Chess forum by Grandmasters

Updates on Opening Courses?

Hi , I am a big fan of chessmood content and I can say it helped me a lot in my overall chess skills. I am coming back to chess after a long break so I am curious to know if chessmood is updating their opening content. As their course is analyzed in 2020 I think and now theory advanced so what new changes coach Avetik did to keep advance players updated!

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Hi Abhi,

Nice to hear you are back. we are planning some updates in future about some openings, however constantly changing the repertoire is required on GM level.

as 99.9 point of our students aren’t GMs we are going to keep the openings as they are super sound on the levels of our student.

Good luck :-)

Anti Sicilian

Hello! This is my first time posting here so sorry if i didn't compose my discussion correctly 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Bb5 e6… My question is how do you play this line. Do you take the knight right away and then transpose to some line from the course or do i play Nf3? I cannot find this in the course. It doesn't like it is a big deal but if there is some nice advise i am open to listen 🙂

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Hello,

you did everything perfect :-)

After for example 3..e6 we take on c6 crushing black's pawn structure.

Then we continue with d3, f4 and Nf3 getting an improved Rossolimo. That's because

we can play f4 before Nf3 (in the Rossolimo the Knight is already on f3).

It's mentioned here, start at 1:55

https://chessmood.com/course/sicilian-defence-part-2/episode/780

Pgn of the stream event

Hi , I would like to downloaded the pgn from the games played in the stream events directly on chesscom and I don’t know if it’s possible . I went into profile of different chessmoodracer account and the games are there but I can t use the fonction explorer to visualise them either . I m on iPad , is there anything i can do ? I wanted to build a data base of all of them . I m trying to figure out the best way to use the knowledge from the event and to be able to get back at some specific game and recorded videos… thank you

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Denis,

I just got to the games on chess.com on my computer (via Chrome Browser)

I searched for ChessMood_Racer_808 which was the account used for the most recent stream by GM Gabuyzan. That got me to the account stats with all games listed.

Then I tried using the chess.com app. That is a bit more confusing to me, but I figured it out. Search for the account, then you should see "Recent games". To get the full list of games played, click on “Blitz”, and if you scroll down you will see a list of all the games.

Hope this helps!

Hey Guys,

Since we are playing numerous amount of events, I would recommend you to pay attention to the games we are adding to model games ( for both simplified and advanced openings)

As among many games we are choosing the best ones.

Thanks

Repeated offers of a draw

Hi there,

I'm currently playing a daily tournament game and my last move forks my opponent's king and queen meaning that he has effectively lost his queen (and is already down 3pts). He has now twice offered me a draw!

Is there any way to switch off draw offers?

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As agreeing to a draw is an official way to end the game, it dosent make sense for that to exist.

If you are playing on the web, there should be a button under the draw offer that says to hide draw offers for this game.

If not, just ignore them. Don’t accept or decline. If he offers you a third one, politely ask him to stop and report him.

It is annoying yes, but I like to think of it as an advantage, if you blunder, he simply might not notice and you can escape with a draw!

Anybody who only wants to draw should be an artist, not a chess player

He finally makes a move instead of offering a draw, loses his queen, and … offers another draw!!! What a muppet :-)

Petroff Doubt

In the Petroff Course, I have a question 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Nc3 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Be7 7.Be3 0-0 8.Qd2 Nd7 9.0-0-0 Nc5 10.h4 a6 11.Ng5 h6 Now here, you have suggested 12.Nxf7 which is a killer blow no doubt and the arising position is very promising but suprising the position becomes 0.0 where as if you play 12.Bc4 the position is a minimum +2.0. I agree that we should not use engine evalutions so much but in the blunderproof course, it was there in one section that upon analyzing the games, if the evalution because like +3 to 0.0 or like+2.0 to 0.0 you should pay some attention to it. Please let me know if I have made any mistake. Thank you ChessMood family!

