Chess forum by Grandmasters

Appraoch towards chessmood

How to start or begin with chessmood. I am able to play or win may be because of luck good in short time controls. But not in long time controls. Can u suggest me a remedy for that. And moreover there are. Lots of courses given. How to begin with this.

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Too many possibilities. What's your rating and when you analyse your games, either by yourself or with an engine, what common factors are there. What do you think is holding you back?

Hi Sreenath!

😀I seem to remeber that you have been a promember of our family for a while.😅

First, did you book your call with one of our GMs to guide you?

Second, what courses did you already complete? Did you do all the rating booster section?

Also, please be so kind to provide other data about you, like age, available time to study, your rating, etc. The more info the better… 😅

Where can I Find the Homework?

This is probably a stupid question, but I've been watching the Starter Course for White and Avetik mentioned the homework a couple of times. Can anyone tell me how to find this please? I'm sure I found a download link at one time but I cannot find it now 😢

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Ignore me - I've found it. Now I just need to find out how to unpack a ".rar" file...

I'm starting to win with the Scotch!!!

I'm actually beating higher rated players since learning the Scottish opening! Okay, at some point I am going to come up against someone better prepared, but my confidence has been given a huge boost. Thank you chessmood!!! 😄

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That is good news Mary!😍 You have been a while with us and we are happy that your are getting good results.🤩

Still do not think that it is about just the Scotch, these are just the opening moves of a chess game. We are sure that you improved in all areas and the time spend studying is showing, otherwise no one wins a game just because of the opening 🤠(although sometimes happens😅).

COGRO, Keep on learning, keep on playing, keep on winning!!!😀

Caro Kann exchange question

https://lichess.org/study/3Q73OCzx/cWP7KUpf What if black doesn't play Bh5 in this line? I believe that Bh5 is the best, but Club level player won't find it (if doesn't know). Multiple club level playeres already played here a6-b5. Should I go Ne5 immediately? In one game I tried Qc2 and then Ne5 at some point, but then Ng5 idea doesn't work any more.

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Dear Renate You got an excellent position in move 14, very good!
It does not matter too much if you go Ne5 or Qc2, although Ne5 is normally played first. If they go a6, at some moment, after Ne5 normally they go Bh5 and Bg6 reaching the same positions. transposing. 

You have to play both Ne5 and Qc2 usually. The plan that Avetik proposes does not involve Bg5, as you played in this game. When you take on g6, you open the h file and we will attack trough there. 
One of the recommended ways is to play Nf3, Ne5, f3, Kh2, Rh1, h5. Although in your game you had an exceptionally good position where you could bring the Queen to the h file very fast. We do not know how it went later because you did not show it  but you got a very good and promising position.
And this is it, just be aware that you attack on the h file and do not forget to stop Black's attacks on the Queen side. 
Happy hunting Renate!!!

🤠

Benko gambit alternative

I belive it would be a good option to have alternative for Benko gambit. Are there any suggestions? Or how should I move from my current choice smoothly? I am not ready to play Benko, tried it some years before on level 2000+ and it didn't work well for me. I will probably return to it but need also alternative. My current choice is Nf6 with Nimco Indian with b6, or Catalan someyimes with Bb4 or Be7. On English opening I play c4 e5. I never put bishop on g7. Basically that is my porblem of ChessMood black repertoire. I always had problems witg Bg7 so I avoid it.

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Hopefully there will be the Blackmood Dutch option for stronger players soonish in the future. The problem would be that their move order requires you also to know the French (or to research the additional lines yourself). Unfortunately I think anything else suitable for +2000 play would take too long and too much resource to record and support (for example the Benoni being probably the next most reasonable choice and also there is KI experience, but would they be able to find a decent repertoire cutting out the most theoretical options).

