The 1st forum, where all the questions will be directly answered by Grandmasters!

Hello ChessMood family, hello champions and future champions! 
Happy New Year and welcome to the "Best games of March 2021" competition.
Under this post, we invite you to post your best games that you will play this month. 

The Prize fund is 350K Moodcoins which is equal to 350$.  

The 1st prize  - 150K
The 2nd prize - 100K
The 3rd prize-  50K
The 4th Prize- 30k
The 5th Prize- 20k

Good luck with your games and keep the Right Mood! 
#ChessMood
#Right Mood - Right Move 

P.S
Here are the winners of February: 

1st Arman Shahzamani
2nd Vladimir Bugayev
3rd Abhi Yadav
4th Sean Raasch
5th Vibhush Pusapadi

Hello ChessMood Family! 
Now I'm adding model games in each section of our course, so you have a better understanding of the positions. Some of them, I'll also add in the book, that I'm writing now (later about that.) 

Why did I write this post? :) 
If you played nice and instructive games with our ChessMood openings - please post here. 
I would be happy to add them as well. 

P.S 
The first course, where I'm going to add model games, gonna be the Scotch game. If you want to make a research in your games, start from the Scotch :) 

Hello champions and welcome to the ChessMood team! 
We all are from different countries, different ages, have different professions... But one thing bounds us - the passion for chess.

Champions, we'll grow together and keep a warm relationship in our team. 
Please tell a bit about yourself in this post. 

#ChessMood_Family 

Hello, champions. 
Here you can find sparring partners. 
You can write, for example, 

"Hey guys, my name is Bob, I'm from the USA, my rating is 2000 I'm looking for a sparring partner." 

Or even more specific like "I just finished the Caro-Kann course and I'm looking someone to play a friendly sparring games". 

Good luck! 
Hopefully, you'll find good friends too. 

In the Scotch course after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Qf6 there is only mentioned to play 5.Nf3! and White has the easier game.

Interestingly, in his 1.e4 e5 Lifetime Repertoire on Chessable GM Sethuraman chooses this 4...Qf6 line and after 5.Nf3 continues with 5...Bb4+ to provoke c3.

I see that in the advanced section "tricky moves" Chessmood gives 6.Nbd2 d6 (planning ...Bg4). Sethuraman instead goed 6...Nge7 7.Be2 0-0 8.0-0 and now 8...Bc5 avoiding the troubles with this bishop as in the Chessmood course. 

In the Scotch course Chessmood gives the following line: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Bc5 5.Nb3 Bb6 d6.

What if Black postpones ...d6 and goes for 6...Nge7 7.Qe2 O-O 8.Be3 f5!? as given by Krykun in his "A Complete Repertoire for Black after 1.e4-e5!" book? This way Black avoids the f2-f4 move as in Giri-Navara and threatens to play f5-f4 themselves.

Hi, Avetik,

Quality Chess has just released an opus (416 p. !) about this gambit...which crosses our scotch at move 2 ?! Can we hope for your recommendation in the next future on how to deal at best with this gambit ?

Many thanks,

Jean-Marie

Know as the Duras Gambit, also the Fred and many other names, and possibly it could be called an Accelerated Colorado the way it was played here.

Most books just ignore this move and (rightly) say it's just a pawn giveaway, but there are some tricks and if the pawn is recaptured or the King gets to safety on f7 or O-O then Black is probably okay. I just had a 2000+ player try it, so I wonder if someone is making some YouTube videos on this.

I assume it will be covered in the Abracadabra section at some point, but for now, what's the best way to play against it?

I played 2. exf5 Nf6 3. d4 d5 4. Bd3 c5 5. dxc5 (computer suggests c3 is better here because of e5, which the opponent was criticised for playing 5... Qa5+ 6. Nc3 (if d4 then Bb5+) Nc6 (now it's probably a Colorado by transposition) 7. Bd2 Qxc5. Now 8. Nf3 e5 is suggested.

Another way of playing is 1. e4 f5 2. exf5 Kf7 which I have faced in over the board blitz once. Again it can be tricky if 3. d4, but here there is the so-called Mao Tse Tung Attack with 3. Qh5+ and if g6 4. fxg6 Kg7 5. gxh7 Rxh7 6. Qg5+ Kh8 which looks absolutely dreadful.

So if wanting to play Kf7, it would be better on move 3, 1. e5 f5 2. exf5 Nf6 (to stop Qh5) 3. d4 Kf7 perhaps with something similar to the game with 4. Nf3 d5 5. Bd3 c5 6. c3 and after 6... cxd4 7. cxd4 Nc6 8. O-O for your entertainment, the computer suggests Kg8 - something must be terribly wrong! I think a human is more likely to go for Qc7.

In the accelerated Dragon, did you discuss what happens after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 and 5.Nxc6 immediately? I might have missed it in the course.

If not, what do you suggest for black?

regards,

Duncan

Hello!

