Chess forum by Grandmasters

Smith Morra Gambit

Hello everyone, I recently started playing the sicilian but I always panic when my opponent goes for the smith morra. Does anyone know a line I can learn against it? If it's possible, I would also like it if it is a line without a lot of theory. Thank you for reading so far. 

Replies

Hi Matteo,

If you are fine with it, you can just decline: 1.e4 c5 2.d4 Nf6. See here:

https://chessmood.com/course/crushing-all-the-sidelines-of-sicilian/episode/6784

After the expected 3.e5 Nd5 4.d4 you are back in the Alapin- just in case you don't panic

after 1.e4 c5 2.c3 😜

Scotch #14 4...Bc5 Mistake?

From 3:54 on, didn't he just give white a free tempo or am I crazy?

As far as I can tell the line he gives is:

4…Bc5 5. Nb3 Bb6 6.Nc3 _?_ 7. Qe2 d6 8. Be3

Obviously missing a move for black here changes the whole line. You'll notice he says “after Qe2 let's say d6” but the last move on the board was Nc3 for white. Looking at the lichess database it seems like black usually plays Nf6 after 6. Nc3 but that move is given later in the video at 4:00.

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He may have. It’s a bit confusing.

Howevwe what he is trying to show you is the main ideas of the line.

He is not feeding you lines to memorize, but rather the ideas that you should know.

Honestly, it dosent matter much with the idea of the video.

Alekhine Defense 4...dxe5 question?

After 4… dxe5 5. Nxe5 c6 6. Be2, what if 6…Bf5?

Avetik did not cover it in the course.

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https://chessmood.com/course/rock-n-rolling-with-white/episode/5648

https://chessmood.com/course/rock-n-rolling-with-white/episode/5649

Sometimes it's the case that alternatives not mentioned in the main course 

can be found in the “Rock ‘n’ Rolling” courses. In your case see the two videos above,

where your question is dealt with.

My first French Attack after watching simplified blackmood openings

https://lichess.org/game/export/LcmyrSO8?literate=1

[Event "Live Chess"] [Site "Chess.com"] [Date "2024.06.12"] [Round "?"] [White "Lane959"] [Black "YVedant"] [Result "0-1"] [WhiteElo "1640"] [BlackElo "1644"] [Variant "Standard"] [TimeControl "900+10"] [ECO "C02"] [Opening "French Defense: Advance Variation, Extended Bishop Swap"] [Termination "Unknown"] [Annotator "lichess.org"] 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bd7 { C02 French Defense: Advance Variation, Extended Bishop Swap } 4. Nf3 a6 5. a4 c5 6. c3 Nc6 7. Be3 Qb6 8. Qc2 Rc8 9. dxc5 Bxc5 10. Bxc5 Qxc5 11. Bd3 Nb4 12. Qe2 Nxd3+ 13. Qxd3 Ne7 14. O-O h6 15. Nbd2 g5 16. Nb3 Qc4 17. Qxc4 Rxc4 18. Nfd4 Ng6 19. Rfe1 Nf4 20. Re3 b6 21. Nd2 Rxa4 22. Rxa4 Bxa4 23. b3 Bd7 24. c4 Ke7 25. cxd5 Nxd5 26. Rf3 Rc8 27. Kf1 Rc1+ 28. Ke2 Nf4+ { Black wins. } 0-1

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Well played! 

Hello ChessMood engineers (Suggestion)

I love studying the courses but it is annoying when I click on the Courses link and have to search for the ones im working on. What about a page Where I can add a few courses im working on at the moment. It would be much nicer.

Thanks

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Already exist. go to profile>My courses>favorite courses… just ❤️  a cours and you will see it appear there

model game pgn

Hello family,

Is there any pgn available with simplified black mood opening model games? I do not remember how to recover them?

Thank you for your help

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Hi there,

Yes, there is a pgn file available.  It's in the ‘Attachments’ folder immediately after Section 24 - Epilogue.  Left-click on either the word ‘Download’ or on the down arrow next to it.

😅There is no pgn provided, but you can look for the games in chess.com but looking at the name of the players if you are interested in some. 💪 

WhiteMood Model Games

♟️

Hi Chessmood,

Can you tell when the other sections of WhiteMood Model games will be uploaded?

Thanks

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Losing Rating/Plateau

Dear Chessmood family

2 days ago I was at my peak 1874, I really thought I could cross 2000, I was playing like a machine, when I analysed my games I was playing at 80-95% accuracy most of the time. Yesterday however, I was playing a ton of blitz to try to at least cross 1900, instead I lost 40 elo which put me around 1830. Today I was playing blitz all day, I lost more and more and more, now my rating is at 1760. I fear that I am plateauing, that the 2000 blitz elo might be impossible for me, today, I was completely winning in so many positions, yet I threw. How did I play so well 2 days ago and play so bad today? Please someone help me, this is really heartbreaking for me.