Why not just start playing the Benko in online blitz? That way you can learn the theory and work on mastering the typical middlegames with little pressure. Regarding an alternative to the Benko, I personally feel that it makes sense from a repertoire perspective to pair the Benko with either the King's Indian or the Grunfeld. The point being that these openings also fianchetto the king's bishop, so there will be some commonality with how you deal with sidelines. There is also some benefit regarding dealing with move order tricks and transpositions. Both of these openings have a reputation for being somewhat theoretical, but I think people tend to worry about that too much. If you understand the ideas you can play either opening without knowing tons of theory. If you always had problems with the bishop on g7, then that sounds like a learning opportunity :-)

I think the Benoni could be a good complement, as there are touchpoints between the Benoni and the Benko.

Hm, give a try to the Budapest defence, even though it is kind of a sidelines, but there are a lot of tricks, or if you want a more solid one, Queen's Gambit Accepted is also very good, since you avoid Catalan (if they try to play it anyway, there is Nc6 strong move with following e5!) and most 1. d4 players underestimate this opening, while you can get a good playable positions against an isolated pawn. By the way, here are my PGNs (the comments are in Russian since I made them for myself 😀) for Queens Gambit Accepted and Pseudo-Catalan (d4 Nf3 g3 Bg2, a system which used to be very annoying for me to play against, but then I found a strong weapon against it): https://lichess.org/study/6tC3Vs6c https://lichess.org/study/5oXovHud

Well, we are also offering the Dutch in the Blackmood openings, you could take a look at it and try if you like it.
It is a simple FUN and attacking opening repertoire that can help you to play different positions too and is very easy to learn.

That also depends on your level, and your goals of course, maybe you can explain to us your need to change, your rating, etc. If you are a good nimzo indian player, no problem with it, it is an excelent opening.

Trying new openings should be fun and because you want to learn, but changing the nimzoindian for the benko is not something that you need to do unless you want to learn and enjoy a new opening and new positions.

What worries me it that you yourself said that you are not ready… Why?
Are we ever ready? This is a game, and after some moves you are on your own, you can invent, improvise, let your imagination flow… Unless you are very result oriented but after trying a new opening online for some months you will have the right feeling already to play OTB I think.

Our benko course is easy to understand and has some very good lines that our monster Gabuzyan plays at GM level all the time without any problem whatsoever, you can rest assured that you will not be worst if you play it (and of course accept that you are playing a pawn down, gambit fun style, with very similar plans).

The zoom event format

Thought this Saturday's event worked well and was a lot of fun. Certainly much easier to interact over zoom than type, and it gives some people a chance to 'sit in the chair' with the grandmaster which probably is better for learning than typing. A downside would be that it wasn't streamed via YouTube live as well. I'm imagining a number of people wouldn't have zoom, or were a bit shy to go on (there was no requirement to actually participate, and even then you didn't have to turn your camera on). Possibly multiple people speaking could also be done in some events to take questions and answers from the whole audience without typing, though I think it might benefit more those who are less shy, more confident with their English and would require the repeated request of going on mute unless you're talking. Some experimentation could be done though. Wondering how others found it.

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Perhaps suggest making an explicit suggestion that cameras don't have to be turned on to participate. Other than looking a mess on the day (and having to get dressed, shower etc :), if the event is recorded for later it might run into laws where minors are involved. Perhaps a note suggesting that the event may be recorded for later viewing and turning a camera on implies you are happy to be recorded, and if under 18 have parental approval. Not sure if that's enough (or the kids will actually ask) but maybe one for the lawyers. Or simply capture the board and the chat but not the camera images for the Youtube stream / recording.

1) Nf3 ?

Do we hope for a Benko with Nf6 or c5 accepting we are probably heading into Maroczy Bind ?

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I think it should be c5 because if they play something like 2.c4 transposing to the English then the ChessMood line usually requires an eventual Nge7.

Hi Keven,

If speaking about Blackmood we are going to choose the 1…e6 or if about the main repertoire we are choosing c5 setups with different transpositions.