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I tried to look at this line, but I am not an expert! And I certainly don't speak for Avetik. He is capable of speaking for himself :)
But here are some thoughts:

There is a small error in the line you gave. On move 6, white recaptures dxc3, not bxc3.
I don't get the same computer evaluations. What I see is the difference between 12. Bc4 and 12. Nxf7 is 1.6 to 0.3. This is still a significant difference. From nearly winning to a small advantage.
It seems to me that the engine thinks that opening up the h-file by allowing Black to hxg4 and capture the knight is the best plan.
I don't argue with the computer, however humans are incapable of playing with the precision that the computer affords. So, which line is more practical for us to play? That's still going to be a choice. Both lines are tricky, but it's much easier to follow the thread in the Nc7 line. And while opening us the h-file looks great, I kinda like the idea of Nc7 followed by Bxc5 resulting in Black's queen sitting on the open file facing the white rook. That's going to make Black nervous!
You've posed a good question. I hope that what I written makes sense.

Dear Ak chess,

If the difference with a strong engine is so big, than it sounds reasonable to follow it, instead of the suggested move.

May be the offered choice is a practical one, but the move you are suggesting is stronger according to the engine.

Thanks for interesting question, and good luck!

Jeff thanks for your help as well 🙂

Old dog learns new trick!

For those who may not be familiar with it, there is an old saying in English: “You can't teach an old dog new tricks”. This is used to refer to someone who is set in their ways and can't (or won't) change their behavior.

I am thrilled to announce that this old dog (me!) has learned a new trick :D

I spent some time over the last couple of days to finally figure out how to mate with Bishop and Knight. I had avoided it, thought that it was really hard, and made other excuses (I'll never get that position in a game). But I actually always wanted to master this endgame position, and now I'm pleased with myself.

Cheers to everyone. Happy Chess to you all.

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Well done Jeff 😎

Oh very neat!

I've been meaning to try my hand at learning the B+N technique. Did you learn from the chessmood videos, or is there a different resource you could point me to that you found effective? Lots of practice before you felt comfortable, I assume?

Good for you! Even high rated players fail, especially with little time on the clock!

nice! it liberating to know it.
As said below, it is explained in the Must-Know Endgame Theory u2000 course on chessmood, section 15.
I also like Danya's video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRK7XLhGz_c

it's a very detailed explaination, but it also has a very lightening introduction, when he says that it's useful not because it happens often, but because if you don't know it, you might misplay some position because you fear they might result in a k+b mate. Now fearing to go into thoses positions won't be a problem anymore.

Hey guys any news when Fixmood is coming out

For some fun, try: https://www.chess.com/endgames/checkmates/bishop-and-knight-mate/challenge

Speak up! Please :)

Everyone that I have interacted with here at ChessMood is pleasant, thoughtful, and helpful. BUT, the forums are too quiet!

We are family, so we should communicate with each other more (my opinion!). So, let me challenge everyone reading this to post to the forums at least 2 times per week. That's not a lot. But take some time to respond to someone else's post, or to share something about what you are doing.

I'd love to hear more about how you are succeeding. I'd also like to know what challenges you are facing. What's your favorite chess game of all time? When did you start playing chess? What was the largest tournament you have participated in? What's your favorite color???

So many things that we can all share. It doesn't all have to be from GM Avetick, GM Gabuzyan, and the rest of ChessMood GMs and staff. YOU have a voice, and I'd love to hear it.

Be good, people! :D

Jeff

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I couldn't agree more - you can almost hear the tumbleweed some days! I do my best but I'm a beginner so I can't always offer the most inciteful of comments 😉

* I'm really enjoying my chess journey so far and making slow but steady progress.
* The main challenge that I am facing at the moment is reducing my blunders to help me reach my short-term rating target of 1,000 on Chess.com.
* I haven't studied many classic games so far. My favourite is probably Morphy vs the Count & Duke in 1858 (the so-called “A night at the opera” game). Basic develop your pieces, castle early(ish), and finishing with what is now referred to as ‘Opera Mate’. : https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1233404
* I started playing chess regularly (as much as time permits at the moment anyway) at the end of 2023.
* I haven't played in any ‘real’ tournaments, I just play in the club tournaments on Chess.com to gain experience against higher-ranked players.
* My favourite colour is probably green. Wait, that's not what you meant is it? I'll say white.

What about you? How would you answer your own questions?

I'm feeling tilty and ragey because I stupidly hung a knight. Perhaps Kasparov was right and women can't play chess. Sigh.

I am from Quebec, Canada and I m travelling to Greece this week to participate in the aco world amateur senior championship !

