Bishop Pair Webinar Recordings Problem (29/1/2021)

Hello! Yesterday's (29/1/2021) Bishop Pair's webinar recordings is not working. It was looking like this (image below) for a lot of time and it is also showing started streaming 11 hours ago. Is the problem from my end?

Replies

Hi Sidharth,

This happens sometimes. After a Live event, Youtube (not chessmood) automatically encodes the file and also do the transcript for the subtitles, while classifying the video, checking if it is appropriate, etc. This is an automatic process that lately Youtube has implemented with a big delay. I think that Youtube is just overwhelming with so many videos uploaded and this process takes more time than it used to.

It is not a problem in your end, neither a Chessmood problem. That said, normally with this kind of events, when they last 1 hour, it takes 13-14 hours for Youtube to do their magic. After this 14 hours I am always able to watch any event without problems. Before this time, it is impossible to watch it properly or without stops many times.

I hope that this helps and since this happens often, we should maybe create some kind of sticky post...

Reasons why you love ChessMood

Hey ChessMood family,

Let's write at least one reason why we love ChessMood.

The first reason for me is that only cool and nice people are here! and many more about the courses...

Let's continue the list :)

Replies

1. fantastic courses where I have almost nothing to ask

2. forum with rewarded best answers

3. consulting blog

4. everyone is trying to help each other. Finally I see more posts in the forum and I try to reply as soon as possible.

are among the best features of our chessmood family

Because of...

1. The most compassionate coaches are here.

2.Courses are much more than they cost.

3.We get answers in a very short time when we have questions about courses.

4. The most friendly and warm atmosphere is here!

Quite unique concept on openings:

Well done video courses with basic and advanced sections

Show how the opening is applied against opponents of different strengths (streams)

Closed tournament on a specific opening with a webinar afterwards

Forum for further questions

Online blitz and goals

Hi dear chessmood family!

I would like to know how much is your current online rating (blitz) and what is your goal?

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Well, to be honest - my focus is still OTB. However, I try to get better at blitz as a preparation for time trouble. For that, I found the last two closed tournaments very helpful as they showed me how easily I could loose "simple" endgames when short of time. So I will work on my blitz to get it to my OTB rating (+100) in Q1 2021.

2250 on lichess, just reached my top, plan is to get to 2400 this year.

My rating is 2200 in lc and want to cross 2300.

I want it to get 2000. I have 1910 on lichess (peak) and 1876 on chess.com. 

My long term goal (3 years) is to play consistently on 2300 Blitz/Rapid. Currently I am 1700  (lichess.org) and the first goal is to play on 1900 and above end of 2021.

After streaming I dropped my rating -150 points :D from 2450 to 2300 

My rating on lichess right now 2356 (2407 highest) and 2217 on chess.com (2371 highest), usually play3/2. I have some troubles playing in titled Tuesday, too much pressure, losing points there. And somehow playing in Bundesliga with the team feels much better :)). I don't have any specific goals, maybe it's not good, just trying to improve and learn new things in chess.

Chess and World Leaders

Hello ChessMood family,

Today I read an interesting question for me which made me think.

"If all world leaders played a chess tournament among themselves, who would win?"

What do you think? :D

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certain world leader with nearly 250 GMs at his service might have good odds in this epic fight.

Alone or with the help of GMs? A lot of them don't even know how to move the pieces!

Bishops or Knights?

Dear Pro members,

While working on daily lesson material interesting question came to my mind.

Did everyone know in which situations bishops pair is stronger than the knight ones and why?

Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas, I will share my opinion once I hear from you.

Thank you!

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Bishop Pair is stronger in an open game with pawns on both sides of the board. The Knights are better if they have secure outposts and the position is blocked. I must confess though, that the power of the Bishop Pair is often overestimated by commentators. Nakamura's endgame play in the following game made an impression on me when I saw it live:

Yep, we have watched your course on this topic :)

Will there be a section on how to avoid making poor decisions that will make the enemy knights stronger than our bishops? 

My thoughts on bishops against knights based on prior learnings: if knights cannot work together with nearby pawns to forge a positional stronghold, then they will lose to the bishops 10/10 times.

What do you think about John Nunn's books?

Do you like them? They seem to be no joke.

I've been reading Understanding Chess Endgames (finally almost finished after a long time) and it seriously kept my nose to the grindstone. It was supposed to be an introductory endgame book, but even reading 4 pages a day was taxing. Or am I stupid?

This guy seems to interpret endgames tactically, maybe his style is like that. And Dvoretsky seems to have endorsed Nunn's books.

Any opinions?

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I love his books, in general I'm not a fan of reading books, but I remember that his books were pretty nice, he explains very well.

