Chess forum by Grandmasters

How to play against 8...Be7

In the anti-sicilian course, there was a line 1.e4 c5 2. Nc3 e6 3. f4 d5 4. Nf3 dxe4 5.Nxe4 Nc6 6. Bb5 Bd7 7. Qe2 Nf6 8.f5... In the course, Avetik only analyses e5 and Nxe4 but my opponent played Be7 and got a good position and then won the game. Please recommend how to deal with this Be7 move. https://www.chess.com/game/live/59009410201

Replies

Hi Rahul,

You can take on e6. If f pawn takes then you get nice target on the e6. And if Bishop takes you can take on c6 and create doubled pawns. After that you develop with 0-0 and d3. Pressuring on weak doubled pawns.

In Sicilian Gp with 1 e4 c5 2 Nc3 e6 3 f4 d5 4 Nf3 dxe4

Hi! I wonder about the position in the picture: What will white play can you give me some ideas? From 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 e6 { B23 Sicilian Defense: Closed } 3. f4 d5 4. Nf3 dxe4 5. Nxe4 Nc6 6. Bb5 Bd7 7. Qe2 Nf6 8. f5 Be7 9. fxe6 Bxe6 10. Bxc6+ bxc6 In this section Avetik says black can do 2 moves but miss 8 Be7 seems okey? https://chessmood.com/course/sicilian-defence-part-3/episode/801

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Hi Erik!

This position looks practially very easy to play for white, as Black has doubled weak pawns. I would go for 0-0 and d3 development. Lately trying to pressure on the weaknesses of opponent.

New success story: Becoming FM and gaining 116 elo in just 3 events!🚀

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https://chessmood.com/feedback/william-graif
And under this forum thread, you can share your thoughts and congratulatory wishes to William.

Replies

Great Job William👏👏👏

great inspiration, hopefully one day I'll achieve it too, was so close 2260 😅

Well done William, you can be proud of yourself. Now we hope to see you achieve the IM although combine this with work is difficult. It's curious these tournaments in Budapest, because I remember the youngest GM ever, Abu Mishra, won his 3rd.GM norm in Budapest and the other, GM Keith Arkell in FB said not to go to Budapest because is packed with underrated indians and your rating will fall not to 2400 (he is a senior english GM) but you'll have to struggle not to break the 2300 floor 🤣

Congratulations William! Thank you for sharing so many insights! 

Congratulations William! I wish you come back to Budapest to achieve the International Master title!

quiz answers????

Is there anyway to see the quiz answers if someone is constantly getting it wrong? Thank you and love the quizzes! Tim

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I agree there should be a hint, or a give up after 3 tries.

Send it to the team to debate it, but the temptation of the dark force (checking the answers without proper thinking) may become too strong. We'll see what we can do about it… 😀

How to download a pgn on iPad ?

Which program should work on iPad ? My computer is out of date . I used chessbase 2007 on a laptop 10 yrs + ago . Can I avoid a buying new pc ?

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Hi Denis!

In my iPad I use Chess Studio to edit pgns. You can also split your screen with the 2 apps, one watching a video, in the other taking notes… 

It is very cheap but very powerful with many options. Of course a PC with Chessbase is better, but on iPad this is the easier way to go I believe. 😀

Coverage of Simplified BlackMood for non- 1.e4 1.d4?

Hi, the course description for the simplified BlackMood openings states that with just two openings we'll be ready for: 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.c4, 1.Nf1, 1.g3, and 1.b3. I only see coverage in the course for 1.e4 and 1.d4. I'm under 2000, but I face 1.c4 quite a lot, for example. Will there be instructions for those other White first moves as well? Or if I'm missing where it is, please point it out to me! The course description also mentions the GreyMood Openings, but I don't see any mention of this in the course....?

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Hi Ken,

Everything is in the works. Avetik is recording the GreyMood openings and it will be available soon.