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Just lost another 30 rating now at 1748

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about your bad run.  It sounds as though you are playing on tilt - you need to stop and take a break, even if just for a short period.

While you are on the break, take a look at this article: https://chessmood.com/blog/5-crucial-steps-to-stop-bad-results-in-chess

Good luck!

This is what I suggest. I think you should take a break, and do some puzzles, or openings. Then you should basically improve and work on it. When you feel ready, you should play. 

You are just tilting, and you are not really improving. Playing tons of blitz without analyzing properly the games and without studying will not help you improve. You cannot play if you are not in the mood. Easy as this.

There are many articles in our blog related to this, but please read also Noel-s blog on this theme>

https://nextlevelchess.blog/no-more-tilt/

Plus look at the golden method for playing blitz by Avetik in the blog. 

Grand Prix after Bb5xNc6 dxc6 or bxc

�😄�

Hi dear ChessMood family.

My name is Fernando, im from Lisbon, Portugal, and this is my first post.

Im looking in the streams for material on the grand prix attack after e4 c5, nc3 nc6, Bb5 then black plays anything but Nd4. I would like to learn the plans after Bxc6.

Can you guide me to the place (url or name event stream) where this topic is discussed ? So far i cant find any , but the there so much material that probably im lost .

Anyway, thanks in advance 

Replies

Hi Fernando,

it starts here:

https://chessmood.com/course/rock-n-rolling-with-white/episode/4118

The course is : Rock 'n' Rolling with White, chapter 4, anti- sicilian pt.2.

Here you see the ChessMood repertoire in action :-)

Closed Sicilian

Hi everyone,

after 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.g3 g6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.d3 d6:

We usually go in our Botvinik setup with ..e5 next. Only after 6.f4 we play 6..e6. The reason why we don't play 6..e5 in this case is that White still has the option to put his Knight to f3 and we always have to be careful with the f5 gxf5 Nh4- idea. 

If we play 6..e5 7.Nf3 and then go 7..exf4 (our normal reaction)

White gets a better version in this structure since his Knight on f3 is very active compared to the versions where it is on e2.

So far so good. Makes sense.

My question: After 6.Be3 we go 6..e5 preparing against the Qd2, Bh6- idea. This works out very well in my eyes.

But what after 6.Be3 e5 7.f4. Are we tricked a little bit? Sure, we could take on f4 being a tempo up. But I think time is not so important here and White's very active setup with the Knight on f3 later counts more..

I have a feeling that it's a rather hidden deatail:

6.Be3 e5 7.f4 Nge7 8.Nf3 0-0 and if here 9.f5 then 9..gxf5 10.Nh4 and now the point: 10..f4 (with tempo!!!) 11.gxf4 exf4 12.Bxf4 Ng6 and Black seems very fine. What do you think?

Thank you so much in advance!

Replies

https://chessmood.com/course/crushing-all-the-sidelines-of-sicilian/episode/2548

Sorry thomas! I completely overlooked this thread! My bad, I think that the position that you are looking for is in the above link and the next 2.

Please check them out…

Good study and sorry again for the miss!😀

Kings indian defence for black

I am having a doubt regarding the kings indian for black. When should we play f5 break in the classical variation, fianchetto variation. I have seen Gms playing h5 before f5. What is the purpose of h5 move in the fianchetto variation. when do we play h5 as black. I always have a confusion with f5 and h5.When to play it first h5 followed by f5 or f5 followed by h5.. I want to know the purpose of the moves f5 and h5.

Replies

Sreenath, f5 or h5 are moves that are played to attack on the KS but they should be very well timed and there is no general rule, it depends on concrete positions and calculation since you are going to attack. The center should be closed and then you can do these pawn pushes. I would recommend you the book Kings Indian Warfare by Smirin. You will see many examples of such moves and understand better the KID. This is the excerpt of the pdf. Lovely book for KID players, but do not focus too much on the variations or you will never finish, understand the main moves mostly. 
😁https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/KingsIndianWarfare-excerpt.pdf😀
Also in this video he gives some advice for KID players:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqloLFtBKCs
 

Check, capture, or defend?

Hi there,

I'd be interested in feedback from other forum members as to how you proceed at this point (black has just made move 20 - white to play), and why.

a) Rh3+

b) Rxg7

c) Rxd8

d) Something else

Replies

I think the best idea is to go Rh3+ followed by Rxg7 or directly taking Rxg7, Hope this helps!.

