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Chess forum by Grandmasters
Opening
My sister is 6 Years old and I was wondering what are the best openings as white for her to learn.... I don't want to do Chessmood courses as they can be pretty long for eg. the Scotch Game course... It has LOADS of theory also which I don't think can be remembered by my sister... I am looking for something short and very less theory... In my chess club, They have online Tournaments with categories like:
1) Pawns category (Everyone starts from this category... "A master was once a beginner")
2) Knight and Bishop
3)Rooks
4) Queens
5) Kings
My sister is stuck in Rooks for the past few tournaments (Online tournaments, obviously) And I think the problem is opening.... She is good at tactics and everything but messes up in opening! The thing is that, you have to come in top 5 of that category and then you move to the next category (So in this case, If my sister Is in rooks and if she wins ie. comes in top 5 then she gets promoted to the next level, Queens) I want her to win and come in King category with me as soon as possible! Plz recommend opening as white with less theory!
P.S. Our next tournament is tomorrow so plz answer fast I also need to help her prepare! Thank you in advance!
Replies
Teach her basic opening principles. I made a very nice video on basics on my page and it will be super helpful for her too. She is new in chess so no need to pressurize her for anything. Let her enjoy tactics and some fun games.
Here is the link of my beginner video which focus on the opening principle control the center.
Soon more beginner lessons I will post. Right now she just need to work on basics but only if she wants. So make chess fun for her
You are right! I should not care so much about wins and losses!
It's never too late to resign
After watching the first two sections of the Benko Gambit course (e4 and g3 lines) I decided to play it for the first time with black if I had the opportunity and try to get the feel of the Benko gambit. Practice and making mistakes is a good way to learn and improve.
However, surprise! My opponent rejected the pawn and played the Qc2 line and I did not know the theory for that line yet :-(
After 16...f5 and 22...exd5 I was completely lost. I was about to resign a couple of times. But I did not, I kept the mood and tried to fight until the end. And it worked! My opponent was not a beginner (rated 1950 in lichess) and did not make obvious blunders like hanging pieces. He just made bad decisions and converted and advantage of +9 in a defeat.
The lesson I have learnt (apart from studying the mistakes I made in the game) is that it is never too late to resign. And even if you end up losing you will learn more than by just resigning.
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Nice Game!
Sergio, are you familiar with "SLP"? :)
NEW ARTICLE: The Importance of Learning Endgames - How to Do it Effectively
Hey Champions!
We have this topic in our Blog.
https://chessmood.com/blog/the-importance-of-learning-chess-endgames-and-how-to-do-it-effectively
If you have any questions, comments or you just liked it, feel free to share your thoughts here.
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Nice article. Once my woodpecker training will ovder I will work on endgame skills. Right now I am working on openings, middlegames, and tactics so no time to work on a lot endgames.
I spent around 10% of my time to chess studying endgames. The only position that I didn't know was the 2 pawns and opposite colour bishop endgame. But I know to mate with Bishop and knight and I am <2000 .
I know essential checkmates and I know queen vs pawn win or drawing side. I know bishop and wrong coloured pawn concepts, I know most of the basics ones but I am trying my best but unable to understand opposition in depth. If it's basic one I can handle it but distant and virtual is tough.
Take a look at this position. I saw it tried to understood it but then failed to execute this plan in other positions.
This was a very nice and motivational article. His mentioning GM's who forgot how to mate with Bishop & Knight is no joke. The following video made me a bit sad, but shows that we are all human and even the best of us can forget techniques if we have not used them in a long time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFF5ibgB6eA
After watching that video I somehow felt compelled to practice this mating technique again and again. I even discovered an alternative method I never heard of before called the Delétang's Triangular Method, which is quite interesting but I prefer the traditional way. :-)
Endgame course
Hey my Champions!
We are now working on our endgame courses... But as many of you are struggling there, I asked our partner Ichess for a discount code for one of their courses, which I think should be very useful for you.
Click here to get the course
Important
Don't buy it, if you have basic endgame knowledge.
But if you know very little, this should be a good investment.
This is what I think - the decision is yours. Keep the COGRO! (Constant Growth)
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Cool I checked the course and I think I have decent basics so not good course for me but your future course will be boom for my chess endgames
Anti Sicilian
How to play against e4 c5, nc3 e5?
Opponent will then play d6 and then play for f5
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e4 c5 Nc3 e5 is a bad move. First of all it weakens the d5 square and the long diagonal a2 to g8. My normal logical thinking says place the bishop on c4 and then i have two plans.