I have been having this problem for about a month. I am not able to concentrate properly and work on chess as I used to. I feel like I don't want to work on chess anymore. I have a fide rating of 2200+ and am pretty young [ <16]. I have the time to work on chess but simply cannot concentrate properly. I am really low on confidence and not sure how to overcome this problem. Any help would be really appreciated. 

P.S: I was a former- PRO Member and loved your work. Thank you for all the work that you have done!

The happier this picture is, the more real and unbearable it is for me :( 

After a long laugh, I stopped for a moment and realized it is a huge problem that has to be solved.

Some winning games came to my mind which I missed because of this stupid reason. Once I had a rook, knight and 2 pawns against a single rook, and get checkmated. Can you imagine? :(

I hate when people gather around my board and I'm stressed for it :( 

I don't know how to overcome this. Are there any tips?

Is there anyone who has this problem or am I alone? :(

All of us know the rule of time: The player who runs out of time loses if the opponent has a chance of checkmating the player who runs out of time (even if theoretically). Otherwise, the match is claimed to be a draw.

However, consider this position (white to move). The only possible scenario is
1.   d4        b5
2.   d5        b4
3.   axb4   a3
4.   b5        a2
5.   b6        a1Q   (or a1R, a1B, a1N)
6.   b7#

It is noticed that none of the two players has any other options. Both players are forced to play the previous line.

One of the chess players in my country asked a question: If this position was in a real tournament and the WHITE player ran out of time before his/her sixth move, what is the decision of the judge?
Some chess coach insist that the white player should win!!!!
They claim that this would be one of the rarest moments that the player who runs out of time wins, as the opponent could do nothing to alter this result even if he/she had the authority to play with both the white and black pieces together.

I wish to know the opinion of everyone who read this especially the grandmasters moderators of this forum, in this critical situation.

Hi I just lost a blitz game which started 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nf3 and Black just went back immediately with 3...Qd8!? and later played ...c6 / ...Bg4 / ...e6 and I got nowhere and got quickly outplayed by an opponent rated around 2300.

Any tips on now to combat such opening play will be most welcome.

It happens to me quite a lot that after 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6 4. Bxc6 black recaptures with the b pawn. I just had a case where black then proceeded to play d5 and e6, and develop the knight to e7. I tried following standard plan but encountered an interesting response at move 10.

From my engine analysis it seems Qh4 is not the best move here, but instead  white should play e5. I looked for this variation in the courses and the closest I came was the 2.. e6 course but there the coverage is about when black plays Nf6, not Ne7. Your thoughts about the best plan for white would be appreciated.

Since I'm often looking to improve things and can come across quite critical, it's worth noting there is so much that's right though which often doesn't get said.

Just had a nice win against Bc4 (not perfect as I had a couple of low time based blunders) where normally I struggled against this system. Thanks GM Gabuzyan for the course and the follow up session!

Hey coach, I was just wondering the right plan against stonewall? As of now I am playing in KID style and quickly playing e5 break . What is the right way to play according to our chess mood repertoire.

And also I am finding difficulty playing against Sicilian rossolimo 0-0 line where he doesn't play BC6 ANY IDEAS?? 

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. Bd3 Nc6 5. c4 e5 6. dxe5 Nxe5 7. Qe2 Qe7 8. Bb5+ Bd7 9. Bxd7

Unfortunately Kxd7 has been overlooked here and needs considering as I found out. The idea is that Re8 is coming, and yes the d-pawn is a long term liability, but before the middlegame, the Gods placed getting whacked around in an opening by a caveman where you can't castle.

After 10. Qb5+, both Kc7 and Kc8 have been played, both scoring Black wins for 2200 players (lichess' db for what it's worth) and the White king position comes under attack; Chessbase has 11  games with 2 White wins, 2 losses and the rest draws.

I'll need to look a bit deeper at these lines with the engine, but it may be that although long term White has a big plus, practically, particularly in blitz with a seasoned caveman on the other side, this is around equal chances for the club player at least looking at the defence the computer put up (stronger players might be able to tactically survive over the board) - and as a White player do you really want to have to study this rare line in depth and remember all the ways Black can annoy you.

Perhaps for practicality purposes, 8. Be3 should be considered giving a bishop for a knight, but black still has an isolated pawn which knights will be happy to blockade if given the chance: 11 White wins, 1 loss (lichess), 4 wins, 1 loss (and that was loss was unrated players) Chessbase.

Hello Champions and Future Champions, Hello Chessmood Family...

I bet that you recognize the words... I just dared to use them to start making my introduction to all of you.

From now on I am going to be watching over your learning Odyssey in Chessmood by moderating the forum. Lately we had some technical issues and some undesired posts, that is why our beloved Avetik asked me to moderate the forum. Of course in no way I will behave as an inquisitor, and we still have to fix some malicious posts but we are on it. 

I enjoyed very much banning a couple of users that were spamming us and deleted the posts that I could (and I will delete the the rest soon).

I will try to make your experience here more enjoyable and I have been taking good notes in the different posts that you wrote.

I will only ask some patience before I get used to my duties but rest assured that I will be here for you!