Hi, it's Ervin from Hungary.

I started playing chess at the age of 5 or 6. We had an FM as coach at a local school. Looking back, I've realized that I was lazy and didn't work hard and smart enough, didn't understand the concepts deeply enough, so it gradually became stressful and lost my love for chess and I had a 10-15-year break. Got recently back.

Nowadays the challange I face is that I have other duties (work, family with little kids) and I'm perfectionist, I want to complete all the courses to finally start playing again, and I only have few hours/week (usually early in the morning or late at night) and even that little time can't be fixed. So I feared I'd never find a sparring partner with so chaotic schedule.

Then, from some encouragement from GM_Avetik himself (met him personally for a brief time in the Chess Olympiad last week) and some self-adjustment in my habits I got back my good mood.

Best game? Maybe not the nicest game, but I've defeated a GM in a simultain a few years ago! But I'd like to mention my favourite tactics instead: throwing a bomb. It's beautiful, making the enemy pieces block each other's path.

I like playing as Black, I've always had better results with it (had better/deeper repertoir). Now too, only two ChessMood openings to learn.

Hello!

I am making progress in big jumps, just happens out of nowhere it seems :)

My main challenge is to stop blundering. It is getting really annoying when I do that after playing a neat game!

They would both be mine, one is a double (would be triple!) rook sac!

The other one is a beautiful endgame.
If you would like, I can post here.

I started playing chess in 2020 Christmas, I got a chesscom membership and a chess board as gifts!

I have participated in the World Open 2023, which featured big learning from me as I ended up 0.5 points from a huge prize (I drew the final round in a winning position :( )

Red or Yellow.

As for chess, I used to be a big fan of Black, but now that I’m trying a new repertoire, I’m more confident with White.

Hi, it's George from Greece!

My chess lately has become some kind of stagnant, but slowly moving upward… nMy main goal is to stop blundering when I am not in serious time trouble. Seems that environment distractions play an improtant role in my performane, so I try to minimize them. Maybe sometimes I lose because I experiment with other opening repertoire that the chessmood one (I joined cheesmood when I was like middle-to-lower intermediate level, so I play 2 variations against most openings, the chessmood and the ‘older’ one). I use chessmood GOLDEN METHOD, except for online arenas.

Usually when I win, it comes from very good use of the bishops, so I avoid exchanging them. I am not that good in closed positions that require a lot of maneuvering, usually I tire up and make some kind of mistake. This is proven by the fact that my favourite chess masters are Kasparov, Tal, Spassky, the old Lasker and on 2nd scale, even the not-so-appreciated Nezhmetdinov. Anyway, lately there is some progress, I am approaching 2000 chess.com rapid and going back up to alomst 2100 lichess rapid.

I am not FIDE rated, but I play high level tournaments in lichess and chess.com to gain experience aginst higher rated opponents. Recently I played in the Crestbook Blitz, even against GM Sergei Shipov, and managed to achieve a winning score against opponents that were mostly 2200 and up, and facing another 2 NMs and 1 FM, apart from Shipov (I drew one of the 4 which is far more decent for my capabilities and ended up with +46 Blitz points in total). This was achieved by mainly solving puzzles, adjusting their diificulty to at least +300 according to my rating at any time (harder lichess mode healty mix). I am generally better at lower time controls, streams by Zhigalko Sergei have helped me in this, even though I don't know (Bela)Russian.

Finally, to answer to some of your qusetions:

*favourite color: blue (this is always my chess.com chessboard color)

*favourite chesss piece: bishop

*favourite chess game: hard choice, but maybe I will choose the Lasker-Capablanca with the Nh1!

*learnt to "move the pieces" at 6, started taking it more seriously at 2019 and even moree during covid

What about you? How do you mainly succed in chess and how much is your rating?

Hi, this is Joachim

I am a chess beginner and started with ChessMood half a year ago (had a Rating of 900 in a club league). Since then I studied the ChessMood Openings and the Tactic Ninja but on a low level of investing time, roughly 30 min a day. 10 min studying and 15 min playing online in average. And I play one game over the board every second weekend in the club (90+30 min sec)

My resumee so far: I have learned a lot understand better what is going on on the chess board and my rating raised by 200 points.