Hi KIm,

I have reviewed some of his books in the past, and I find them really interesting ones. He has a specific sharp style which is entertaining for me.

I love "Chess move by move" 

"Secrets of practical chess" is my favorite, I recommend

Best author ever! This guy knows how to write a chess book and his books have educational value. Most of the authors include random positions, random ideas with no structure. That is not the case with John Nunn! I admit I am a huge fan!

PS. don't read his book on rook endings unless you want to analyze 300 positions of rook and pawn vs rook  :D

Daily Chess Match Challenge!

Hey ChessMood Family!

Having spent the last few days wasting countless hours on 3|0 online blitz, I finally decided to quit my addiction and set myself a fun challenge instead!

I call it, the Daily Chess Match Challenge!

My plan is to play a new opponent every day for a whole month, and try learn something new from every match. The format will be four games of 5|3 blitz, plus a post-match analysis call to discuss the openings/resulting positions :)

So let me know by replying to the thread if you'd like to play together :D I'm looking for 2000+ rated opponents (my lichess rapid is 2404, @PonzianiMaster).

Also, if you're interested in taking up the challenge yourself, I can send you a copy of the calendar template I made! Just send me an email at [email protected], and I'll reply with the word doc!

In the wise words of GM Avetik, "Let's go!" :D

- Michael

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Hello Michael, 

I like this idea. Although I am not too much concerned about my Blitz rating with a peak around 1900 on lichess, I will now try to get it to 2000+ within the next three weeks (with a budget of around 3 to 4 sessions of 9 games 5+3 per week) and then take your challenge. 

Cheers

Nils

Sicilian Sidelines Course Question

Hello,

In the introduction video of the Bc4 section in the course "Sicilian Sidelines", Coach Gabuzyan mentioned that in one of the videos he would cover what we do against our own variation:

1. e4  c5

2. Nc3  Nc6

3. Bb5

I was looking for the video but didn't find it. At first I thought it wasn't a big deal since nobody played it, but now people are playing it more often. Kindly show me where to find it.

Thank You

P.S:

Thank You ChessMood team for the wonderful courses and blogs. I am getting so much value out of them! 

Replies

From the black side this is in the Rossolimo course somewhere I think.

Besides that: the current Sicilian sideline course is centered around d6 move order because before the Acc Dragon they had the Najdorf as a main recommendation. I read somewhere on the forum they are re-recording the Anti-Sicilian lines course with Nc6 move order because the problem of the d6 move order is that white can force us in a regular Dragon in the Bc4 sidelines. 

Hey dear @Sriram_M,

Thank you too for your kind message.

https://chessmood.com/course/nightmare-of-rossolimo here is the course about 3.Bb5 and also "Sicilian sideline" course is not completed yet. 

Hi Sriram,

Thank you for being careful and checking the options.

Some variations in Sicilian Sidelines will be added in the very near future and one you are asking is included! Just wait for it and I am sure you will not be disappointed :-)

NEW ARTICLE: Latvian Gambit | The Refutation

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Abracadabra, goodbye Latvian :)

Great article coach. Thank you.

ChessMood_Pro Bundesliga

Hey dear Pro Members,

How many of you play in the Bundesliga?

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Rarely..but I do ))

My 500 pages dreams openings book

My 500 pages dreams openings book

As an amateur competitive chess player, I would like a 500 pages book about “My Openings”. Not “Any Book”, but “My Book” with the moves I am going to play, and only the moves I am going to play.

The book is made of 100 fragment games, 50 with White and 50 with Black. The total number of lines is ~ 2,000 (i.e. average of 19 side variations per fragment game). Each game can be printed on 3 to 5 pages (average 4 pages), with 4 to 6 diagrams per game. The last 100 pages are for index games (games that mostly direct to other games). It feels like the right size from many angles.

This book should be customizable. What it means is that I should have the PGN source. It is super important because there are multiple reasons why I may prefer another move than the one recommended by a GM, by an engine, by your statistics, etc. Another reason why I may need the PGN is that I want to add my own notes, or I want to use it on chessable.com or with ChessBase’s opening trainer.

95% of the variations should have been played more than once by humans. A corollary is that the number of novelties (unless talked about in a chessmood.com class or in a book) should be as low as possible.

This is my dream openings book: only openings I play with notes, content-wise proportionally adjusted to moves frequencies (ChessBase Big Database 2020, chess.com Master’s database, Lichess 2200 and 2500 databases, my games database, video time on chessmood.com, number of games in books).

But whatever your level is, this book is a solid foundation, and the overall size makes sense:

• Book can be read in 40 hours

• Full run of variations on chessable in 20 hours

• If you make flashcards out of the ~500 diagrams, you could go through all of them in 10 hours.

