking the b4 pawn. 

correspondence game

Hi, folks!

I have one question related to one of my correspondence games on lichess. It is a position from our 2.Nc3 sicilian, main line, where black did not played 9... e5 like in Rapports game, but just 9...e6. There followed: 10.Bg5 Be7 11.0-0-0 Qc7 12.f4 b5 like in other familiar positions, but now a good GM hint would be very appreciated! :)

Is it OK to start wild things on the board with 13.Rhe1 b4 14.Nf5 or is it too much? :)

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No one knows??? :))

Martin, Rhe1 and Nf5 looks so interesting, that Fischer would not forgive us, if we had an opportunity and don't play it :) 

Yeah, 13.Rhe1 ist just cool and I surely will give it a try in practical chess. Here I finely decided to calmer 13.a3 and won quickly in a fine sicilian manner! :)

https://lichess.org/yJlIhMac

How to think in 3 0 blitz?

Generally I'll either run out of time, or make some dreadful moves, sometimes blunders at 3 0.

How to play well at this time control? How should thinking be organised? How to practise other than just play lots of games, and the usual (practise tactics, endgames, openings, strategy) to rely more on intuition than calculation.

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I think this time control is bad for your chess.  Chessmood is right.  Play 5 3.  It is better for your chess.

Blitz games: PRO Members vs GM

Champions, today GM Gabuzyan will not be able to come for the stream, but we replaced it with a blitz games vs Grandamster.
That Grandamster today will be me

More info you can see here: https://chessmood.com/event/PRO-Members-vs-Grandmaster​​​
​
P.S
You know the rules: if you win me, you're excluded from PRO Members team​

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How professional chess players use chess Softwares

Hi Friends,

1-How professional chess players use chess Softwares and Engines?  (Fritz, Chessbase, ...)

2-What is the best way to learn them? Do you know any offline or online course? 

Note: Of course software manuals are available to us, but I am not sure reading hundreds of pages would be the best approach.

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Daily Chess Puzzle - 10/15/20

Hi all,

I enjoyed the creative 3 move checkmate in today's chess puzzle.  But it also seems after White’s first move, if Black captures the rook instead, then after 2. Bd5 check and 3. Bxa2, White can also win, even though he will lose the f-pawn, and will have the wrong colored bishop for the rook pawn on the h-file, because the White king can come around the back and win Black’s h4 pawn just in time to shoulder the Black king from reaching the h8 corner, for the typical draw (against a rook pawn on the h-file and a light squared bishop).   Is this correct?  If so, the f-pawn is critical to both winning variations (otherwise the Black king would head immediately to the corner). 

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Your assessment is correct - in your line Black wins the f2 pawn and then White moves his King to f4 (opposition) and then wins h4 and promotes the white h3 pawn (one possible line could be ... Bxa2, Kf5, Bb1+, Kf4, Kd4, Kf3, Ke5, Kxf2, Kf4!, Kg2, Kg4! ... +-

Without a white f-pawn and without a black h-pawn, the white pawn on h3 could not win, as the black King would go directly to the h8-corner, which cannot be prevented

Study- Happiest Moment

It's always amazing whenever we study something and learn and grasp ideas from our study and dedication. Here I wanna share my story and commitment which I made on 13th sep. I made a commitment that I will finish Part-1 of Ian Anderson's Visualization Book. It covers 800 puzzles based on different ply and themes.  My training started on 13th but in the middle I took 2 days of fun break but then I came back to my book and now tonight I finished it. All 800 puzzles I did and I also felt the results during I was doing this book. My training partner Jay noticed a huge difference in my visualization skills. He said, Abhi, you are improving. I also felt difference in the way I analyze positions. My intuition and my feeling of resulting positions improved rapidly. Now tonight in 27th day of duration I finished the book and it motivated me so much. It was simple book for those who are like good in visualization but not for me who played with his knowledge of classics and intuition. But I knew my vision is so bad. So I worked and finished the part-1. Now I am gonna take a week break from visualization book training and I will start the Part-2 next week and then I will commit myself again for one month. I know next book will be super complex for me because it will be based on combinations but after solving this book I felt like yes I will also finish that one in one month. 

Anyways happiness time for me. Hard work pays off!!

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Amen!

Congrats @Abhi_yadav! Please, let me one question: Do you recommend to make the visualization exercises looking directly at the book diagrams or using a real board?

Up-to- date?

How are you guys? Are you guys up to date with chessmood contents?  I am not. I worked on a lot things but I missed few things like advanced section of french, happy pieces sections and few streams. Rest I did ok!

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Shortest game

What was your shortest game and what was the result?

If you remember that game, share it here.

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This is a funny one:  I lost in 6 moves. This was before joining ChessMood family.  I was playing Black. The notation is,

1. e4 c6

2. Nc3 d5

3. Nf3 dxe4

4.Nxe4 Nf6

5.Qe2  Nbd7

6. Nd6#  :)

Mysterious Moves in Chess

Hi guys, I hope you all are okay. I have an interesting question in my mind. Do you guys ever think about how to find mysterious moves in chess? I felt it today when I was analizing a position in Panchenko Mastering the Middlegame book. I saw 2 positions in which my mind was so stuck by the move of players because it looked not natural to me. It was deep move and unusual for me too. So, I called it mysterious move.  They are mysterious because the patterns behind the moves are not familiar to my mind.  My questions is how to find those mysterious moves in our own games or how to find these kind of moves during we analyse?  Is there any book based on mysterious moves?

In the first diagram you can see a mysterious move Re7!!. It's so mysterious to me and I think I saw this kind of move first time in my life. Position is extracted from Karpov vs Kasparov Moscow 1985. 

In the second diagram we see another mysterious pattern of Qh5-d1-Qa1-Qa3.

This kind of patterns forces me to think about how can I work on these kind of patterns so I i will find this kind of moves in my own games and also confuse my opponents too. I know these patterns are deep but if we find right resources then it will be easier for us to master this kind of typical patterns and we will improve rapidly. 

For example: In chessmood we already have wonderful courses but it would be superb if coach will think of making a course in future about mysterious moves so they will be normal for all of us.

Note: I do know the importance of classics and I am working on them but it will be wonderful if I will see courses on mysterious moves in chess or may be some books based on mysterious moves in chess so I will recognize those patterns in my own games too.

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Well, today is half your lucky day, because I remember the second diagram manouver. It is a Rozentalis game, and I saw it commented in Seven Deadly Chess Sins of Rowson first, and then here on the commented games by Avetik. So go straight there and look for the Rozentalis game and the wonderful explanations of your coach ;)

About the first move, who better to explain it than Kasparov himself? He says it's the most difficult move of his career...     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j1dgH9LyT0

Deep prophylaxis at it's best

I think I saw these examples but definitely forgot :D for me the second is more logical than the first, the first looks like a very deep move, I would never think about Re7.

Congrats!! Chessmood for another success story

Today, I have gone through an article about Kevin Goh Wei Ming-latest GM from Singapore & in this article he gives credit to prestigious chess coaches for his achievement.Here he discussed about chessmood & guidance of GM Avetik Grigoryan.

You can check the article:

https://chessbase.in/news/How-Kevin-Goh-Wei-Ming-became-a-Grandmaster

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