Chess forum by Grandmasters

SLP skills!

Pulled this off with two bishops bearing down on me!

https://www.chess.com/game/120656305496

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one question in the french Attack

in 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bd7 4. Nf3 a6 5. Bd3 Bb5 6. O-O   should we take opponents bishop as the cours say or wait and let our opponent take like in the model games?

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Well the opponent has already indicated they are not taking. We should take at some point, otherwise they may eventually tuck the bishop away on c2. And there doesn’t seem to be a good reason not to take immediately. After that, we continue the normal plan with c5, Nc6, and (if their bishop is covering h6) cd, Ne7, Nf5.

Tactic puzzle

Here's a nice tactic I got to play over the board yesterday. There's only six legal moves for White; can you choose the correct one?

(This is your spoiler warning, in case people want to discuss moves in the comments below)

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I'll take a shot 😀

• * Both Qd2 and Bd2 successfully block the check and threaten to take black's queen but they don't address the potential loss of our knight on b5
• * Ke2 seems pretty bad as black gets to take the knight on b5 and, as it's with check again, possibly looking to also capture the pawn on b2
• * b4 temporarily blocks the check but Qxb4+ puts us back in the same situation (king in check and b5 knight under threat) but a pawn down
• * Nd2 blocks the check but does not rescue the b5 knight
• * Ne3 seems the best option - blocks the check (and defended by the pawn on b2) and prevents the knight from being captured

That seems too easy so I'll wait to see what I've missed 😉 ….

b4!! looks like it works. The queen has 4 squares. If it goes to a6 or b6or goes back to d8 then Nc7 and the rook is trapped and If Qxb4 then Bd2 and the queen is trapped. 

This is a great puzzle. Thanks for posting!

1.b4 will be a good move I think as 1…Qxb4+ will lead to 2.Bd2 trapping the Queen and if Black goes 1…Qd8 then 2.Bc7 followed by Nd6 and the Queen will be trapped. Then only remaining is 1…Qa6 and 1…Qb6. In both the cases 2.Nc7 trapping the Rook will be a good option and White shall be winning. 

New article: How I Used the "Battleship" Method to Meet More Girls and Improve My Chess

It's lonely when you can't go out on dates with girls.

It's frustrating when your chess game isn't improving.

But there's one classic method to transform both your love life and your chess skills.😉

No extra talent needed. Just a bit of strategy. 

Discover how here:

https://chessmood.com/blog/battleship-method

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To Meet More Girls… 😏😂

Time to try out this method now for both reasons mentioned in the title lol 😂

Hi Avo I'm attacking  you and chessmood courses for a long time now……
hitting the opponent's pieces  during my game

😂

Cheers 

Was the part about meeting girls necessary? Can we not have a break from everything being sexual?

love the post bro!

Interesting idea about dating :) 
Though from my experience delaying never really worked. When it's too long, 2 weeks for instance, it cann't be nothing more than just a friendship in the future. Keep telling it one of my friends :)

benko gambit

I just faced this line in an online game and was wondering what the best continuation is here for black? (I don't seem to have anything in my pgn file)

https://lichess.org/study/3tQJPirX/UDWjH6Lw

Thanks, Samuel

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Its a good move for white, but we also have several ideas such as for example the usual Qa5-Nbd7-Rfb8 or using Avetik's Idea with Na6-Qb6-Nc7-Nb5 exchanging the strong knight on c3. Basically white played Nge2 so that if the c3 knight is exchanged the other knight on e2 can hop there.

A model game in this variation: https://lichess.org/6BoVCU2K#31

Hey Samuel and AK Chess.

This Nge2 is not a challenging move, and I can see AK Chess (thank you) shared a very decent game, showing how to play against it :-) 

GMC Hohvannes Analyzed Games Vol 2

Out of all the analyzed games presented by various Gms, Hohvanne's ( and Avo's) are definitely the BEST, analyzed in a way to offer maximum benefits. I'm on my 3rd time watching and learning from their games.