Thanks to Avo, Hovhannes and all the chessmood students who answered my questions in the forum.

best

Joachim

Chess as a collaborative game

Hi!

I was watching the chessmood interview with Eric Rosen (one of my favorite streamers).
It's a very interresting discussion. Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfBY_VZBGhk
There is a segment where Avetik and Eric discuss the competitive personalities of the chess players and how often it gets in the way of learning collaboration between them. Avetik says that it would be the thing he wish chess would not have taught him.
I've been thinking about that since yesterday, because it relates to discussions I have had with different people through the last year. I often says that chess is a competitive activity during the game and a collaborative one after the game. That is why I like OTB so much, and one of the things I like about playing OTB is that we can discuss and analyze the game with our opponent (and often bystanders too) afterwards. This can create lasting links (it's how I met my sparring partner). There is a lot to say about this collaborative talk after the game. First of all, I like to say that a chess game is a story, and without that talk we only know half of the story, the one that goes in our mind during the game, and miss the other half that goes in our opponent's mind if we don't discuss it afterward. But it's also one of the most instructive moment in the game, when we can analyze lines that were not played, discuss the openings and mistakes that were made on both sides. It's were we see that most chess players are inhabited by that strong problem solving pulsion: we're not competing anymore, we are working together to understand what were the best lines in the game.

Avetik and Eric discuss very well how competition push us to keep secrets from each others, so we'd have those secrets weapons against our opponents. They are right of course. I also want secrets weapons :)
But I feel there is also something to be said about all those detailed publications, all those talks, all those courses that the chess community produce. It is within a competitive framework: to make our students, our club, our fellow countrypeople betters than others at the game; also, to make money with it in this competitive frame. But it is also close to how scientist procedes, sometime with a similar language ("this move poses a question", “this move make an argument”, “you have to justify this sacrifice”, “this line is refuted”): all of this create a huge discussion that aim to the holy graal, solving the whole game. Career-wise, scientist are in competition with each other for the funds, for the glory of making some discovery before the others, for tenured jobs, for nobel prizes; but they are all in it for science. And I feel that even if chess players are in strong competition against each others, they very often are in it for chess too.

I would like to hear your toughts. It is new for you, or have you already felt that chess could be a collaborative activity, if yes how so?

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I love this post, Bernard! What a wonderful analogy you draw between chess players and scientists, how in both cases people are looking out for themselves but they are able to appreciate the efforts of their “competition”.

I remember the first chess tournament I played in, back when I was 15 (wow! that was over 50 years ago). I was unrated and my first opponent was probably rated 1800-2000. I was completely outplayed, of course. When we finished our game my opponent said “Let's go talk about the game.” He proceeded to go through the game giving me pointers and explaining to me clearly what his plans were in the game. It didn't matter if I was some youngster who really didn't play very well, he treated me as an equal and someone who shared an appreciation for chess.

When I am at a tournament, I always try to be gracious in victory and to talk with the opponent about my thoughts on the contest. When I am the loser, I try hard to avoid making excuses and minimizing the win for the other player. “You outplayed me” is what I want to convey. And I can actually be happy for my opponent, understanding the pleasure that they get.

This is something that I find missing in online chess (for the most part). You login to chess.com or lichess, hit the “Play” button. Play the game and then leave. Most players don't post anything in chat. I almost always post a “Good game” (win or lose). But online chess is (in my opinion) largely dehumanizing. It's nothing like playing over the board.

This is one thing I like about ChessMood. There is a sense of community (or family, Avetik would say). I want to help nourish that sense, which is one reason why I'm trying to post more on the forums and draw people into communicating. Rather than “player xyz34524” I want to know “Bernard Ducharme” - I want to make human connections with others who love chess.

I'm not completely happy with my level of chess. But I'm trying to fall in love again with this game. Like I did when I was a teenager and my friends and I would play chess in class in high school by passing notes!

Again, thank you for sharing your insights! You have captured some very important ideas in a few paragraphs. Bravo!