Chances are that even if you are ambitioning a higher level, let’s say 2400 FIDE, such a customizable book would still be a solid foundation because it still captures more of the important stuff. You can double the number of variations on the 50 most critical games and still have a manageable set of 3,000 variations.

Trusted sources: first chessmood.com PRO

Huge bias in favor of chessmood.com openings, but we welcome any reference. In the case of the Grand Prix, we welcome these references:

• chessmood PRO videos

• Databases, especially those that can be filtered for the 2200 FIDE level.

• Stockfish 12 and Houdini 6

• Starting Out the Sicilian Grand Prix book by Gawain Jones

• The Modern Grand Prix Attack chessbase video by Lawrence Trent

Why do this? Benefits for 1600 - 2400 ELO

The exercise involved in producing such content should be beneficial because it’s a chance to work with the material in a creative way. But on top of this, these 100 game fragments could be used like this:

• 1600 FIDE player: remember 80% and watch GM Grigoryan’s videos once.

• 1800 FIDE player: remember 90% and watch GM Grigoryan’s videos once.

• 2000 FIDE player: remember 95% and watch GM Grigoryan’s videos 2x.

• 2200 FIDE player: remember 98% and watch GM Grigoryan’s videos 3x. Explore further.

• 2400 FIDE player: remember 99% and watch GM Grigoryan’s videos 4x. Explore much further.

When I learn something, I live to have a story to follow. In this case, it’s the story of 100 games with a certain number of sidelines. I feel that it’s the right chunk size to digest.

What does it really look like?

Distribution of fragment games with White:

Distribution with White (Target 2200 FIDE database, Chessmood video time):

1... c5 16 (-4, +6)

1... e5 13 (+1, -7)

1... e6 5 (-1, =)

1... c6 4 (=, -1)

1... d5 3 (+1, =)

1... d6 3 (+1, =)

1... g6 2 (+1, =)

1... Nf6 2 (+1, +1) 1 1 1... Nc6 1 (=, =) 1 1

1... Nc6 1 (=, =)

Others 1 (=, +1)

You will realize that we are at most one off for all answers to 1. e4 except:

• 1… c5, 16 games (underestimated according to database frequencies, overestimated according to chessmood video time).

• 1… e5, 13 games (slightly overestimated according to database frequencies, underestimated according to chessmood video time).
  

Underestimating the share of 1… c5 is a deliberate choice. The idea is to reap off the benefits of selecting a side-line (Grand Prix) vs. a main line (e.g. 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 with the idea 3. d4). We can then “be generous” with sidelines. It is often very beneficial because splitting an opening in two (or more) is instructive and practical.

What comes next?

I am going to show you an example: “Index game for the Sicilian Grand Prix”. You will see the 16 diagrams that represent the Sicilian from a White perspective. If you somehow master these 16 positions, you have an awesome coverage of the Sicilian with White.

For those of you who are interested, I can show some of the foundational 100 games. It takes time (maybe 6 hours per game, hence 600 hours total for the entire project). It would be nice if this project would interest other people, because we could share the work.

Please let me know if there is any interest on your side.

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16 positions in the Sicilian with White (PGN file)

Aside from the technical and correctness issues of the approach (there are some questions, but not something to discuss in this first reply), it's something that would be very useful but has a practical problem.

If this was all in a book which is shared, what is to stop it being shared with people that otherwise would have paid for a subscription that no longer feel it's necessary because they have the lines (even if all explanation was stripped which would decrease the utility). Projects such as to get Polgar's huge volumes on Chessbase had cease and desist orders for that very reason.

Certainly the approach and how to build your own should be discussed which helps students get the maximum out of the site.

NB. I think it's also the real reason full PGNs aren't available (you wouldn't need to hold on to a subscription as long). There might be some evidence for the stated reason, but I'm not sure scribbling notes or typing into chessbase and not having one's eyes on the videos helps learning either.

I agree with David that legally any such book should not be made public if it would contain more than certain percentage of copyrighted information from Chessmood unless prior agreement would be given.

What are you describing is actually a hard work that anybody who want's to become a titled chess player has to put in. Sharing the knowledge with few people (1-3) could be useful to progress faster.

Sharing with many or with everybody would actually reduce your competitive advantage. After few games people would realize I am playing the ChessModd repertoire and they would have easy time to prepare for the OTB game.

So let's critique or ask some questions of the approach. It's not clear except for trying to aim for a certain size why what is suggested is adequate or 'correct'. It would be useful to understand why you came to those figures.

>  It feels like the right size from many angles.

Why is that? It seems a bit arbitrary.

> Benefits for 1600-2400 elo

This list seems arbitrary. What is your FIDE rating that would allow you to prescribe for a 2400 player?