1. e4 c5 Nc3 e5 Bc4 d6 d3 Nf6 f4 and I feel ok in this position and I can castles long and give tremendous issues to black.
2. e4 c5 Nc3 e5 Bc4 Nf6 d3 d6 Nf3 follow by castles
I like the first aggressive approach.
I hope it will be useful
Devansh, the wrong move is Nf3. You want to play Bc4, d3 and f4 at some point. Maybe f4 immediately.
Practice and revision
Hi guys I know chessmood provides weekend tournaments but if anyone like to play 10 mins games then analise them together via audio calls then let me know.
1. Advantage of this weekend practice is that we will revise those lines which comes on the board. For example I will play caro kann against you and you will show how well you know about white's attacking ideas and this way we will revise lines in better way.
2. We will become good friends and study partners. I have one WCM from US as study partner but she is old and have time issue so we sometimes meet only 2 times in a month and sometimes four so its better to know more people too.
3. We will help each other by solving each other's problems
4. It will save our time if we work together. For example if one person work on one opening it may take one week but if we work together then we may finish one opening in 5 days
There are a lot things we can do. Like practice very long time controls on weekends.
Anyone interested can comment their facebook or gmail or chess.com in the bottom.
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Hi Abhi
I am a 1628 rated player and I would like to have some practice with you
My phone number/Whatsapp no is 8850128667
Feel free to call/text me
Hello Abhi, I am a 1800 online rated player, my profiles are: Giorgos_Kechagias on chess.com (I have already added you as a friend) and giorgoskehagias509 on lichess, although I am a bit lower rated on chess.com. I haven't finished all the courses have 4 remaining for white and 2 for black. My phone-whatsup 6984254004. Feel free to call or text me.
Banned members
Hey guys!
This is not ChessMood community, this is ChessMood family, were everyone grows, we have fun and help each other.
Unfortunately, there are people who violate our rules, terms of conditions or try to trick our system generating moodcoins.
All such members will be banned.
Very unfortunately, this month we had 9 such members, who are banned from ChessMood.
At the same time, we want to say big THANK YOU to all our great members who are far from such things. Who take value, have fun, and help others.
Thank you!
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Who are they? I am shocked that there are still people trying to cheat.
I am sorry, I hope people will stop violation.
Well done.
Can you solve the problem by banning them?
The presence of cheaters in Chessmood tournament makes it an unpleasant event, and I hesitate to participate in those tournaments anymore. You cannot enjoy a feast with bugs flying around.
I have lost +40 Elo in just one tournament in one hour, facing chess engines.
This is ugly.
Calculation- My nightmare hehehe
What was the deepest forcing line you ever calculated?
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1. e4
Joking of course. I just finished reading Reti's Modern Ideas in Chess (highly recommend for an engaging, historical overview up to 1920s); Reti quotes Breyer there: "1 e4. White’s game is in the last throes" :)
Is it fine to spend 1 hour on calculation?
ChessMood Family!
Today I got an interesting question:
"Is it fine is for solving some complicated position, to spend 1 hour? It's time I needed to solve it and find the right moves, but during the real game, I can't spend so much time. What to do?"
A very good question, that many of you have in your mind or have asked me before. So here is my answer.
Yeah, that's right. During the game, you can't spend 1 hour.
When you solve such puzzles, it's basically training for you.
There are positions, that I use with my Grandmaster students, solving which they need 2-3 hours.
But the reason is that it's just training.
You develop your calculation skills, visualization, and others.
I use two kind of excrecies: practical ones, and position like the mentioned, during which students will just develop his calculation skills.
The final advice:No worries if you spend on some calculation too much time. It was good training for you and during your real games, you'll spend less time.
As General Suvorov said: Harder before, easier during the battle.
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Wow, that's super advice. I thought it's not good to spend 30 mins on a position but you opened my eyes. Now I will follow same path. GM_Avetik Grigoryan
Fully agree with Coach Avetik on this one, practice hard so it becomes effortless in actual game situations.
Final word. Without knowing concepts and classics can anyone calculate? I think no. Any idea?
Playing Supercomputerand Superhuman
Dear friends! If you can't beat superengine - make it stupid (42...Bg5), If you can't beat superhuman - flag him I hope you will enjoy this 2 of my games https://lichess.org/ASbsbaYc/black?fbclid=IwAR38C196zFPoX1NTA23nO8j9_a3_XzLRAAV_H5urkRMOzd8Uc71jylOZwEI#83 https://lichess.org/tlP3OVgU/black?fbclid=IwAR3cOcI1ZzW3rOb_LToavThLA-X1StS1sf5buzXbv4nBe8ZU4HUD08pF6xA#0
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Nice games. This kind of chess will open my head hehehe.