Partner for carokann defence, and queens gambotit

If u hav anyone, who knows well about carokann and queens gambit, please partner for my daughter, under 1500 level, refresh for her, helpful for her

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Dear Jovith,

Under this thread on the forum people make friends and partners - here is the link https://chessmood.com/forum/main-channel/studysparring-partner-1362

Good luck!

marking the watched events

😀

Hey

is it possible to add a feature to the recorded events videos just like the courses in which it marks the ones you watched and resume the ones you havent finished?

for me, I have been away from chess for 2 months almost and I want to see all the missed events but cant rememer which ones I watched and which I havent.

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Dear Zaid,

Thanks for your suggestion, we might consider adding this kind of feature if get the request from many other students as well.

Hope to see you more often during the streams in live mode :-)
Good luck!

Fixmood

hi Chessmood team,

I just had a quick look at Fixmood and went throgh some of my games-wow this is a game changer!

It's looking great-really looking forward to the finished product!

Love it!

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I like it also , I can t wait for the other features to be add.

Hey guys,

Thanks for your kind words!
Happy to hear you are enjoying it, and it makes your training more effective.

Good luck :-)

I thought there was a problem with the game selection as it was not showing all of them . They all appeared after selecting the option « both » ( out of book ) . so Every time it’s my opponent who get out of book first , I was not seeing those games as the filter was set on « you » ( me ) .

Questikn about today puzzle

In today puzzle 24 sept, why I cann't make a queen instead a bishop in a8 ?

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Just a small request - please don't post spoilers! Some of us haven't had a chance to see this puzzle yet (it's still Sept 23 here!). But not having seen the puzzle, there is only one explanation for what you describe. Think about it, and if you don't figure it out we'll talk again in another 24 hours or so :D

I'm replying with no spoilers.

When I was solving it, I thought about the right solution but when I made the moves I recognized an other move (what you asked why you can't do) and without thinking I changed my mind and did it. And the page appeared saying I made a mistake. There was only one explanation, which I should have thought about, and then I looked again at the board and confirmed that indeed, I made a mistake.

If you are waiting for an instant answer (e.g. because our opponent's rook can go j9 and give a fork), it won't do you any good. The best you can achieve here is that someone points you to a direction (or to a method) so that you can solve it yourself. If that's what you're asking, next time please give us some detail about how you tried to answer your question, what made you be still in doubt, etc, because the more general you ask, the more general answer you will get. (General answer here is that because one option is a good move and it's the solution, the other is a blunder and therefore not the solution.)

And Jeff is right, please pay attention to the fact that it's still a live puzzle, so no spoilers.

So, what I'd recommend in situations like this: if there are two similar options, look at the difference between them. What makes one move good and another bad (in general)? What is the ultimate goal of a chess game? What are you trying to achieve in this very puzzle? If you aim for a win, how can it be achieved, how can you opponent defend against it? If you aim for a draw, how can you secure it and how can your opponent attempt to win?

If you looked at it and asked yourself these questions (asking good questions is hard, I know) and still can't answer the main question (why one move is good, the other is bad), it might be good if you do something else for a while (go to a class, work, go for a run, sleep, depending on your lifestyle), then come back later. Our brains are excellently assembled, we can think about a problem when we do something completely different. And if you're still really stuck, ask for help with a concrete question, not a general one.

Proud of myself for not getting greedy.

I was playing a daily game recently…and I felt very tempted to take the h8 rook oh move 14 and then reroute around and go back for the other one.

I didn't…because I could see it was much more valuable to take out the d8 rook instead. This performs a kind of positional annihilation almost; that rook is the main thing keeping me from doing much to attack without wasting tempos. If I move my bishop I lose my queen and if I move my queen I have to be very careful to do it without blundering the bishop.

I often used to make the mistake of grabbing material just to grab material and I'm proud of myself for not doing that this time around.

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/daily/705400549?tab=review&move=24

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well played. The rook on d8 was the most active of both rooks and it was better to take it. Besides, it was impossible for the king to take it back without walking into the discovery (and he did, and he lost).

Stupidest knight blunder imaginable but I won. SLP skills ftw

https://www.chess.com/game/live/120794409071

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SLP indeed! You didn't give up and found opportunities for your opponent to mess up. Well done!

Why have I suddenly lost 50 IQ points

I want to play some rapid but every time I try to warm up by doing puzzles I blunder the most basic things like not seeing that I'm supposed to move a hanging queen.

Why have I gone from being an intelligent human to a nose picking mountain troll who speaks in one syllable grunts

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We all Do during puzzles!