Hello,

Here 1. Rxg7 seems best as WHite wins the piece while also threatening Rxh7.

Rd1+ dosent yeild anything and as principle Rh3+ is bad.

This is because when trying to mate the opponent king you want to cut of the flight squares, not chase the king to safety.

However, It would be best if you could explain your though process here so I could try and help correct errors.

For example, (as a prompt if you are interested) why not Rxg7 now or after Rh3?

Today Puzzle

in today puzzle. choosing a bishop instead of a queen would've worked too

Replies

Again, for all daily puzzles, with promotion there may be multiple solutions.

Whenever possible, choose the queen. If queen works, then choose queen. If bishop and queen work, choose queen.

Always double check of course, but when promoting, choose the highest value piece that works.

Hope this helps, and less of these questions start to pop up!

Chess Books

Hi Chessmood,

I have been using a lot of chess books, but many of them are not of my level.

The books which recommendations show have to be purchased. But I want books which can be downloaded online.

Could you please share some books for fide rating level 1500-1800 which can be downloaded for free in pgn form on chess base 16?📖

Thanks

Replies

No, we do not share books or upload books from other authors, and neither should you ask for them in our forum. Thanks😅

Bug Report

Hey, champions! 

If you notice any bugs on the website, we'll appreciate if you could share them with us here. 

Sharing details (like screenshots, screen-recordings) will be even more appreciated! 

Thanks in advance.

With best wishes,
ChessMood Team 

P.S. 
Our team isn't big, so we ask your patience with fixings. Please, don't get confused, if the particular bug haven't been fixed immediately. 
But we promise, we'll do our best! 

Thanks again 
 

Replies

I believe it has been reported many times before, but I'm going putting the bug related to editing forum posts here. The bug concerns posts that have a blank line separating paragraphs. Like this. If I were to edit this post an extra black line would be inserted between the paragraphs.

As mentioned in the FB group, in Chrome the videos are displaying below the fold. The problem persists even after cleaning cookies, but in incognito mode, however, this doesn't happen.

On ipad , I can t move piece as usually in any puzzle ! I close the window , restarted the iPad and the problem is still there . When I grab the piece I want to move , it appears partly double and if I try many time , I sometimes succeed moving it

https://chessmood.com/forum/pro-channel/puzzle-fixing

Hello. Im still having problems with the puzzle quizzes on my iPad. The dail puzzle and the mini quizzes work fine but the main puzzles dont work well. The pieces drag or dont move and the whole board moves sometimes partially off the screen. This all started a few weeks ago. I just tried marking matador and tactics ninja and neither one worked. Any ideas on when it might be fixed or is there something I can do? Thanks for your great site overall Rick janss

Marocy Bind course, game 12. Vodep - Scheffer A. Actually it is game between Vodep - Scheffner. It is misspelled in video course and took me some time to find the correct game. https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1364899

Today puzzle was the same as another day and didn’t give rewards again . if we want to replay older puzzles , there is a bug since since many months which is you don’t get the puzzle you clicked for ( at least on iPad ) today , I noticed a new bug and I took a screen shot of it . Double dates for different puzzles . This is obviously not a major issue but it does not give a good image of the site to my opinion and chessmood deserves better . My iPad is taking photo over 3 mo which I can t post … I tried to reduced the size of it and it s not working… anyway , the old puzzles offered were all différents but there 2 différents ones for 9 th of august and 2 others for 8 th of august …

🙂

Just a quick suggestion…I would like to do Tactics Ninja or Mating Matador puzzles on my android phone but the board is miniscule so its not possible….even with a microscope

I started a new tread named I m too slow and I just noticed Peter mentioned losing his first reply and when I answered Ben wi , I also lost the first one I did … anyone else having the same issue lately ? 

Embedded frames do not currently seem to work.  This issue affects course quizzes and training exercises (see a screenshot of the Tactics Ninja course) as well as blog posts (see a screenshot of “Blunderproofing her Game”).  This is happening on Chrome for Android as well as Firefox on Linux – I don't think it's browser-specific.  I see two X-Frame-Options headers being loaded when there should only be one (see screenshot of Firefox developer tools).  You probably just want SAMEORIGIN, not DENY.  I just noticed this issue today (in my America/Chicago time zone).  I'm not familiar with your server configuration (and it's not exactly my area of expertise anyway), so I can't offer any more specific advice.  Your engineering staff can likely fix this issue in short order, though.

Hi, I'm a bit puzzled. Since some days the progressbar of the courses I made is not in line with the reality, i.e. showing finished courses as unfinished. Will it be fxed?