> Distribution of fragment games with White

What methodology was used to come to these figures and make that division? For Black I did a quick look through my notes, and noted about 25 variations just for the accelerated dragon. Even if I could scrap half, there is the benko, plus anti-sicilians plus anti-d4 plus all the odd moves that are important but not covered yet, that even if you had one or two lines they add up quickly (f4, Nf3, g3, Nc3, b3, b4). How to make the magic number 50 without losing information you couldn't find over the board or covered by a game.

> The PGN

How were the fragments chosen? How was the depth each goes chosen? How do the games fit with the fragments? How to choose those games? How to ensure you can play the next few moves after the fragment and plan on to the middle game? How much word content is needed vs the moves?

Finally I believe in reviewing what you don't know and only occasionally returning to what you do. Also that just raw moves get forgotten particularly in lines you don't play often. We've observe the GMs do this in the streams and they should know them better than everyone else. Appropriate flashcards / diagrams (how to choose?), mnemonic devices, explanations, linking of lines and reasons why it's one way here, but not here and so on are going to be needed. I don't subscribe much to the chessable repeat repeat methodology with precise but very similar from line to line chess moves. That's not to say repetition doesn't play a part and spaced repetition can help the efficiency, but it's no silver bullet.

The utility of such a book has to be easy to retain than the courses alone (you're selecting and screening out what you know already or what is part of the presentation and getting straight to the facts), but it's also got to be usable for post analysis work and also preparation for different time frames, which might be 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week. The material to review and how to review it differs for each time frame.

I can tell you how this crazy idea came up. But first, let me say that I am not claiming any authority in terms of chess (neither in any topic for that matter). My highest USCF rating is 2119 and my highest FIDE rating is 2130. I resumed playing after a break of 10 years in 2017, but only on chess.com and a bit on lichess.org. On chess.com, my rapid rating is 2051 and my blitz rating is 1977. On lichess.org. I only play blitz and my rating is 2177. I am not a great chess player, but I am interested in learning about openings and other stuff. I mostly target players around my level, let’s say 1700 to 2400 FIDE.

Let’s take the example of the variation 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Bb5

For me, it’s an important variation because I used to play 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 g6 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Bb5. It’s fantastic if Black lets you take in c6, but it’s not that great if Black plays 5… Nd4, and it’s in my experience the most frequent move.

On chessmood.com, the video is 2 hours 11 minutes. Processing the whole thing at the most basic level takes me about 10 hours:

• Watch the video and explore my own questions resulting in ~250 variations. I print these variations to PDF in Informator/Openings Encyclopedia format. It takes me 5 hours.

• Checking database for the frequency of moves of the kind of player I am mostly interested in (1900 to 2300 FIDE). I sentimentally keep variations that involve tactical tricks (they are easier to remember and structure the whole thing) and important games (famous GMs). But it still lets me cut more than half of the variations. I am down to 100 variations. I print these variations to PDF in Informator/Openings Encyclopedia format. It takes me 3 hours.

• I play these variations once on my wooden board, and I train them via chessable or Chessbase Openings Trainer for 2 hours.

What is missing? For these variations:

1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Bb5 d6 4. Bxc6!

1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Bb5 e6 4. Bxc6!

1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6 4. Bxc6!

I have the equivalent of two “model games”. They both involve f2-f4. One goes Qe1-h4 with the idea Bh6-Ng5-Rxf6-Qxh7#. The other one goes b2-b3 with the idea of (a) pressuring the c5 pawn with Nc3-a4, Ba3 or e3, Qf2; and/or (2) locking the g7 bishop with e4-e5. They both have about 15 side variations. I mostly built these model games with my experience playing these positions, with the help of books, videos and engines. Cutting variations that are not played that frequently at my level is part of the job. I print these games in PDF, read them with Kindle, and play the moves on my wooden board. I also train them with chessable or Chessbase Openings Trainer. These variations in particular became my best winners, so I love the approach.

I believe that the effort involved in checking these variations and figuring out what the most frequent moves are, and how we are going to respond (you may end up out of book more often than you think) is a great way to learn the material. Watching video material 2x or more, or analyzing a game in a book 2x or more, is also very beneficial. Learning a reasonable set of variations with space repetitions is also great, but it’s much better if you can associate these variations to some “book” format game with English comments. At least, it’s what I have been doing the past 3-4 years, and I feel that my opening preparation is much better than it has ever been when I used to play over the board.

One thing is sure, I did not intend to steal anyone’s intellectual property. I should not have used the term “book” because the term is loaded, although I think “personal PDF book”. It’s what I wanted to say in this quote from the original post:

>> Not “Any Book”, but “My Book” with the moves I am going to play, and only the moves I am going to play.

