Chess forum by Grandmasters

Waiting for two years: Benkoupdate

Waiting for two years: Benkoupdate

Two years before the answer was:

Benko updates course is under construction and will be recorded in the future, although for sure not in the next few weeks as its and enormous work, and as you can see we are also actively recording other courses as well :-)
Thanks for your patience and good luck!

What time the update will come?

You have any   new informations?

Best wishes and thanks for your work

Christoph 

Replies

Dear Christoph,

The reason we were delaying the Benko course - that this is specific opening course may be interesting for x% of students on our website, in a meanwhile we focused more on the courses that will be uselful for everyone on different levels - Benko is personally my favorite opening and I always wanted to start working on that- and you know what?

Just these days, the moment I am answering your message, the re-recordings start!!!!

So you can expect the Benko course in the very near future!
Thanks for your patience and waiting,and I hope you will enjoy it a lot.

Best wishes,
GM Gabu 

Isnt it today's daily puzzle same as June 19th/18th one

Duplicate daily puzzle

Replies

😀

Yes, I thought I'd seen it before! 

Hey there,

I informed our technical team.
Thanks for informing.

Anti-Sicilian Part1

Hi!

How to respond to: 

1e4, c5

2Nc3, e6

3f4, a6 

?

a4?  or g3?

Replies

Dear VIcentiu,

In that case, I would recommend playing with g3 and Bg2 - later on, you might advance on the Kingside with h3-g4-Nce2-Ng3.
It would be nice to check some anti-Sicilian model games and the course content.

Good luck! 

2000!!!

Finally got there!

That game 

When I subscribed to ChessMood, that number seemed very far away, I don't think I was thinking about reaching it. According to what I wrote in my profile, I was 1729 elo rapid on chess.com when I first got on chessmood. I just had an interresting tournament (6 out of 9) but I thought I could have done better. I had a clear objective in mind: work on my endgames, understanding better positionnal chess. 

So now, about 10 months laters, I've completed 4 chessmood courses (endgames roadmap, essentials endgames u2000, pawn endgames and blunderproof), significantly advanced in others (SLP, Silent Strategy). I gave myself that rule of playing regularly rapid chess, (almost) always three games at a time, no more, no less. 
I earned my spot in the best players of my local club, and althought I'm not the best, there is none I haven't beat at least one time.
In a 5 round tournament in december, I've got a 3 out of 5 against higher rated players. 

Funfact: I have a sparring partner, she was kind of the opposite I was: I was strong on openings, attack building, tactics; she was a solid positionnal player, bored with openings. During this year, we kind of changed our roles: I became more positionnal, delibaretely avoiding study the openings, and began to win endgames; she got better openings and became a fierce tactical player, and sacrifice more. We've learned from each other and from our independant sources of learning. 

In the last three months, I got this strange feeling that I was playing worst and worst… but numbers were saying otherwise: I was at my peak! I realized that it was a sign of progress: my learnings were there, I was seeing my mistakes more clearly, I was just seeing them a few seconds after playing them… but it meant that if I was persisting, that learning would seek in deeper in my mind, become instinctual and I would play better. That gave me confidence in the process. 

Friday, I ended my training session on a very nice win in the slav defense, pressuring from the beggining to my opponent's resignation. And I realized that I was at 1993, basically one victory to 2000. Should I play a fourth game? No, I thought, I would stick to my routine. 
Yesterday, I called a player from my chess club, we went to play OTB at a local park, enjoying the nice weather. He's one of the strongest. We played four games, I lost 4 out of 4. He had identified some weak spots in some of my lines, we discussed it. 

Today, it was time for a new training session on chess.com. I thought I would blunder because I would be nervous. I would lose rating and I was ok with it: three games, and analyzing the games, that's the process. 

The first game was a little bit strange. My opponent let me build and attack. How could he let me do that? My position was crushing. The conversion was not the cleanest, but the opponent had to sacrifice a piece to survive. 
And…
there is poetry that I won the 2000 elo by converting it to a winning pawn endgame. It kind of reming why I got on chessmood in the first place. 

Here that game
https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/139897552932?tab=review

Replies

Many congratulations Bernard - that is a fantastic achievement! 😎

And what a great review of your progress.  It gives all of us something to aspire to.

So, once you have enjoyed the moment and the euphoria has dissipated, what is the next target?

A few additions/corrections.
In the chessmood I've made there is also the Spartan Shield. I was an attacking player, but was lacking knowledge on how to defend. 
I should also mention, very importantly, the strategic and endgame masterpieces courses, I'm at 44 strategic masterpieces and 9 endgames masterpieces. I think thoses were very importants in my progresses, alongs with the endgames courses. 

Congratulations Bernard,

It’s amazing!

Thanks for details!

Keep going 💪💪💪

Thanks for sharing your progress as well as your process, Bernard.  Congratulations!

Thank you for your congratulations everybody :)

Issue in the silent strategy course

Issue in the silent strategy course

Replies

What issue did you face?