Can we please get a Volume 2 section from either one of them with maybe an additional 10 games? It would be MUCH appreciated!

Losing games are fine too and probably just as beneficial!

Thank you in advance!

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Dear Ovi,

Thanks as always for your very nice words :-)

As you know we are working on many different courses, but might have what you are asking about in future.

Thank you so much!

How many games have you played?

Recently I've started looking at the profile of my opponents after our game finishes.  I'm amazed by the variation in the number of games played.

The number of games that I've played on Chess.com so far is … 314!  (I know, that's not many.  No doubt some of you get through that many in a weekend!).  Some of my opponents have played tens of thousands of games.

So, my question is, how many games in total have you played (feel free to amalgamate if you play on multiple platforms)?   

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I started my chesscom account in 2013 and I have 10 800 games played ! Half are blitz , 10 % rapid , rest is bullet which is too much … 2300 problems , on lichess 800 games played but 2000 problems . I prefer lichess for tactics especially since my last coach asked me to do the 4-3-2-1 Methot everyday. It’s 4 puzzles that you set at -600 , 3 at -300 , 2 normal and 1 +300 .  

How is your number of games so low yet i saw you here in this forum since a long time ago

Anyway to answer your question i have 4,646 rapid + blitz game 

And bullet is 2,529

( i combined chess.com and lichess numbers since i switched from cc to lichess )

In my old account I played around 5000 games (I am only including rapid+blitz+classical) and in my new account around 400 games (rapid+blitz+classical) 

I have played about 6500 games on lichess,Rajat_2011 is the id

Tactic Ninja Errors

The app "Tactic Ninja" already has errors in basic exercises. For example, Section 3 Quiz 1. Is this the quality that is generally offered here? Hello ChessModd ... How about implementing a four-eye principle when creating tasks? Apparently, there are posts in the "Pro Member" area about these errors ... but why are they not being corrected, and why isn't the quality being improved? I am very frustrated. And for this, we are supposed to pay?

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What is the error that you are seeing. I'm looking at Section 3 ("Skewer"). In the quiz there is one exercise, and it seems to be correct?

FRENCH DEFENSE FROM BLACK SIDE

WHICH VARIIATION I SHOULD PLAY FRENCH DEFENSE AS BLACK   I COULD NOT FIND ANY IN OPENINGS COURSE

CAN YOU POST AN OPENINGS COURSE FROM BLACK SIDE

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Hey there,

If you are looking for the French variation, you can find it in the BlackMood course - here is the link https://chessmood.com/course/blackmood-openings

Good luck!

AI tools

I was really excited to join Chessmood after test driving in July.   I am curious of how the AI tools work or if there this a timeline for their implementation.  I really like the idea of this tool but cannot find any reference to dates. 

Thanks so much,

K

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Hi,

according to the latest newsletter (which was a week ago, on 2024-10-23): 

"Our game-changing “FixMood” feature is currently in beta and available only to PRO Members and Lifetime Students.

Good news!
While it's not a promise, we expect to expand access in about two weeks, so you can use it, too!"

Looking for Help with My Lichess Account

I hope you're all doing well. I wanted to reach out and ask for some feedback on my Lichess account.
I've been feeling a bit stuck lately, especially when I'm playing with the White pieces. i'm not really using whitemood repertoire something just doesn't seem to click, but I could really use some fresh eyes on my games. If any of you have the time to take a look and share your thoughts, I'd be super grateful!

Thanks a lot in advance, and I’m looking forward to any advice you might have. 😊

Here are some helpful links:

• https://lichess.org/insights/anis_84
• https://lichess.org/analysis#explorer/anis_84

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If I look quickly at your opening tree, you seems to have an acceptable rate winning with the white pieces with most openings, except maybe the french, but it's not a big proportion of your games. What makes you feel stuck? can you precise that feeling?