>> This book should be customizable. What it means is that I should have the PGN source. It is super important because there are multiple reasons why I may prefer another move than the one recommended by a GM, by an engine, by your statistics, etc.

But it’s totally correct that if such a PGN file becomes widely available, and is formatted with Chessbase or other software, and ends up printed in a book sold on Amazon (paper or Kindle), there are copyright issues that pop up. The format (100 games and 2,000 variations) imply a drastic cut of the variations given in the primary source (book, chessmood.com video, chessbase video, Chessbase commented game), but whatever, I have other things to worry about. I am not interested in making money from chess, I don’t want my openings repertoire to be publicly available, etc.

The bottom line is that I would like to close this topic.

Let me give you an example. For the 1.e4 c5 2.b3 variation I have created 3 lines and one of them is where White take 4.Bxf6. In this line Chessmood has provided a pretty straightforward setup. However, after looking more in detail I have found 3 relevant games each with a slightly different setup. Especially, one game where White develops a Bishop on g2 instead of c4 made sense to investigate as this way White can put more pressure on d5, which is their main objective.

I am attaching a screenshot of my Chessbase repertoire.

As you can see I also enter a lot of comments. This is advice from D.Naroditsky, saying that otherwise you would forget what you were thinking when you have created the file.

The Bishop Pair course and the tournament

Hey, champions! 
 GM Gabuzyan has added 3 more sections in his course "The Power of Bishop Pair." https://chessmood.com/course/Bishop-Pair-power

 Also, on Saturday, instead of opening, we'll start the game from the following position.
https://lichess.org/analysis/2b1k1n1/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/2B1KB2_w_-_-_0_1  

Watching the course will be a nice preparation!
  #COGRO

Replies

This is great, but again the tournament was announced very late and some might not join it if they feel they can't prepare enough by looking at the material. Again repeating myself, would it be possible to put the schedule in a couple of weeks at least in advance, and if they have to be cancelled because something comes up, so be it. It surely doesn't need too much detailed thought, and the links to the tournament itself can be added closer to the date.

Such a great idea! 

Sorry for inconvenience :) 
We'll try to announce earlier :) 

Daily lesson with Grandmaster

Hey, hello everyone. I want to ask that in YouTube channel of chessmood , the opening will be taught there that are not taught? Just give reply 

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The youtube channel will focus on strategy, openings will be covered here

I think all courses should be covered here. Then some of them (free/unlocked/other to ChessMood's descretion) could be replicated to Youtube. As a PRO member I do not appreciate being forced to look in different places to access my study material.

Hey dear @Dhruvil_Dave,

No, there are several short lessons on a wide variety of topics (opening, tactics, strategy and many more). 

Profile Image

Hi, I'm unable to save profile image. I've tried .jpg .jpeg .pgn .gif but once I crop and save in the profile, it reverts to no image and my name appears as the profile picture.

Any idea how to reolve this?

Replies

Hey dear @Mik_B,

Once Avetik told that it's a bug, it happened to others as well, they're taking live the new website very soon, then it's gonna be alright :)

4 free chess books for endgames

Hello to the chess community,

I am Regis Warisse, author of chess exercise books.

My 4 digital books in PDF format of 1000 chess exercises: special mate in x moves are now available for free download, for free and legally :

http://www.1000exercices.info/books/

4 exercise books to learn and refine chess tactics.

* 500 chess exercises: Special Mate in 1 move
* 1000 chess exercises: Special Mate in 2 moves
* 1000 chess exercises: Special Mate in 2 moves - Volume 2
* 1000 exercises and chess puzzles: Mate in 1, 2, 3 and 4 moves

A good way to progress for endgame and midgame capture.

Good exercises for everyone :)

Feel free to share!

Replies

Okay, thank you :)

I found a tricky move order for black in French

Few day ago, I was watching French Defense video Section 5 about the rare move. GM Avetik was suggesting us to play 4.Nd2 after all 3...a6 3...h6 and 3...Be7. Then one question come into my mind, what if after 4.Nd2 black play 4...Nc6. Then we shall play 5.Nbc3 because after 5.c3 there is 5...e5 where we miss our knight on f3. Furthermore, after 3...a6 and 3...h6 then 4.Nd2 black can play 4...c5 which explained in the advance section, but we rarely placed the knight on d2. With 4.Nd2 c5, it will become a different setup compared to what we learned. In my analysis I found a interesting move after 3...a6 3...h6 and 3...Be7 which is 4.c4 taking the center. When I checked my database (Mega Database 2017) it was not been played yet. Therefore, I have doubt whether it is good or most strong player rejected this move due to some concrete problem in this move 4.c4. Hope to get reply from Chess Mood. Thank You.