Hi Rudransh! 👋
Thanks for your message. If you'd like a smoother watching experience without interruptions, you can use the Filters button in the top-right of the video list.
Just uncheck Quizzes and Trainings, and only the videos will play — making it easier to continue watching the course without breaks. 

Also, in some cases, if you're using Safari or Mozilla Firefox, those browsers may have autoplay restrictions that stop the next video from starting automatically. You can adjust the browser settings to allow autoplay, and it should work fine.

If you need help with that, feel free to let me know!

You have bought the course or you are watching it for free? Because from what you are saying only the introduction is playing, wich is free, and not the rest of the course. In other worlds, only the free part of the course is playing. If you want to see all of that you have to buy either a chessmood membership, either full access to this course only.

From what I gather, you do not have a membership/own the course. So only the Introduction is unlocked, and you do not have access to the rest.
This is perfectly normal.

New article: Why Pushing Harder Might Be Holding You Back

All effort. Zero results?
Sometimes the biggest mistake is running the wrong race.

A story, a reminder, and a solution 👇🏼
https://chessmood.com/blog/why-pushing-harder-might-be-holding-you-back
 

Replies

Great article Avo. 

Just out of interest, could you give us an update on how the development of the AI coach is progressing? 

Interesting, indeed I've done that many times, pushing it all in the wrong direction.

Interesting, keep up the good work!

What is your lowest accuracy rapid game you won this week?

I just had a game I won with an accuracy of 66 according to chessdotcom, still I got a winning position after some mutual blunders😃

So, can you guys win with a lower accuracy?

Replies

Not this week, but I won a rapid game recently with an accuracy of 56 using chess.com engine analysis. My opponent was rated 1640 in rapid at the time, so no slouch, but his accuracy during the game was 35. It really didn't feel like we were playing that badly however the post-game analysis was very revealing. 

Essentially, the game was complex and sharp with opposite sides castling. (I had White and played the Jobava.) There were a number of situations where the engine felt that only one move was working (and we both missed them!). Also, for a lot of the time in this game I had forcing continuations that were difficult to assess but were winning for me, except I didn't play them (considered a ‘miss’ by the engine) and chose somewhat slower moves. At the same time, my opponent was also not defending against these threats because he/she was also not seeing them. So, we were both blind to a lot of what was going on on the board. 

I find these kinds of complex games are often unforgiving when you get to the post game analysis. But it was an interesting one to try to learn from.

How about you? Was it a similarly complex or sharp kind of game that you played and won with accuracy of 66?

In theory you can win with an accuracy of near 0. Almost every move a blunder, just the last one was the opponent leaving a mate in 1 on. Unfortunately 0-0 can't be awarded as a result for that. Other than a bit of fun I wouldn't read much into accuracy or rating for a game, particularly with a low depth computer generating it and no real study into what exactly accurate means.

It is a couple of weeks later, but I just got a win with 56 accuracy. 😃Interestingly the blunders are not at all straight forward, it takes an engine power thinking to spot them. But I had 4 blunders.

That would be that one, wich still has a nice SLP at the end. 73.2 vs 73.1 accuracy, very close :P 
https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/139752382068?tab=review&move=80

Course Reset Option

Hi,

Big fan of your work.

I do have a small suggestion though. It would be nice of there was a reset option that would allow to reset all the quiz and/or training exercises within a course. 

I sometimes like to go over a course one more time as a refresher from time to time, but have to manually reset all the quiz and training section one by one. Not fun 😉

Replies

Best response against queens gambit

what do you guy recommend kings indian slav or anything

else im currently 1400

Replies

You are on this site, so why not giving a try to the Dutch?

You could watch the Dutch course here and then see if this opening is to your taste.

Just for your information: The Queens Gambit implies that Black played ..d5 at one early point.

🙂

It depends. If you play D4-D5 you can go into the Queens gambit declined. I quite like those lines but i believe there is quite a bit of theory. If you follow chessmood openings you actually avoid it all together by playing E6 then F5 going into a Dutch attack. 

I personnally play the Slav, if I can the Chameleon (or Chebanenko) variation. But it's because I stick to the opening I had before subscribing to ChessMood. Here you can follow the BlackMood repertoire and play the Dutch attack, or take the course on the Benko Gambit. Both are quite interresting.

My ongoing tournament

Hello!

After a whole year, I am able to play on an OTB classical tournament. These is  going to be the U16 Greek Youth Championship (here you can find all  the participants Chess-Results Server Chess-results.com - 2025 National Youth Championships). There are a lot of strong U16 players, higher rated and more expirienced than me ( here is my fide profile Deliezos, Anastasios FIDE Profile). Also, it will be the first time I play all the ChessMood opening repertoire. As you can see, my fide rating is just 1700, but in the past I have won against higher rated oponnents. What should be my goal for this tournament? For example, finish in the top-5 or beat all the below-2000 rated players?

Thank you

Anastasis

Replies

Hey there Anastasis,

Awesome to hear that you are participating in a tournament!
The goal is always to play the best possible chess you can and see what happens - don't limit yourself with extra thoughts, just do as good as you can with the right mood and full concentration!