I had a quick look at some of your recent losses and it looks like you get fine positions out of the opening but you seem to allow your opponents a lot of tactics and even hung your queen in 1 move in one game. I think that solving tactics and having full focus during your games would help with this. I even tried solving tactics from the opposite side to help spot opponents resources during the game. Hope this helps, Samuel 

It has pretty much nothing to do with openings here, I would recommend to train your calculation (ChessMood course, advanced tactics, blindfold chess etc…) seeing that this could be your biggest weakness rn. This is what I did to reach 2500 blitz and I know nothing about openings, I just play moves that look good positionally. Hope this helps.

Events for ChessMood PRO Members

Hey champions! 

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Cool initiative,though I had to create a new _Chessmood account on Lichess.

Great initiative I was just wishing about this , I am so happy although i prefer 5+3 but i will join in both event. Thanks

Both of leechess and chess.com id is same Shahinur_chessmood. 

Just saw the message saying there is a tourney this evening - love the idea but I already arranged to be out tonight.  Is there a schedule for these, so I can make sure I’m free?

Dear CM family, it would be nice to have a tag or summary of the opening (especially when there was CM opening lines) that have been played in each event: so that we can consult them as a mode/typical games.

have a good day.

Dear Marius,

Thanks for your answer!

The request you have that way will be tough to make and extremely time consuming, as well again not always the games played during the streams are potentially model games - that’s why we stick around strategy of highlighting potentially good model games 🙂

New course: BlunderProof!

Champions,

It’s time to cut back on your blunders, shout less and and win more!

Today, the BlunderProof course is live on our website, waving and waiting for you ?
 

The first sections are there, and the others are being edited by crazy Lily ?

Enjoy and most importantly reduce your blunders! Start watching from below ?
https://chessmood.com/course/blunderproof

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What an excellent course - just what I needed! I was thinking this morning that if only I could drastically reduce my blunders (piece hang, missing a mate in one, etc.), I would lose less games. Then I got an email notification of the Blunderproof course. I've just finished going through Sections 1 to 3. Can't wait for the subsequent sections to open up. I've learnt that even the WC himself blunders. Of course, everyone. Good tips on how to be in the Hyperfocused Mode part. Thank you for this!

Excellent course ChessMood, thanks for putting this together! I look forward to the rest.

Nice course! Watched the released parts already and what helped me yesterday in my online session especially was the warm-up part - I solved like 25 tactic ninja puzzles fast and finally played a good 1st game, which under normal circumstances I often lose. So great advise, a lot of research went into this, it seems ?

So much wisdom in the course. I'm looking forward to reducing blunders under pressure. I play some horrible blunders in time pressure - and I mean horrible!!

One thing I've noticed about my chess (or at least when I was rusty a few weeks ago), is that watching a game and joining in the middle I get quickly focused on one thing, that I'm not taking in the board and the relationship between the pieces, except where the action is. That perhaps is less of a factor while playing as that gets built up. I'm wondering if there is any training for taking in all that's happening, starting from simple positions up to quite sharp one. That has to help the tactics. Doing puzzle rush helps somewhat, but the first 30 odd puzzles (and many of other puzzles) are about focusing in on the obvious point of action and sacrificing something (or back rank mate), nor do they have a good level of complexity increase so you can find where you currently are in what you can take in and train from there.

Half way through South Wales International Open at weekend and guilty of wandering eyes and watching/analysing other games. Concentrated on avoiding this in last rounds and was much calmer at board when playing a GM though lost badly. In brave chess what would be the result please in the position Kh2 if black to move and played Qg1+ as king cannot capture by your rules draw or win? Mike

I just did an interesting analysis of my last 30 losses on Chess.com. All were “rapid” (G/10) games against opponents rated 1900-2100. I made a chart of why I lost each game. Here are the results:

1-move blunder 11
2-move blunder 11
3-move blunder 2
Endgame Technique 1
Speculative Attack 1
Inaccurate Defense 4 

So I am making two changes to my chess training. 1. More time on simple tactics training, and less on openings. 2. I'm going to go through the Blunderproof course again.)