Replies

4.Nd2? or Ne2? 

Hi Wenstin,

I think that transposing to our positions is what makes sense, not playing c4 or Nbc3, in this case, I believe that after 4.Ne2 after all 3...a6 3...h6 and 3...Be7 we can just play exd5, then c3 and castle. This way we sill have the same structure and I do not see why this could be bad.

Hey Wenstin! 
Sorry, didn't get the question :) 

Did I recommend Nd2 or Ne2? 
Maybe I misspell something? 

2020 and our Goals

Hey Champions! 
The best way to achieve our main goal is to divide it into steps and make an action plan.
Let's write our goals list, the plan how we will do that and achieve our goals step-by-step. 

#COGRO (Constant Growth )
#Right Mood - Right Move! 

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Well, as a chess player my goal in 2020 gonna be to pass 2900 in chess.com 
Now it is 2765. 
Till June the goal gonna be 2850. And from June to January 2900.
Hopefully, I'll be an example, what kind of magic can do Right Mood. 

When my chess.com rating was floating between 2100+ I thought 2250 would be good target for this year , since I never set goal before I was sceptic. As I started to think about this stopped playing Bullet completely , slowly I was hovering close to 2200 and realized it is coming much sooner than I thought possible... now that I feel confident I feel 2300 is my target. Today I reached 2200 .

Well well. Even the old guys must improve. Today my lichess rating are around 1700. (1736 in blitz and 1698 in bullet). My first goal is stabilation around 1900 in the middle of the year. And second reach 2021 before 2021. ????????????

19th April: I am on my way ????????

Study plan:

1, Classics Section:

My goal is to study 1000 classics before december so from Jan 2021 I will play rated events and I wanna improve my positional play to the next level. I love Ulf Anderson's book which chessmood recommended soon I am gonna buy it and I also love Karpov's style. 

2. Tactics:

I also will solve daily 20 mins tactics.

3. Openings:

, I will finish all section of chessmood openings on my board and I will improve my openings too. So I will study 20 mins openings from openings files which I made during my study in past.

Total Study time for me is 3 hr classics and 40 mins in tactics and openings.

In case of online play

I want to reach 2000 in 3days per move games and maintain it too.

I want to reach 2200 in blitz chess.com and maintain it too.

I want to get 2000 in rapid chess.com and maintain it too.

While I have made a post on my 2020 goals here: https://chessmood.com/forum/main-channel/2020-vision it doesn't cover my online blitz rating goal, so I will give that here in this thread!

My rating in chess.com is currently 1750ish (give or take a few points) with my peak being 1876. I started last year at 1574 so had a peak gain of 302 points. Repeating that performance is supposed to be harder because your opponents get tougher as you go, but I say I am getting tougher as I go and not only will I increase another 302 points (2178) but will get the remaining points to hit 2200! 

OK I ramble, 2200 it is! Lets Go!

As a chess player, my goal is to raise my USCF rating from 1800 to 2000 by 12/31. Here is how I will do it.

Play and learn CM openings.  The challenge is my AADD (Adult Attention Deficit Disorder) that makes it hard for me to focus on the videos for more than a few minutes at a time.  For this reason I will take the videos in small doses and focus on the ones most relevant to the games I play.

I will not play blitz games, at which I am pretty bad, and focus on quality over quantity.  I will analyze all games played in the context of improving tactics, opening, middle, and endgame play.

I will solve tactical puzzles

I will study the classic games GM Grigoryan has analyzed for us

Of course, I will play USCF rated tournaments at every opportunity

JAVID SAFI

My goal is to get to 2000 USCF before I die. I am 1830 right now. Sounds easy but its like trying to date a 10 when your a 5. I am a friend of Matthew Hammons. Mostly come in the top 3 of local tournaments and I am better at tactics then strategy. No idea what I need to do to achieve my goal but I do work a few hours a day at chess. No plan right now, maybe later!

my goal is to improve my game understanding and rating.. I have decided to try my best this year.. it takes a lot of time to practice. I have started to solve more tactics and play more games to make my middle game and endgame strong

my goal is to solve 10000 puzzle by the end of this year and to prepare some strong openings from chessmood so i will shock my friend and opponents after the covid pandamic gets over.

My goal is to reach at 1800+ in rapid and 1700+ in blitz in 2020

My goal is to reach at 1800+ in rapid and 1700+ in blitz in 2020

I started 2020 with 2063 Fide Elo , and in the end of 2020 i want to be 2163 hopefully !

i want to reach 2000 on lichess before i finish my final year of medicine.. wish me luck

My goal is to become an IM within the next 9 years.