Wish you good luck, let us know once finished :-) 

New podcast with GM Fressinet: The Untold Stories of Carlsen & Kramnik

GM Laurent Fressinet, former World Top 30 and second to both Carlsen and Kramnik in their World Championship matches, shares stories and lessons from inside the world of elite chess.

Hear it now on the ChessMood podcast! 👇

YouTube
Spotify
Apple Podcasts

Replies

Very interesting and enjoyable thanks!

Great talk with such a nice person.

Thank you!

Is it possible that the quie to game Nr. 3:  https://chessmood.com/course/laurent-fressinet-best-games/episode/7885/4092#2 is not working properly?

French defense

Kindar suprise variation

Replies

Bird Opening

What do I play when my opponent play bird Opening after 1f4,e6

        2.Nf3,  and also when opponent play 1f4,e6

                           2e5

Replies

Chess Blindness

In analyzing my games and even puzzles a constant theme has developed.  There will be a pawn push that I will miss and it leads to complication or an outright loss.  For whatever reason, when I calculate a position I am simply blind to pawn pushes.

Is there any recommends on how to work on this issue?

Replies

Dear Kory,

Are you specifically blundering pawn moves? 
This issue is a little unusual, to be able to answer I will need more information - please provide me with more details so I can give you a reasonable answer.

Not able to find sparring/training partner

Hi, coach Gabuzyan

I posted on forum and discord if any one is available to help as a training partner but no one responded. 
 

I am learning new opening from step-by-step opening repertoire for white and am afraid that I will forget 50% as I am not putting it into practice. 

I do use a Fritz 19(bot that plays with you and you can insert your pgn so it will play those lines) but I can’t feel the positions that well with it, any suggestions on what I can do? Thank you!!

Sincerely, pawnbishop_chessmood

Replies

Dear Pawn Bishop,

It's the right thing to post on the forum and discord, trying to find a sparring partner; however, this is something that we don't guarantee, as it's about communication between our students.

You can try to practice in online games as well, trying to get the variations that you learned. 
Of course, having a sparring partner will be very helpful. 

Playing with an engine will not be super effective, as it doesn't play middlegames as a human would.

I've Reached 2100 - WOOP WOOP -

Finally I reached my 2nd goal after completing my first one - reaching 2000 rapid on Chess.com.

On February 13th I was in a loosing streak and my ELO dropped below 1800 (1791 to be precise). I was feeling really bad and low about my chess but I decided to follow the tips from Chess Mood courses and I stopped playing before warming up and I tried to never play if I go into a loosing streak or I am simply missing a lot of tactics.

This lead to gradually improving my ELO and most importantly my confidence. In only 4 months, with some ups and downs I raised my ELO for 300 points.

I am really happy about my progress and will continue to improve my chess.

Thank you Chess Mood Family.

Strahinja - aka Castle Queenside

Replies

😎

Congratulations! 

Congratulations!

nice job!

Well done and thanks for sharing your what helped you succeed.

Excelent!

How to play against 1.e4 e5 2. n f3

How to play against 1.e4 e5 2.nf3

Replies

Up to you.

In ChessMood the recommendations against 1.e4 are either 1…e6 (French)

or 1…c5 (Sicilian- and here they go for the Accelerated Dragon).

What to do in Anti-Sicilian Part 4 line

What to do against the system “1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 a6 3.g3 Nc6-g6-Bg7-e6-Nge7-0-0-d5 or b5”

I played this line as black against GM Gabuzyan and got a better position out of the opening but got flagged at the end :(

Replies

Dear Eli,

2…a6 is covered in the Anti-Sicilian course offered by GM Avetik.

How to play against 1d4 Nf6 2Nf3?

Hi, I finished the Opening studies on Benko gambit, which is effective when White plays 1d4 Nf6 2c4. But what if White plays 2Nf3? Then you can't really play the Benko gambit. When I faced it, I ended up playing a Benoni setup, but White seems to get a space advantage, and Black is a little cramped. I didn't really see in your opening courses on how Black responds to White's flexible 2Nf3. What is your recommended set up?

Replies

3c4  transposes, but what if White does not play c4? Then  Black can’t play the Benko. What setup should Black do?

Dear Luke,

Here we play with 2…g6 - now if 3.c4 then c5 - if White plays with Bf4 or Bg5 - similar lines you can find in the d4 sidelines course.
 

Tactic Ninja - Counter Tactics Example 7

Hi,

near the end of the video we are looking at ..Qe2 Rdd1. Afterwards GM Avetik presents ..Qxd1 as continuation. Which allows for White to play the intermediate Nf6+ we were looking at before, making everything a bit more complicated - 

Doesn't Black have a forced mate after ..Rf1+ Rxf1 Qxf1+ Rxf1 Ne2+ Kh1 Rxf1# ?

Replies

Hey there,

Good job, Henning! 

Avetik's variation also wins as after Nf6 - Rxf6 and there would be Ne2 check still winning the material, but your line is just a perfect checkmate and of course much better.

Keep going sharp like this!!!
Good luck :-)