Bg5!! :D
Best place for solving tactics
Hey Champions!
Where do you solve tactics?
Do you know any platform, where you can find tactics based on topics?
Chess.com has it, but it's messy, the positions are classified in wrong topics very often.
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The best I know is CT-Art. It is not free but costs less than 10 euros for Android IIRC. I it is well worth the investment IMHO
I know chessmood and other mentors suggests Chesstempo. For me I love books. I love to solve books because I feel more motivated and happy whenever I solve any chess book on tactics. I also choose those books which take positions from a real game instead of computer positions.
After my basics I solved a book called The Complete Chess Workout and after that I solved 3 Russian books written names were in Russian so I do not know the names and now currently I am working on woodpecker method for my pattern and tactics training and after this book I will choose domination in chess endgames for calculation training. Max 2-3 studies I will try to solve from the book.
I have used CT Art, chess.com, chessable and various books.
Of these I prefer chessable (effectively books put into a computerised testing format) and I think it is for tactics that chessable is very good. I am less keen on the format for studying other things but the fact you can repeatedly drill the same tactics on chessable and do ones you get wrong more often appeals to me and I found that doing 1,000 checkmates helped my recognition of these patterns.
For books I would recommend Chess Tactics from Scratch (Weteschnik) for understanding tactics. I presumed it was a beginner book until I saw Naroditsky say he really rated it.
The above is more for quickfire tactics. For harder ones I know Naroditsky and an IM friend of mine both recommend Chess Tempo.
Obviously all the above is after solving the chessmood daily puzzle.
Thanks guys, for your answers.
Now our team is checking various platforms, and at the end we'll recommend you, which are the bests.
I solve tactics on chesstempo platform as you suggested in a blog.
A setup against Caro kann
Coach if you find time then check out the game I am sharing in the bottom and show us ideas against the plan a6 Ra7 which black chose in the game. I felt that it was passive but the way black explained the ideas in video was also instructive so I am curious to know the weakness in his plan. As you know Black player is also an experienced mentor like you so it will be great to know the weakness in his sidelines. He is not recommending to play this as black.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1612896
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Hi Abhi! That's interesting.
With big respect to Seirawan, I don't think it's a good idea.
Ra7 is far from everything. He played against non rated player and outplayed him.
However White had different options to get a strong attack.
For example on 13.Bg5! with next f4!
Also after 6...a6 white could play for example 7.h3!? keeping the opponent's bishop on c8.
My score was always +ve against caro kann by using caro ex but after I saw your course it's more than positive. I am doing superb against carokann or I can say I am winning most games but if I lose it's just because of some mistakes by me.
Beginners Openings?
What openings are good for pure beginners. Let's say a student is working on basics checkmates and going to play a tournament then what is useful opening for him to play. Also imagine he knows basics of openings too.like center control etc.
All suggestions are useful because soon I am going to give private lessons to beginners and below 1500 players.
Replies
With white pieces Colle system is ideal choice.
Against e4 Giuoco Piano is a good choice.
Against d4 King indian defence is a good choice.
Here, Comfortability with opening is also pretty important.
Abhi, we've talked about this topic a lot during the webinars.
Our openings are very good for beginners too.
WHY?
A beginner should play very active chess. It's must to develop active play skills.
I see, Amit offered Cole.
While Cole is a very solid and White wouldn't get checkmate in 10 moves even if they play aginst a GM, systems like Cole are very bad for beginners, as the future growth will be slower.
To summarize 1.e4! for White, Sicilian for Black!
Against d4, there are many good options. I still believe that Benko is the best.
Note: Many chessplayers and even GMs say that the best openings are the openings they play. This is not objective.
However the openings I'm recommending they were never in main opening repertoire, but it's so obvious that one for improving his chess skills should play this openings, that from scratch I started analyze 1.e4!
One hundred people, one hundred opinions.
I just share mine, the rest- up to you.
Eric Rosen vs ChessMood openings :)
Eric Rosen faces Ra4 during his live stream
If he knew that he plays against my student and that this move is covered in our ChessMood Courses ????
https://chessmood.com/course/10-crushing-the-scandinavian
Replies
I haven't watched the Scandinavian course yet because I chose Philidor yet the players of my level 1700-1800 choose it as black, and especially Larsen variation.
That's very odd as Rosen posted the following Video in 2018 recommending 7.Rxa4! for White!, so he was definitely already aware of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IBDe-f_PCc&feature=youtu.be&t=1411
Perhaps he forgot about it or just wanted to see if his opponent was aware of it. Do you have the link for the stream in your Screenshot, it would be interesting to hear what he says about it.