London/Jabova

Hi all, I played a London/Jabova line as white with an early g4 in a OTB tournament and got a huge attack and win in 20 moves and I would like to know how I should respond as black now that I am using the 1..e6 chessmood starter repertoire; I have not seen this position in the course. 1 d4 e6 2 Bf4 f5 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 g4 and I got a great position after 4..Nxg4 5 e4. What should black have played as in a practical game white got a good initiative and kingside attack in the game. Thanks Paul

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Dear Paul,

Next time you will not have this problem anymore.😜
https://chessmood.com/course/blackmood-openings/episode/4378
Remember that the Bishop to b4 is one of the main options in our Dutch.
After 3.Nc3 you can already go Bb4 pinning the knight, nothing wrong with this. If we can get rid of our Dark Squared Bishop we do it, isn't it? Then we will do it here too.
Still you played Nf6 which is also good but 4.g4 is simply a bad move.
You have different options, taking Nxg4 is good, and if e4 Bb4 again… 
Also fxg4 and if e4, Bb4 again

Last one 4.g4 Bb4, gxf5, is good too. 

Also you need to be flexible and not castle kingside right away if the opponent throws his pawns at you… 😅
My point is what would you play in the future against this Nc3 in the Dutch?😁

Preventing overthinking

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-to-stop-overthinking-everything I think it's true to some degree that your chess personality mirrors your own. Overthinking is a problem for many of us, and this article suggests some ways to prevent it. John Nunn, I believe, said that chess skill correlates with IQ, but this is disputed by Nakamura who claims to have an IQ around the average. Of course IQ itself isn't a reliable measure, but there is some suggestion that the cleverest aren't always the most practical (overthinking tendency being one of them). Note I've seen players in low time think when they only have one plausible (sometimes legal) move, as if trying to work out the consequences.

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Interesting article thanks. Have you read The Seven Deadly Chess Sins by Rowson? Old hat to many I guess, but it was written during my break from chess so I only recently started reading it. Brilliant book that takes a deep look at overthinking and other related issues. Below are my thoughts on each point from the article. 1) Put aside perfectionism Yes and no. An example of yes would be when you're trying to choose between two good looking positional moves. In such situations it's usually better to make a relatively quick decision backed by judgement and a modest amount of concrete analysis, as opposed to spending a ton of time trying (probably unsuccessfully) to figure out the absolute best move. On the other hand, it's easy to think of times when perfectionism is required. An endgame that comes down to a single tempo for example. Or when you're considering playing a queen sacrifice that forces mate (or does it?). 2. Right-size the problem Mostly I'd say this one doesn't seem to apply to chess. 3. Leverage the underestimated power of intuition Yes, this one is super important. As they say, pairing intuition with analytical thinking is key. 4. Limit the drain of decision fatigue Ways to do this in chess are: - Knowing your opening theory well so you can play a good number of moves from memory in the opening. - Understanding typical middlegame positions that you're likely to encounter out of your openings, so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel regarding planning and piece placement. - Having solid endgame technique, so that you don't have to try to solve endgames from first principles. 5. Construct creative constraints The obvious way to apply this to chess is clock management. It's worth having some sort of concrete targets regarding how fast you play. I'll admit that I struggle here so I'm interested to hear what others do.

Traning games

Hi guys! I want to invite you to practice chess mood openings. I have created a tournament on lichess where we can practice Anti-cicilian with Nc3. The tournament will start on 17.12.2022 at 4pm European time. You can find the link to the tournament below: https://lichess.org/tournament/hGoVbaUO Also, feel free to create other tournaments with chessmood openings and post the links here so that we can get better! Remember: "Practice makes the master" 😊

