Chess forum by Grandmasters

French exchange nuance, Ne2 then Bf4

I just had played a game with the french, but instead of Nf3, the knight was put on e2. This allowed the opponent to play Bf4 with an intermediate move. Is there anything i missed?? How should we play against this??
Moves are as follows: 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. Bd3 Nc6 5. c3 Bd6 6. Ne2 Nge7 7. O-O Bg4 8. f3 Bf5 9. Bf4

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Hi Cate,

Very simplistic thoughts from a beginner:

Isn't the objective of the original plan to entice an h3 move, thereby weakening white's defence of the king?  In your game we have instead produced an f3 move.  Can we now look to castle queenside and use a pawn storm on the kingside, probably starting with Harry the h-pawn.

In the original video, GM Avetik had frozen the white pieces to show us the main idea of the opening. Maybe that is why you're confused. When you face a move that is unfamiliar to you, just stick with the original plan of the opening. So here, you probably should play f6, g5 and h5. Bring the queenside rook over to the kingside and  look for a possible sacrifice on the centre to maybe use the exposed diagonal. Hope this helps!

1-Time Special Offer

I see that Chessmood has a 1-time special offer for their Essential plan, in which you can take 50% off the yearly Essential membership. I wanted to say that it would be very nice if there was a similar offer for the PRO monthly or yearly plans. What are your thoughts?

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In an ideal world sure but Avetik et al are not made of money and also need to eat food and pay bills. Pro membership comes with a lot more benefits such as 1-1 calls so…

I agree, that would be fair

Avo's SLP stream

Many thanks to GMC coach Avetik for an incredible SLP stream yesterday! With a record attendance also!

Maybe there can be a course in the future on creativity… he came up with many unusual, surprising lines!?

Mahalo!

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It was a great stream indeed!

Thanks for nice words Ovi, Tyler - will share this with Av :-)

Scotch Theory, confused on how to play against romanshin variation

Hi! I've been loving the free event and have been making use of it by learning the scotch. However, a really annoying line came up when i was playing some training games which hasn't been addressed in the course :(

what should i do against 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Bc5 5. Nb3 Bb4+? 
 

really popular line, thank u guys so much in advance!!!

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What do you think yourself?

There are seven possible moves. In the Lichess database, all have been played. The only one with a less than 50% score is 6. Qd2?? and I hope you would not seriously consider that 😉

(The move 6. Ke2 has an amazing 100% score but that's based on a single game 😁, I don't think giving up castling rights like that can make any sense.)

I think one of the moves is simple and good, and does not allow black to compromise the pawn structure, which is good especially if you plan to castle long and launch a pawn storm on the kingside. But I'm no master.

Play c3

Then you will take the bishop with your knight.

If Black plays like Be7,

Juts continue normal development

Play Bd2 because the position you get are mostly better versions of the main lines 

I recommend  6. c3 Be7  7. f4 d6  8. N1d2 d5  9. Bd3 with e5, Qc2, Nf3, Be3 and 0-0-0 following. In this case white maintains a slight advantage (around +0,35). 

Interactive Lessons

Just like to say, how great the interactive lessons have been the last few days.

I believe I'm on the lower side of the average ratings watching, but the main points have been explained so well that I've really understood the lessons. Cheers

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Thanks 🙏! We are very happy 😊 to hear this. We hope that you keep enjoying them and you learn a lot!!

May the Chessmood Force be with you!

Dear Duane,

Thanks for your kind words and decent attendance. 
It's awesome to see you growth.
 

Good luck!

Its always a joy to be able to attend coach G's streams!

They're informative, deeply analytic, puzzling sometimes, challenging, surprising many times (such as mate ideas), artful and fun. He has a good sense of humor that keeps the lessons memorable.

Thank you GMC Gabuzyan!

Repertoire colliding with others

😱😱😱😱😱

Dear chessmood team I had a lot of doubts because you suggested french with bd3 but still suggested French for black, you suggested nc3 against Sicilian but still offered to play Sicilian as black. I did not understand. Please guide.

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Just watch the courses look for the variations that are played for both and you will understand. This is normal in a complete repertoire. 

Hello Adhyayan, 

In continuation to what Chessmood Odysseus has pointed out, I play Sicilian for both white and black. But the variations are what matters, as I mainly use the closed systems or anti-Sicilian as it's called here for white, but Accelerated Dragon or a mix with Maroczy for black (and a bit of Paulsen, apart from the chessmood repertoire). The English opening can also serve as a reverse Sicilian with a tempo up for white in some occasions.