Any danger of overtraining?
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You can play classical chess online and I would recommend this to get some feedback into your play. It also will help with motivation for your training as most of us are competitive.
If you are doing lots of training sometimes you may need a break for a few days or a week periodically to enable you to come back fresh (as with any job).
Interest is different from commitment. Check out the article: The Golden rule how to go up with online chess.
Krystof! Good question.
Well you should not train, when your body doesn't want or it is very tired.
And at the same time you should play in order to develop your playing skills.
To understand chess and play chess are very different.
Try some online blitz games or friendly games.
It's very important not to afraid from competition.
Here is a very good video, recently sent by one of my friends
Check it out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94MBVD_tZeU
Interactive Lesson on "The art of exchanging the Bishops"
Incredible lesson on identifying and trying to get rid of bad bishops https://youtu.be/9W3NHXrs43Y. Didn't even know it existed until today morning. Thank you coach for these lessons
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cool. Enjoy the lessons!
Cool to hear that!
Thanks, Hunan!
How to study endgames - efficiently and effectively?
How to study endgames - efficiently and effectively?
When will chessmood post endgames material?
Thank you.
Replies
If you are below 2000 then my idea will work well for you. I do not know how to answer if you are above 2000. So let me start.
In case of endgames Chessmood will post courses soon this is what coach told me, So, I am also waiting for the material but in this mean time if you want to work alone then I suggest you to work from the book called Silman's Endgame Manual. The good thing about this book is that it covers topics by rating level. For example if you are below 1600 it will show you lucena, Philidor positions and vancura too. So by this way you will slowly learn theoretical endgames and slowly slowly this book will become difficult and make your level to 2000 in theoretical endgames.
In case of practical endgames I like the book called Capablanca's Best Chess Endings by Irving Chernev. This book will not only help you in practical endgames but also improve your positional play. So that's all I suggest you.
Another nice point is that if you are below 2000 then as statistics shows that most games are decided in the middle game at below 2000 level so I think working on Chessmood openings, classical games sections from chessmood and other sources such as books on world champs or videos, tactical pattern training from woodpecker method book or any other method which you like, only knowing basics of endgames which silman will show you, daily 2-3 Endgame Studies from Kasparian's book can make you 2000 in an year or may be less depends on your burning desire.
Good luck!
"100 endgames you must know" by Jesus De Villa is very good for a range of levels.
I like Jonathan Hawkins "Amateur to IM" book as well (probably for 1700+)
I know Chessmood recommend it but I was very disappointed with Chernev's Capablanca book and gave my copy away.
I think drilling mainstream positions with a training partner is a good way of training these.
Hey Heri!
Nice questions.
We are working now on the endgame courses, and soon we'll upload.
Today we're going to publish a great article written by GM Hovhannisyan about learning of endgames, and at the end of the article, there will be something cool.
Alekhine Section 4 4...Bg4
In this variation, after 5. Be2 e6 6. 0-0 Be7 7. c4 Nb6 8. h3 Bh5 9. Nc3 0-0 10. Be3 Nc6?! 11. exd6 cxd6 12. d5 exd5 13. Nxd5, what exactly should White play after 13...Bxf3? Now, after 14...Bxf3, the c4 pawn is hanging!?
Replies
Ramon, you can take Bb6 first!
Bro, please post Alekhine related question in the topic of Alekhine Defense,
Benko Problem!
I was seeing the lines of Benko and found THIS :
In the video you said that Ne1 is double attack but now I saw my lines carefully and saw that there is a Rook on e6! There is just Rxe1 and white is winning!
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But after Rc2 Rf4 gf4 Nf4 and black is just winning the endgame.
By the way it was already pointed out!! I just now saw that!
https://chessmood.com/forum/pro-members/some-questions-about-benko-gambit
True! This course will be soon restructured and the mistakes will be fixed.
Secret Power of Pawns!
it's so useful if anyone comment the useful and educational games in the bottom. I studied this game from a video today and in the resulting endgame I laughed because black had 8 pawns on the board and white's rook was stuck on f1 square. I won't say oh! opening was fine but the middle game and converting passed pawns into win and double rook sac was super educational. In short I can say strategical ideas are super useful. For example. We all know 2 connected pawns on the sixth rank are more powerful than rook but in this game we see this idea in practical sense.
Try to watch it anywhere and share your thoughts.It's so rare to see 8 pawns in the endgame on GM level hehehe.
Eduard Gufeld vs Lubomir Kavalek 1962.