The same goes for the Advanced versions of the French and Dutch attack. (Recording not yet started though)

As for 1 c4, you just go, with the usual Dutch setup and the same for Nf3,  we play with e6, f5, Nf6, and adapt the order to the opponent moves. Normally you get a transposition. 😀

If against c4 you want something much more detailed in the advanced Black repertoire, the course by Gabuzyan explains perfectly how to play against the English, https://chessmood.com/course/english-opening-1.c4-how-to-play-for-black

💪

Accelerated dragon game

https://lichess.org/mSlxDBFUyVif Hi guys i tried the advanced maroczy bind setup in that game. Let me know if that was a correct strategy overall. Looks like i can feel better this opening lately. Tx keep the good chessmood for good chessmoves!

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You played an excellent game with some slight different move order at the beginning. The only remark: After 11..Bg5 we play h6 and we will get the DSB💪. 

Puzzle rush benefits

Interesting article here: https://www.chess.com/blog/LogoCzar/the-puzzle-rush-experiment note the chess.com thread that pointed me here also pointed out some sites you can play it at (I'm not a great fan of the lichess implementation) for free. https://chesscup.org/ and https://blitztactics.com/ Note that I'm not so sure about the findings particularly as many of the easier puzzles are too easy and seem to be automatic already. For weaker players this might be very beneficial (note the danger of relying on intuition solely in real games). Note that David Milliern who is quoted in the article a lot isn't that strong a player, so how much applies to 2000+ players is unclear. Also interesting is the finding that 2hrs+ training (really? Surely need harder puzzles) temporarily improved calculating abilities, but the question would be either how to make it permanent or to reduce to a more management 30 mins - 1hr regime. I've noticed the following sequence goes on (though changed by what I see on the board): Locate the enemy king - can I give check or mate in 1 or two - might be against the king, might be a discovery tactic Look for knight forks, skewers, pins Look for other loose pieces and double attacks Try attacks against queen, rooks, bishops I notice that when I miss or go slow on the easier tactics, it's often down to the following reasons: Something was just outside my view or I hadn't seen it yet Two ideas were promising, I chose the wrong one or didn't look for the other Harder tactics usually because of more complex calculations, more interactions or counters to take account of.

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Note I also like the levels test at blitzchess, since you get to repeat the puzzles every 3 minutes or so. Something like this would be useful in chessmood, though I feel many of the tactic ninja quiz puzzles are too difficult for this, although simpler versions such as in the course or having levels might alleviate that.

Thanks for those sites, they look useful! Heisman emphasizes the importance of drilling simple tactics, even for stronger players (maybe they need to do it less frequently than new players). The goal is not to solve them, but to *recognize* them instantly. He likens this to learning the multiplication tables -- you memorize these basic patterns so that: 1) you can eliminate unsafe candidate moves very fast; 2) you use them as fundamental building blocks of more complex combinations, allowing to you stop calculation once you reach a simpler pattern you recognize. It's also a great warmup (as Avetik mentions in the Blunderproof course!)

I think there is a lot to this stuff. I do regular (chess.com) puzzle rushes - usually the 5 minute one. I don't do 2 hours a day, well not usually anyway :-). But I'll often do 2-3 rushes and have done over 1500 in total. I think it helps overall sharpness. I'm also certain that I've improved how well/fast I can recognise some of these tactical patterns and have felt the benefits in blitz games. Yes, many of the tactics are very easy. But they start getting more interesting as you get into the 30s. I also find the easy ones quite interesting. The key is to really push the pace. Then you'll find out how well these easier patterns are embedded in your subconscious mind.