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Scotch question

In Section 3, 4...Nf6 12: 8...d6 1e4 e5 2Nf3 Nf6 3d4 exd4 4Nxd4 Nf6 5Nxc6 bxc6 6e5 Qe7 7Qe2 Nd5 8h4 d6 9c4 Nb6 10exd6 Qxe2 11Bxe2 Bxd6 - so here I am thinking how to keep c4 which is why I am not fond of 12Bf3 Bd7 13Nd2 Bb4 14b3 Bc3 15Rb1 o-o-o and here I stopped right before 16o-o - but should I be concerned about the c4 pawn? In my game I WAS too concerned. So much that I gave/blundered my pawn playing g4, but realizing that black has difficulties finding the best moves, and so we ended in a draw (where I even had obtained advantage). Nice to try these variations. Erik

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Hi Erik,

We do not understand what you meant by this post after the move 15 if you play 0-0, Ne4, Bb2 you are more than ok. You played very good and very principled moves. There is nothing wrong with your position and you did well playing b3 protecting c4.

💪🤠Anyone of the Chessmood team will be more than happy to have this position, 12.Bf3 a good move move and it is in the course too… You did very well, keep on fighting and learning!!!!😀 

Right plan protecting pawn by maybe more precise is 12. Nc3 awaiting black respond and then b3, or short castle. (12. Bf3 Bb7 , 0-0-0 and seems easy plan for black with compensation for doubled pawn). Overall I think this variation seems good for black forcing exchange queen played by black by some 2700 elo including Aronian. Not easy other line to propose.

Chessmood is awesome

This is by far leaps and bounds ahead of all online resources.. i wish i could have met you guys in person and do some rigorous training after i do all the your courses ....

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It's been two years since they organize the tournament Chessmood Open! You can play the openings in your games and meet them all there! Maybe you can consider the 2023 edition :)

Thank you very much 😍for your kind words!!! This fuels us to work more and more!!! 💥
😈And as Akiba said, yes, you can come to Yerevan at any time, every year we host the Chessmood opening and we are able to meet many of our students… Still if you cannot come to the open, you are welcome to come visit us and we will pay the first beer or ice cream if you do not drink! 😈

French Defense main course

Hi ChessMood family! I was watching French defense in the starter courses, and I heard GM Avetik say something about French defense main course (also some other videos talk about it). But I don't see it in the main course section! Was it removed? Can we have it back ? 😁 Thanks!

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Second that! I suspect it has gotten buried by other projects and just hasn't happened. Btw in the exchange french line given it would be nice if the 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. Bb5! Line was given a section. As far as I can tell it forces black to castle kingside even though the top engine move includes the move Bd6, and often later Ne7. It's a big departure from the rest of the exchange french theme and rather confused me when I couldn't find a way to follow my plan without getging a worse game.

Yes, Avetik played the French all his life and he is a true specialist. 😇
That is why we will do a more complete course on the French, following the French Attack repertoire. This is a fact. 
Also we realized that we needed to focus more on the Middlegame and provide our students a very good solid base which is what we are focusing now. 💪
We always strive to provide our students the best courses to improve, not what they want, but what they need. This is our philosophy and what we are doing.😅
 Some people understand this and some people don't but we want you to improve, not to sell courses without any rating improvement. 
Once we finish the courses of the rating booster we will focus again on Openings.🤠

Looking for a Coach

Hello! My name is Jules Carter, I'm 36 years old from the USA and looking for a coach to help me reach my goals. I'm currently rated 1579 USCF and would like to reach 2000 and perhaps even 2200 eventually. I just signed up for ChessMood a couple weeks ago and I'm really enjoying the courses so far and would like a coach that is knowledgeable with the material taught in these courses and wouldn't try to sway me one way or another. I work from home and have a lot of free time on my hands to dedicate to study and practice. I hope someone from the community can help guide me in the right direction! Jules

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Hi Jules,  
Thanks for your message! We checked your uscf stats and we may have someone very nice for you that works with adults with similar profile. We will provide him your email and he will contact you to your email. 🤠