The problem is when we are warming up, with easier puzzles especially, we expect to complete it with our eyes closed and then we behave like that. So we miss simple things.

During our warm ups, we need to concentrate as if we are already playing our game!

The best way (for me) to activate this instincts is to simply play like a 2+1 game and then warm up.

For longer time control sessions, just play a slighlty longer warm up game (3+2).

You just want to get into playing mode.

Hope this helps!

Try doing a short sprint after taking the marathon. You can't realistically expect to be fast.

You mentioned your bishop-knight mate-session, it was like a marathon for your brain.

Sleeping and phisical activities (e.g. running) can help your neurons regenerate.

As for puzzles, I usually see a pattern because I know there must be a pattern (hey, it's a puzzle!), so I tend to do sacrifice more often than in a real game, but a hanging queen is not a pattern to me (it's too obvious), so I can't find it…

So puzzle-rush is not for me, because it tricks my mind not to play chess but chess-with-only-special-stuff.

Anyway, solving puzzles before playing real games have the exact purpose that you rather lose a queen in a puzzle than during a real match.

Beginner Bewildered By Blunders

Don't you just love some alliteration? 😉

Anyway, on to the question.

I appreciate that, as a beginner, I will make more blunders than a more experienced player. I also appreciate, therefore, that reducing the number (and severity!) of my blunders is a great way to improve my chess.

My problem is that I can have a great run of no-blunder games (according to the review anyway - although some of the misses seem pretty awful to me!) and then, all of a sudden, I'll have a game or two where it's as if I've saved-up all of my blunders and I'm now cashing them in!!

So, my question is, what approach do you use to ensure that you don't blunder? Do you have a mental checklist (or even a written one) that you run through before every move? What do you do to ensure that you retain concentration in the endgame? I suspect that for experienced players it almost becomes second nature so if that is you please cast your mind back to when you were a beginner.

Please note that I have been through the ChessMood BlunderProof course (https://chessmood.com/course/blunderproof ) and watched various YouTube videos on the topic. I understand what I should, and should not, be doing - I just seem to get caught in the moment sometimes and make a move without taking the required amount of time for full consideration

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Dont worry!

I atleast still make a ridiculously large amount of blunders in my games, and am trying to work on it.

One thing that has majorly helped is working on puzzles where I have to see what the opponent is threatening (Dvoretsky's book was a big help here).

You can try this yourself by going to chesscom > Puzzles > Custon Themes > and selecting defense. Usually they are quite tricky and you have to see what your opponent is planning.

Additionally, in a longer game (classical) I simply mentally write down my move, and then start looking for tactics that my opponents have. If I am confident, then I play my move.

Hope this helps!

When I get an incurable blunderitis attack like you just described it's usually because I overdid something and am mentally tired. Did you play too many long tiring games back to back lately? Do you maybe need a break?

Training position from Tactic Ninja

I'm doing all the trainings.

In the section about Deflection, i was doing the “Deflecting the square defender” training (not the quiz, the training!)

In the third position i noticed that there are two possible deflecting possibilities that wins the same amount of material (a queen for a rook and a knight) but one solution is right, the other is wrong.

The engine also evaluates the right solution as better than the wrong solution, but i don't see why.

The right solution is to play 1.Ra8+ deflecting the bishop from defending the knight fork on g6.

The wrong solution is to play 1.Ng6+ deflecting the bishop from defending the back rank and forcing black to block the 2.Ra8+ check with the queen.

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Hi Massimo,

Thank you for your message!

You're absolutely right—at first glance, both moves seem to achieve the same result, as both would lead to winning the Queen. However, the engine prefers the 1. Ra8+ move because it keeps the black bishop on a8 rather than g6, which gives Black fewer chances to hold the position.

We've made an adjustment to the position to ensure there's only one clear solution now. Thanks for bringing this to our attention😊

If you have any more questions or feedback, feel free to reach out.

Next chapters of The Rise of Champions?

Hey, guys! When can we expect the next chapters of The Rise of Champions course? I can't wait for them already. 😅

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French exchange after 5. Nc3

Hello, I'm following the black mood opening course french defense, aggressive setup against ed5 (exchange variation). I think 1 variation is not covered, what to do after 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. Nc3? As this knight attacks our d5 pawn, we can not play Bd6 because our queen will not defend our d5 pawn anymore. We can not play directly Ke7 because we need to develop our f8 bishop before... What to do? It looks like we must abandon our aggressive setup...