Goals for this year:

- Become more comfortable with the top 5 openings where I feel discomfort right now, lead by Scandi, the Dragon both sides, Caro Exchange-like positions, and Alekhine. Perhaps others.

- Reduce the middle game blunders like dropping queens and checkmates in 1

- Increase physical endurance to be able to survive a real, full OTB tournament

I believe rating will come when I start playing better chess. For reference, my lichess blitz rating is currently in the range 2100-2250, and blitz is what I enjoy playing.

I had a new thought! This year not only I will improve but will also encourage others and tell them about chessmood. For that, I edit my lichess profile. So, whoever will visit it, will get acknowledged about chessmood.

https://lichess.org/@/jyotisko06

That is a quite sensible and ambitious goal :)! Probably you may wanna start thinking about IM norms once your rating is around 2200, I'm sure you will get there pretty soon with that attitude!

my goal is to go into 2000 rating as fast as the world gets relief from covid 19

I just passed 1850 in lichess blitz and 1900 in bullet! My targets are 2200 for all time controls!

We should have about 100 more members each day

Here is a draft of my action plan. (I will evaluate the efficiency of  this plan monthly, and modify it if needed)

Name of the project: Chess improvement

Delivery of the Project: Reaching +2200 on Rapid and Blitz chess on Chess.com (or Lichess.com)

Duration of the project: 6 months; Start date: 01-06-2020, End date: 31-12-2020

Resources: Chessmood courses and streams, My Chess Books, Fritz17

Daily Action Plan : 

1- Solving chess positions at Chesstempo.com : 30 minutes per day

2- Playing 2 Rapid chess gamess (15' +10") OR  3 Blitz chess games (10' + 0 ") daily alternatively : 30 minutes per day

3-Watching Chessmood Opening Courses (I will skip advanced section first, when I finish all courses I will go back and watch  advanced section. I will start with Black repertoire first) : 30 minutes per day

4- Using Fritz 17 to develop my own opening repertoire, and to practice the opening move orders. (I will update everything according to Chessmood streams and GMs commentaries)  : 30 minutes per day

5- Watching Middlegame courses on Chessmood:  : 30 minutes per day

6- Reading Practical Endgame Books  : 30 minutes per day

I will work on he following endgame books first:

Endgame Strategy: Shereshevsky

Endgame Virtuoso: Smyslov

Exploring the endgame: Griffiths

My goal, we can win my chess competition in my country... Beating many strong rival opponent in National Competition in my country. 

Planning: 

PREPARE OURSELF:

1. Complete chess skill. 

2. Improve my chess skills, prioritize based on evaluation.

PREPARE OPPONENT:

1. Collect DATA all my opponent (real chess tournament data and online chess data from Lichess and chess.com)

2. Match my opponent data with my opening repertoire... 

3. Match CHESSMOOD opening repertoire with my opponent data.

4.Prepare and exlpore this match repertoires a lot.

5.Simulate games based this preparation and exploration. 

Thank You.

Nice good luck in helping kids 

My Goal is by the end of December 2020 to achieve 2000 rating 

Hi,

my goal is to improve the understanding of chess and to reach 2200 raiting on lichess by the end of this year.

I have divided my plan into 2 parts:

July-October , finish two Aggarrd´s books: Calculation and Positional play. and reach 2100 on Lichess

October-December, finish another of his two books: Endgame and Attacking chess, and reach 2200.  

My goal for 2020 is to increase rating by 400 points at the end of 31 December 2020

To learn new theoritical and practical endgames

To learn the openings against caro kann, sicilian and pirc with white and against all sidelines of d4

Hi!

My goal for the next 4 months is to train consistently everyday. I tend to get distracted easily and struggle to start working on some material until I finish it (for example, a book). I am keeping track of what I do daily so I am held accountable!

All the best!

Alex

I've been playing board 8 in the Lichess4545 league for over a year now, having increased my lichess classical from U1200 to mid-1500 in that time.  My 2020 (into Q1 2021) goal is to get onto board 7, which will require me to gain about 100 points.  I can put 30-60 minutes per day and will do whatever is recommended after I have my one-on-one with a ChessMood GM.

My goal is to train chess at least 1 h every day. I think that if I can achieve that my playing strength should increase (?)... 

My goal is to train/srudy chess 1 h per day! I guess that should help to improve my game... 

My goal is to get to 1900 on chess.com rapid my rating right now is 1620 by December 31

Hi, this is my study plan with my targets for the rest of this year:

Study plan from 10.10.2020 until 31.12.2020

Weekly framework:

·        1h Endgame

·        2h Middle game

·        4h Opening repertoire for White (without advanced)

·        45min Tactics

(After completing the repertoire “Anti-Sicilian” include steams and blitz/rapid games to practice repertoire).