Hello, would like to report that there are problems with the Rock N Rolling with Black videos and Blackmood Model Games? After watching an episode, the checkbox doesn't get checked, although answering the accompanying quiz questions does get recorded.

This has been happening to me for a couple of weeks already, I don't know if I'm the only one? 

Other course videos are OK.

Also sometimes a "Player error" message appears and stops the video. I have to replay it from the beginning.

Thanks.

Just a small bug: The positions 4 to 6 are identical with the first one in the quiz to the 99th game of the 100 commented classical games (and there is no confirmation of correct solving of 5 and 6).  https://chessmood.com/course/chess-classical-games/episode/6742/2585

pro chessplayer

I could have had a job in politics, i could have been an academic in a university,  i could have been a webdesigner, i could have been an engineer and could even have been a spy-but i chose chess as my number one profession in life.

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exchanging fianchetto bishop

hello,

playing as white in position below GM Avetik said in an old video that he wanted exchanging the black fianchetto Bg7 by Bh6. It seems to me that black bishop is weak so why white wants exchange it?  thanks

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Because is the main defender of the king. We can attack then with the pawn push and there will be holes Black-s defense with the weakened dark squares.

the white bishop is very weak as it is restricted by the d4 and e5 pawns in the centre whereas the black bishop does a good job defending the black king.

South Lakes Congress cancelled

In my home town of Barrow in Cumbria, England. At this time of year a chess congress called the South Lakes Congress is played but this year it was cancelled due to 20,000 (motorbikers) coming to our small town to celibrate the life of a deceased biker cheff called david myers - a tv personality.

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French attack missing variation

Hello! Was watching the French Attack simplified blackmood opening where after e4 e6 d4 d5 Nd2 Nc6, if white plays c3, GM Avetik recommends the move e5. Afyet exd5 Qxd5, I am not sure what to do if white plays Nf3. This isn’t covered in the simplified course and I am sure it was with the idea to keep the blackmood course simple and not too complicated which I think was a great idea. However, I’ve really been struggling after white plays Nf3 to find a plan and move to play and don’t understand the computer lines. Does anyone have any recommendations agaisnt this Nf3 line? Thank you! Also, I am excited to see this line getting covered by GM Avetik once the blackmood advanced course comes out!

Replies

Hi  Bomby😀, if you want your chess opening related questions to be answered by one of our GMs, please post them in the PRO Member channel. If you're not yet a PRO Member, you can upgrade your plan here at anytime:
https://chessmood.com/become-a-pro

Still this question is very easy since Ngf3 is just not a good move now. You just need to take on d4 and fight against an IQP with good position and clear plans for Black.😅

In French attack variation of 

e4-e6 , d4-d5, Nc3-Nf6 ,Bg5-h6 ,Bxf6-Qxf6 exd5 Bb4 

You doesn't shows us 

Bb5+ variation I faced many times this 

Please explain this

Course order

�😀�

In what order should one do the middle game courses in the Rating Booster section. I'm talking about the “Fearless Warrior”, “Spartan Shield”, “The SLP Method", “The WWP Pilot”, "The Scale Method", and the “7Q Method”. I only have limited access to the courses (one month), so I am looking for a course (s), that would provide me with general and long - term knowledge. I would say that my biggest weakness is evaluating and finding plans in positions. However, when I started on the 7Q Method course (which I thought would be the most beneficial course for me), each of the examples would begin with an evaluation of the positions, a skill which I have not developed yet. But I see that it is a course for effectively evaluating positions. What is your opinion on which course I should begin with? Should I start with “The Scale Method” or the “7Q  Method”? Or an entirely different? I'm eager to hear your opinions, and highly appreciates feedback, especially from people with experience about this, but also from everyone else. 

Replies

What is ur rating/chess level? It is difficult to recommend courses without more information.

However my first recommendation for any level would probably be the tactic ninja and blunderproof courses as these are probably the areas in which begginers struggle most, and are the best for quick improvement.

hope this helps 👍

Hey,

If you haven’t already, try:

https://chessmood.com/chess-study-plans

They have several sets of guidelines depending on your rating:

Chess Improvement Plan for below 1,000 rated players 

Chess Improvement Plan for 1,001-1,500 rated players 

Chess Improvement Plan for 1,501-2,000 rated players 

Chess Improvement Plan for 2,001+ rated players 

Lots of good advice there. 

There is so much good information here that it’s easy to get overwhelmed!

From what you wrote about evaluation, and only a month of access, i’m guessing “The Scale Method” might be the way to go:

https://chessmood.com/course/scale-method

Truth in advertising … 

You wrote: “especially from people with experience about this, but also from everyone else"

I fall under the category: “everyone else.”

:)

Good luck.