😀Stand by and keep working and enjoying the courses Jules…  

Forcing move Checks

I have a question that persistently bugs me. What should we look for first? King safety, or ensuring we have a proper grasp of what material is on the board? Intuitively I want to go straight for looking at king safety, but that reeks of not reading the question properly before starting to solve it. Equally, I don't want to overcomplicate things and break the natural flow of thought and intuition. I've been spending a lot of time breaking these guidelines down into thoughts that I can use effectively to build good method habits, but naturally there's stuff I'm getting stuck on too. If anyone is so kind as to give me helpful advice, you have my thanks! P.s. Just to clarify, I am talking about the Checks-Captures-Threats mnemonic, which seems to be a pretty good concise checklist for what to look for, but doesn't really teach you how to sort your thoughts all that well.

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It's not clear what you're trying to do - can you clarify? It looks like you're solving puzzles rather than playing, tactical puzzles or daily puzzle (mostly getting stalemates)?

Shouldn't you start by scanning the position and trying to get a feel for what the most important features are? Going through that process should suggest some candidate moves which you can start thinking about.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts guys.

Daily puzzle moodcoin problem

Hello, I solved puzzles from previous days. One of them was a success without any error but i didnt get any moodcoins? Is this a bug or a known issue? Thanks

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I am having this issue as well.

We're still testing it.
We solve them every day waiting for a day when it fails to give us MoodCoins.
But haven't come across the issue yet.
As soon as we figure out why and how the system fails, we'll fix it! Thank you so much for reporting the issue😅!

New Alapin course

I think this is a good call to separate this from the anti-sicilians given its size and its frequency as a good alternative to the open variations. A few things to note: . In the original course, early Nc3 options were not covered (I did mention this a while ago but didn't provide lines - my bad. This would be on move 7 or 8 for example once c3 is free instead of moving the bishop / after exd6 Qxd6). While I understand you don't want to cover every move, this is quite common and also reasonably dangerous if you're not prepared and a potential favourite of the disgruntled Smith Morra player even though it can be reached by both systems. . The Kopec system (Nf3 c3 Bd3 Bc2 with/without h3) ideas while rare might need a reconsider just to mention it as it was recommended as a system (and had a foxy openings video course) by the late Danny Kopec and attracts the occasional question in the forum. It's not so dangerous against our setups and pretty rare, so understandable not to cover it though. . When I'm playing I often find it hard to remember whether I should be playing for d6, e6 or g6 or something else. Having some positional guide, especially where to develop the bishops depending on what the opponent's setup is would be useful. Thanks for the improvement.

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I've finally had some time to go through this course. I think all my issues above were answered. The tricky Nc3 options were covered, a good system against the Kopec and more consistency with the choice of pawn moves making remembering lines much easier. I certainly liked the discussion of the earlier deviations and then the longer lines in the advanced which I thought help consolidate the material much better, especially as White tries a lot of deviation trickery to avoid the mainlines which can be drawish. That said a few things were lost. The 4. g3 variation which was touted as an alternative to d4, Nf3 without d4 and Bc4 as ways for White to explore without going into well known drawish lines. Perhaps that could come back as an advanced section. Also the old 3 d3 is lost (4... e5 is a nice idea), though I feel it was more a relative of the King's Indian Attack and would like to see that covered in the sicilian sidelines course as quite a few players use the KIA against everything and not always with the lines (2. g3 etc) covered. The d3 line originally covered with g6 in the old course looks like a transposition to one of the lines. A couple of other losses include the c4 idea against early Bc4, Bb3 and f5 against Qxd4 lines instead of d6 which perhaps could be lifted and added into the advanced section. Overall a better course and most welcome to break it out as it's one of White's main anti-open options with a lot more concrete variations than the closed.