Targets:

·        Complete 10 “Instructional Classical Endgames” until 31.12.2020

·        Complete 25 “Commented Classical Games” until 31.12.2020

·        Complete 35 “Happy Pieces” until 31.12.2020

·        Complete “Anti-Sicilian” (without advanced) until 01.11.2020

·        Complete “Scotch Game” (without advanced) until 29.11.2020

·        Complete “French” (without advanced) until 13.12.2020

·        Complete “Caro Kann” (without advanced) until 31.12.2020

·        Complete Tactics 2-8 from Beyond the basics/Chess evolution until 31.12.2020

·        Do 1.000 Puzzles from CT-ART until 31.12.2020

Continue like that. You are going pretty well. I personally want more puzzles

I reached 2125 on chess.com and 2201 on Lichess ! 

@ ChessMood Team: Hi could please open a new discussion "2021 and our Goals". Cheers, Nils

I agree that setting goals is important.  I'm new.  Prior to November, I had never played online chess.  It had been over 20 yrs of no chess prior to that, and never a tournament.   So my goal was to improve, and I embarked on the complete chess.com package, and several Daily U1000 tournaments.  I'm spending a few hrs per day at it all, and now I'm at 1050 Daily, 1250 Daily 960 - well below the standard PRO member, I realize.  I'm hoping adding ChessMood to the mix will keep me moving forward, as I continue to advance to the next rounds of those Beginner Tournaments.  Study + Practice + Games = movement towards goals.

NEW ARTICLE: How Effectively Are You Using Your Chess Time?

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Thanks for the article! It reminds me of the book "How to Live on 24 Hours a Day" by Arnold Bennett.

For a couple months I was sticking to a strict schedule of doing tactics, watching courses, etc. But got more and more into watching Twitch streams and participating in non-serious competitions using time controls too fast for me.

I want to go back to my normal, boring study schedule. This was good motivation. Thank you.

Thanks for another great article.

I am lazy like Svidler. The difference is that he won 8 times the very strong russian Superleague and I am an intermediate patzer. At least I don't waste my time playing bullet, puzzle rush or watching streams of beautiful 2000 women.

Commitment for 2021, put more hours studying chess. 

This is a really nice structured article. I like that you gave different examples. I am only 11 so I have a lot of things like school but I can always find time for chess.

I think I  was at a 6 or 7 last year at time management for chess. Earlier in the year maybe the first 5 months I was playing lots of blitz/bullet/rapid tournaments on lichess.

After June I started looking at books more and at tactics and in November I got Chess mood PRO membership and started watching courses and have learned a lot.

Thank You for all the hard work you guys put in to these courses.

I like this article very much. It is shorter than other but it richness is different level.

I tried to answer the question how i spent the last year regarding my chess? I think i did well but still i could do better.

This article is an absolute eye opener . Thanks to chess mood family

Hey Wil! 
I would highly recommend you the book "Peak performance". 
Be careful from burnout :) 

Intensive work in a flow + quality rest = growth 

Do you do that every day? In general one hour every day is better than only training one day and putting in 7 hours. 

Thumbnails spoils the positions in course "Happy Pieces: The Art of Keeping Your Army Happy"

Hello friends,

I have a small suggestion for the course (this may apply to other courses as well), sometimes the thumbnail of the video is spoiling the challenge presented by the coach, you can find an example attached. Is there are a way to prevent this?

Thanks!

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But why? I think it's nice 

Hey Hugo! 
I got your idea. 

Well, I'll ask our technical team, how the video is generating the thumbnail. 
Thanks for the advice! 

What's Wrong with this Game

I was browsing my YouTube Subs recently when I came across this stream https://youtu.be/_O6m6Yh5S5Y?t=1  and spotted something immediately that both these Chess titans somehow missed. Stunned and confused I tried to justify to myself how is it possible that players of this calibre can miss such things with plenty time on the clock.

The pgn is given below along with a screenshot from the game, can you spot without an engine what both these GM's overlooked: 

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Out of curiosity I fired up my database and was taken aback to find that GM Cheparinov also missed what Prag and So missed, although in Cheparinov's case it was a Titled Tuesday blitz game, but still it makes a strange impression.

The fact that even the best players sometimes have blind spots confirms how demanding chess can be, and provides some comfort to the rest of us aspiring students of the game. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and theories on how such aberrations occur in the games of top grandmasters. :-)   

The only 'crazy' idea that I see in this position is Bxf7+, which I believe it is not working:

1.Bxf7+ Rxf7 2.Ng5 Nb8 3.Nxf7 Kxf7 4.f4 Kg8 I think Black is just better here.