 If you watch carefully the courses, you will understand that everything is connected in a wider “net”, and your doubts will get eliminated! Cheers!

There is no possibly way that your repertoire can not collide with itself  

Thanks for the free events

also thanks to Gabuzyan for the helpful advice about noticing tactics. It didn't really occur to me that tactics exist in a context and aren't just about angling pieces a certain way. There's a bit of that but also wider stuff going on.

Anyway I enjoyed the blitz workshop and I had fun playing Gabuzyan in 3/0. Thanks for extending these events to Essential members!

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Dear Voran,

Thanks for your kind words!
It's great to know you enjoyed this events :-)

Good Luck!

||nice||

Well said, I really enjoyed these events all week, they were super intuitive and answered so many middle game ideas and I picked up up a nice plan for what I need to study next. I’m half way through fearless warrior (on advice of GM Hovhannes) and already things are becoming clearer. Thank you so much for these streams, if there were more at this time zone I’d subscribe to pro instantly but appreciate it’s early in Armenia for you to do these! 

Elephant Gambit 3... Qe7?! 4... f6 model game

This isn't covered in the course and I've faced it once. Found this model game in Plan Like a Grandmaster which might be worth including in the course as an example of Qe7 being bad.

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Thanks a lot for showing us this game. To be frank David, the move 6...Qf7 is not good at all, other moves like Bf5, Nc6 or f5 come to mind and should be better. That said, you are right, f6 is not covered specifically, but as it happens to all repertoires, we cannot include all the possible moves. 

I would try to remember the manouver Nd3 to f4 and then healthy development without complications if this position ever happens again. Also the g4 idea is nice to have it in mind.

Getting games with increment time controls

Hi,

What has been your experience in getting games with increment time controls, which time controls, which servers? To me it looks like almost everybody on Lichess and Chess.com is playing sudden death time controls. Any tips or suggestions?

And as you remember Avetik recommends playing with increments: https://chessmood.com/blog/what-chess-time-control-to-choose

I tried to get a 10+5 game on Chess.com but I don’t know how long I should have waited to get paired; got 15+10 then, which was nice of course. (My chess is so rusty that I wouldn’t feel comfortable at this time playing anything faster than 10+5.)

Does the experience depend on the rating?

Wouldn’t it be nice to have 10+5 arenas… 🤩

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if you are playng blitz, I recommened trying 5+3 (It is also recommended in a chessmood article) and other increment time controls for blitz. For rapid, playing without increment time controls is totally fine.

Nice puzzle

I solved some puzzles on lichess  after watching the tactic ninja course and i found a nice one. 

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https://lichess.org/training/Fopwc

HELP ME

How to checkmate the black king with only one move

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d5xe6 ep

2ways

1. 1-Rxf7 Kh8 2-Qf6 Bg7 3- QxBg7#
2.  1-Nh5 Kh8 2- Qf6 Bg7 3 - QxBg7#

Dxe6 en passant and their f pawn is pinned so they cant play f6

the answer is dxe6#

I think the answer is 1. Rff7+ Kh8 2. Rh7#

All the best, Kingston.

1.dxe6# 

Cool and Tricky one!

It took me a few minutes to see en passant. En Passant Checkmate!!! 😎

dxe6# en passant checkmate 

en passant is a checkmate

answer is dxe6

Opening theory

Does anyone know how strong titled players make their own opening theory and what apps they use. It's a topic I've been trying to search online but I can't find any really concrete version explaining how they do so. Is there an article on this site that explains how, bc I've always wanted to publish a chessable course and of course I can't use this sites lines as it's not allowed and I'll have to make my own from scratch 

Replies

Hi there!
Have you read this article?

https://chessmood.com/blog/the-most-effective-way-to-create-chess-pgn-files

Rossolimo with Ae3 (instead of Ag3)

I have recently played a game following the Rossolimo and found me lost without any clue. My opponent played Ae3 instead of Shirov's Ag3 (so I could not follow the ideas in the chessmood course) but after he come back to Bf4 with e5 and Ce4… 

So he used the ideas of Ag3 but playing first Ae3, can you tell me where did I went wrong?

Thanks for any advice!