Watch me wreak havoc without a queen

This is my tilt account; I'm currently sick and my reaction time is down the toilet so I'm playing bullet on an alt

https://lichess.org/sQ9xj4jc

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help with the scandinavian gambit for beginners

Hey. I watched Section 4 in Avo's Rise of the champions course and I decided to try out some gambits. I got the black pieces, so I wanted to play the scandinavian. We played: 1. e4 d5 but then my opponent pushed 2. e5 …,  and suddenly we went into a closed game (2. … Nc6 3. e6 d4). I am wondering how to respond to 2. e5 so that the game is not so closed. If anybody could help me, that would be great!

Here is the game on lichess:

https://lichess.org/61MSifS3FoBw 

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After 1.e4 d5 2.e5 a good move is 2…Bf5.  The general idea is to follow up with e6 so that you have a very solid centre, but without blocking your bishop in on c8.  This is known as developing your bishop outside the pawn chain, and can give your position a little more life.

Question 1.e4 e6 2.Bc4

Hello, I would be thankful for a hint. Where do I find this opening in the simplified openings? 

And of course: How to go on as black?

Thank you very much.

Joachim

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Good question! I doubt there are many resources on 2.Bc4, because the move simply makes no sense against the French. Just continue your gameplan with 2…d5, and the bishop will be forced to move and you'll have gained crucial time in the opening.

For instance:

1.e4 e6

2.Bc4 d5

3.exd5 exd5

4.Bb5+ c6

5.Bd3 Nf6

And you have an improved version of the Exchange French. Let me know if I can clarify anything further!

Revisiting the Main Chessmood Openings

I would like to request to coaches if main chessmood openings could be played during the streams. Thank you

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Hi Siddharth,

If by main openings you mean 2000+ repertoire I am excited to tell you we stream them on 2000-2700 level events.

You can find them on the events page, along with several past events available for viewing 😀

events

Hi. During this month the events happen in tuesdays and saturdays, the 2 days I can't participate, so first of all I would like if you would do them twice a week on different days every week. And also when I am trying to see past events it says “video not available”. Is it supposed to be like that or its my problem?

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Dear Eliya,

I do understand it can not fit well with your schedules, but we have thousands members with different time and day preferences :-)

If we do it on random days and times, it will be super tough for everyone to remember and track the schedules, that's why we need to have fixed days and times.

However, all the events are available on the website, and if suddenly events are not available for you, it can be an issue on your side. 

Can you please provide more information, so we try to help you to resolve that issue?

Thanks!
 

Hey Eliya👋,

Thanks for letting us know! I double-checked everything on our side, and the videos seem to be working fine for most users, so it could be something related to YouTube’s regional settings.

Here’s a couple of things you can try:

Use a VPN:: Sometimes, YouTube limits certain videos in specific regions. Using a VPN to switch your virtual location might help solve this.

Check YouTube settings: Make sure there aren’t any filters like Safe Mode turned on, as they might block some content.

If the issue is still hanging around after trying these, don’t hesitate to reach out! We’ll do our best to help you enjoy the content as soon as possible.

Thanks for your patience! 😊

SPARRING GAMES

Hello, this is Madison looking to play some games. My rating in Rapid is 1950, would like to play someone 2000. Opening, (White) Scotch and (Black) French. Let's talk and setup something on going. Name Loftis50 on Lichess. 

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Sent u a DM 

Dear Madison,

It's great you are looking for a friend to train with, it can also be easier to do under this thread https://chessmood.com/forum/main-channel/studysparring-partner-1362

Good luck :-)

An interesting suggestion

Hello ChessMood team, I was wondering if you can organize tournaments where all we ChessMood students can participate and play against each other so that we can get more playing experience!

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it will be amazing if he do it