Find a partner

I just read the latest email from Chessmood. In it GM Avetik talked about how to grow as a chess player. His recommendation is: Study -> Practice -> Fix -> Repeat. I totally agree. But my issue is all my playing is on Chess.com. So I learn something but whether or not I get an opponent that will play in a way I can use what I learned is very hit and miss. So my question is: how do I find a partner with similar goals. I'm 62, mostly retired and I have the time to invest in learning more. My goal is to reach 1200 (at this time I'm around 900). Thank you Allen

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You can ask in the study/sparring partner pinned topic. Most of getting to 1200 (1500 is a quite reasonable short term goal) is getting tactics and checkmates, basic endgames and simple openings worked on, plus avoiding and taking advantage of blunders and most of that can be done without a partner to get to that level reasonably easy. Much of what sub 1200s play will be trappy or home-brew chess with maybe a little theory, so playing good healthy opening play (openings 101) using tactics and attack (tactic ninja/fearless warrior) to punish opponents who don't play healthy chess, avoiding blunders (lots of them in sub1200 games) and noticing your opponent's mistakes (blunderproof) and being able to finish off basic pawn endings (endgame theory you must know / endgame roadmap) will take you beyond 1200. The danger of using a sparring partner of that level is it's the blind leading the blind and while some things can be good to practice (simple endings which if dead won theoretical can be done with an engine anyway) and the shared journey, I'm not sure how much it'll get you. Study, play, puzzles (simple puzzle rush survival first 20 or so problem, checkmates in 1/2 on lichess and a few others) are probably enough at that level. Most of the opening theory you need will only be a few moves long as just playing simple developing rules will be enough in most cases, which should be easily rememberable if you take notes, and provide a base for learning more detail as you move up. Good luck!

Hi Allen,

Welcome to the family and I hope that you find a chess partner soon, but please your partner request post it here:

https://chessmood.com/forum/main-channel/studysparring-partner-1362
Also, check out the posts of other users, maybe your partner is already waiting for you! 😜

Good luck!!!!

Hi Allen, At the 800 (chess.com) level your biggest issue is reducing the frequency at which you gift your opponent material. Conversely, you'll want to increase the rate at which you accept material gifts from your opponent! I've helped a couple of players at this level and I see similar issues in your games. As you start reducing the number of times you give away pieces you'll get much more benefit from the ChessMood openings that you're learning and also from any more advanced concepts that you study. The question is, how to make such improvements. In theory studying tactics should help, but sometimes it doesn't for varying reasons. The most reliable method would be to review your lost games with a coach. If you can't manage a coach, then it is essential to learn from your lost games. Perhaps try collecting the positions where you have made a clear mistake/blunder that gifts your opponent material. I'm not sure how computer savvy you are but you could put them into a chess database, a lichess study, or even just paste them into a Microsoft Word document. The idea is to review the positions a few times, so that you are learning the patterns and how to avoid such mistakes in future. Good luck! cheers, Peter

2 Bishops course_section 6_video number 7. The power of monsters

Good afternoon! I just want to point out one inaccuracy in this video in time 2:55. Comentator is showing line after 23... Qh8 and is saying that 24. Qg5+ Kf7 Rde1 and Nh6+ next move is checkmate, but there is forced mate in 2 after 23...Qh8 24.Nh6+ Kg7 and 25.Qg5++ This time I checked only like 6 times before posting it here! 😀😀😀 With best regards Petrosian64

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Thanks Petrosian,

Dully noted. 😀

Suggestion for Improving

I am stuck at the FIDE Rating of 1300 and nowadays I am not improving. I need some sugggestions and training plans for my improvement.

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Have you seen chessmoods latest article? I think you might be able to get some help from that(https://chessmood.com/blog/how-to-get-better-at-chess). Make sure not to study too much, but also not to play too much. Keep a balance. Also remember to fix your mistakes(ideally by yourself first, then you can check with an engine.) There will always be long stretches of time where your rating won't improve, or even go down, however, at least for me, you will always eventually end up having a massive improvement of hundreds of rating points within a short time span after a few tournaments.