Here's the game:

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. h3 Bg7 6. d3 Nf6 7. Nc3 Nd7 8. Be3 e5 9. Qd2 h6 10. O-O b6 11. Nh2 Nf8 12. a4 a5 13. f4 exf4 14. Bxf4 Ne6 15. Be3 Nd4 16. Rae1 Be6 17. Nf3 Qd6 18. Bf4 Nxf3+ 19. Rxf3 Qd4+ 20. Kh1 O-O-O 21. e5 g5 22. Bg3 Kb7 23. Ne4 Bf8 24. Nd6+ Bxd6 25. exd6 Rhg8 26. c4 

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Johann, thank you for your question!

Our main channel is a space for general discussions and for everyone to share their thoughts and ideas.
For more personalized assistance and to ask questions directly to our Grandmasters, and get answers to your specific queries related to our courses, please write in our PRO channel.

If you're not a PRO Member yet, you can join here: https://chessmood.com/become-a-pro

If you have any other questions or need further assistance, feel free to let us know!

With best wishes,
ChessMood ProfessorX

How to focus on growth and not on result and rating most importantly?

I have read the blog by GM Avetik about focusing on growth rather than results. But still in between games I constantly get the doubt ‘What if I lose?’ , ‘If I lose everyone will laugh at me and I will lose my rating’ and etc. Can you recommend something I should do before game or in between game if these doubts come again?

P.S. I am in a chess otb tournament currently so it will help if you can reply ASAP. AND sadly I am losing rating(I haven't checked it as I always check my rating at the end of tournament) but still there is a thought in my mind that I am losing rating as I lost to two lower rated opponents and drew to two lower rated opponents. Any help about this?

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I hope for an answer!

Hey there,

I will share one tip that helped me overcome this issue.

Once I complained to the coach I was afraid to lose the rating.

And he said - just keep training and become stronger.
Once you are strong enough your rating and level will go up.

The strength isn't chasing the rating - the rating is chasing the strength.

In other words commitment and effort are the key - all other things happening, even losing the games is a part of your growth 😁
 

Making Decision

Recently, I finished two courses, the first one is how to Find a Plan and the second one is Calcman, and right now I'm studying Attack Like Viking

The issue is that I'm confused about how to make a decision  after watching these courses 

Does their any hint or solution for this issue

Replies

It sounds like you're mentally tired and need time to process everything you just learned. That happened to me after watching 7 Questions but now I use these skills in my games all the time.

How to loose: one more way

In your starter course for beginners you do not mention one more way hot to loose: if your mobile rings during the game (or based on tournament - even if it is just found in your pocket). :)

In local tournaments there are no strict rules, but anyway if it rings or beeps you loose. 

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Hey Re Vid,

Thanks for helping :-)
Once, long ago when I was a kid my opponent lost because of that and I was shy to claim a victory haha :-)

Anti-Sicilian with 2.Nc3 a6 (Part 4)

In the line with the N sacrifice with 6…d5, 7.exd5 b4 8. 0-0 Nf6 9.Ne4 Bxd5 is sugested Nf4, but why not 10. Nxf6!? 

It seems stronger (queen cannot take so gxf6, Bxd5 followed by Nf4 and Qf3)

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Hi Johann!

Both are fine continuations for white.

According to the engine, 10.Nxf6 is a bit preferable.

Longer time control simuls?

Hello,

I wonder if it would be possible to run simuls with longer time controls occasionally? If we are to give the GMs a fight, a bit more than 10+5 would be helpful. In addition, more time would give the GM more time to comment on each game, making it even more instructive.

Cheers

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That's a difficult thing to do Harald. We did some tests in the past but we finished having games played for longer than 3 hours and it is too much time. If we do that we must reduce the number of players too. Still, we will talk about it and see if some day we can do something different. 

Thanks for your feedback and suggestion.😀

advance sicilian dragon

e4 c5, 2. Nf3-Nc6, 3. d4-cxd4, 4. Nxc6-?. 5. Qd4 what am i going to do with this?please sir…

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Hi Jay,
Can you please write the correct move order of what you are asking?
And did you already watch the course on the Sicilian Dragon and made your Pgn file? Because I have the feeling that the variations that you asked and this one too are all covered in the course. 😅

Anti-Sicilian part3, 4... Be7

Hi!

I tried looking in the forums for the following variation in the anti-sicilian.

1.e4 c5 2.Knc3 e6 3.f4 d5 4.Knf3 Be7

Now I have to get out with my white bishop, but e2 will lose a tempo and b5 will help him get rid of his bad bishop. What would be the recommendation?

Replies

Hey Anan,

I would go there either 5.Bb5+ and 0-0 or would develop with 5.g3 which is also possible.

Good luck, :-)