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I've been running into this variation a LOT in my blitz games as of late. The last 7 exchange French's I've played have all had this move order and I too wish to know how to combat it. Following this thread for sure, hopefully we can get a solid answer! If I find anything, I'll also post here.

Hi Luc and Jules… Hapy New Year to you!

Luc, don't be so pessimistic! 😅 We would never recommend a line in the French that must be abandoned on the move 5! 😄

This is a first practical repertoire and as such we cannot include all the replies to every move, that's why there is a forum and webinars and streams too.😃
We do not recommend the move move 4...Bd6 for Black because it reduces somehow our possibilities, we will not be able to develop the bishop to b4 in some variations as in this case.

Therefore against 5.Nc3 we should go Bb4 pinning the knight. This will allow our knight to go to e7 and follow more or less our usual plan.💪

i rekomen you to play afer e4 e6 d4 d5 ed5 ed5 nc3 c6 and the new plan bd6 nf6 (if you got chek ne7) 0:0 bf5 ngd7 re8 ne4 ndf6 and rewaly akive poitzion and hard to play for white

Thank you for raising this, Luc. I came looking through the forums for advice on this variation because I am also seeing it a lot at my level (1400-1500 rapid on chess.com). Nc3 from White as early as move 4, after the exchange on d5, is by far the most common continuation I am facing, and I do think it is an omission that it is not even briefly touched upon in the course.

e4, e6
d4, d5
exd5, exd5
Nc3…

The problem is that this seems to throw a spanner in the works immediately and makes it difficult for us to reach our desired setup. Since Bd6 is not an option now, Bb4 seems the best square for our dark squared Bishop. Be7 feels passive and doesn't allow us to play Nge7.

However, the move Bb4 has three major drawbacks I have found. Firstly, the b4 square is no longer available to our c6 Knight, so we cannot play Nb4 in response to opponent's Bd3. This makes White's development very easy for them. Secondly, our control over e5 is weakened and White can maybe exploit this by sticking a Knight there later on. Finally, we are in danger of losing the Bishop after White kicks it with a3, forcing the exchange and giving White the Bishop pair advantage. Moreover, White doesn't have to rush the move a3 out. For instance, they can wait until it looks like we're committing to castling long, then play a3 and open up the b file for an attack.

For example:

4. Nc3, Nc6

5. Nf3, Bb4

6. Bd3…

…and we cannot play Nb4 as we might have liked to attack the Bishop on d3…

6. … Nge7

7. 0-0, Bg4

8. h3, Bf5

9. Bxf5, Nxf5

10. Re1+ …

…now look what happens if we continue as per the course recommended moves …

10. Re1+, Nce7

11. Qe2, Qd7

12. Ne5 …

Ouch! We are already paying for not having control of e5.

Ok, so what if we don't play Bf5, but go with something like Bh5 instead?

8. h3, Bh5

9. a3, Bxc3

10. bxc3, Qd7

11. a4, 0-0-0

12. Re1, f6

13. Ba3…

It is difficult to see a good plan for Black here, whereas White has the Bishop pair, the semi-open b file, and is having all the fun. Engine analysis suggests our best move is something prophylactic like a6 (to deny b5 from the Bishop). If we play the more aggressive g5 now, continuing with the plan suggested in the course, then White has a range of good options to punish us like a5, Bb5 or even the tactical shot Ne5!

I've done quite a bit of analysis on this and I think White has the favourable position. Furthermore, I don't think it is the case that they have to play particularly well to get there. These are fairly logical moves for the most part that intermediate rated players can find.

So, what to do about Nc3?

I honestly don't know. I've looked at playing Be7 and going for a different setup with short castling, but it feels boring and passive. The best I can come up with at the moment is to get to this kind of position and make sure I remember not to try something like g4 prematurely, but rather play defensive and solid for a few moves, and keep an eye on the b5 square for White's Bishop. It's not like we're losing. It's just that I would prefer White's position.

Does anyone have any thoughts or alternative ideas?

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