Delay Alapin

Hai GM,

Any suggestion variation to meet delay Alapin

1.e4 c5

2.Nf3 d6

3.c3

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2. ... Nc6 and stop placing your pawn on d6 so early.  You may be able to play d5 straight away and the Knight is NOT going to d7.   :)

I do believe that 3…Nf6 is one of the best moves, easy to understand and to study. Yes, I would go 3…Nf6. 💪

Can't Open my courses

Hi, the wonderful chessmood team😀😀 Recently when I tried to open the course:- 1. Sicilian Defense: Accelerated Dragon I wasn't able to see the videos even though I had bought them with my mood coins and also I can't open my other courses which I bought with my moodcoins. I hope the problem is resolved very soon. Cheers Vedant

Replies

Hi Vedant, please use the  
https://chessmood.com/contact

page for this kind of personal questions regarding your account, payments and such, instead of the open forum.

If you prefer, you can also send an email to [email protected]

and explain your case. (Just copying and expanding a bit on the the above text will be enough.) 
Thanks! 😀

Should I practice ChessMood opening recommendations before I have had time to learn them?

Hi, I am roughly 2050 chess.com and am wondering if I should start playing the ChessMood opening recommendations from the step-by-step openings course before I have looked at many lines. It might be good to test them out to learn things about the opening while playing and gain experience but I might be crushed in the opening and lose a lot of rating because of it. My old repertoire is 1.d4, caro-kann and slav so it is a very big change in style.

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Presumably you're talking online blitz in which case why not? I tend to start by going through the courses first, building my PGN files as I go, but I don't think that's the only way to do it. For some initial inspiration you could watch a few model games from https://chessmood.com/course/rock-n-rolling-with-black and learn the theory gradually when you review your blitz games. Also, you don't have to adopt the entire repertoire right away. You can do it piece by piece. You might even settle upon a hybrid repertoire that is a combination of ChessMood openings plus your own favourite lines.

I just started the black opening course and after the first 2 sections only , I went on lichess to play 5m+2 to try some ideas with the French . I was able to maintain a 1930 level winning most of games with black ! ( I m 1600 for blitz on chess.com . (1870 rapid ) . I m a Dutch player but no experience with French ( I play the exchange variation with c4 as white with very good result usually ) . I m trying to check after each game where it went away from the minimum I known. I m also writing down the game on a note book ( just started that on feb 19 ) and the some main moves and recommendations from the course . With minimum work, I feel very positively about this new opening for me .

Interactive Quizzes within Courses

Hi everyone, I am just going through 'Tactic Ninja' and realized today that there are new interactive quizzes within the chapters in addition to the questions/quizzes normally included in the course. Is that something new or has it only been added to 'Tactic Ninja'. I think it's a lovely idea; and for the developers; maybe it would be lovely to be able to resize the board. I don't know whether ChessMood wants us not to be able to draw lines etc., but that could be a nice addition. What do you all think?

Replies

Hi Selim,

💪Thanks for your kind words, we are doing our best and the interactive quizzes are being added constantly to most of the courses. Of course, we will improve the functions too and add more cool features but at the moment we are very happy that we have quizzes! 😅

Blitz chess

I've started the study plan that is now offered on Chessmood. I've been playing for a few years (I'm retirement age) and over the last few months with ChessMood I've reached a rating of 1070 in Rapid on Chess.com. The guide for what study plan to use is based on your rating. So with the rating chart provided a 1025 Rapid rating on Chess.com should translate over to an 800 rating in Blitz chess. I'm doing the 5/5 Blitz. Just started today. I started out at 300. I played 13 games and won 7. Now my rating is 320. Is it just me or is Blitz so difficult? Am I missing something to know as to how to play Blitz successfully? It's pretty demoralizing.

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Blitz is tough, for sure. Particularly if you haven't played it much before. But it does get easier! There will be an adaption phase as you develop and internalise a rhythm that works for 5/5 time control. I bet you will increase 100-200 points over the next couple of weeks Of course it's super important to review your games and take note of the worst mistakes. Anytime you see you've made a bad blunder, like overlooking checkmate or giving away a piece for nothing, spend a little time figuring out what you should have played. It doesn't necessarily have to be the top computer move, just a move that avoids the blunder. It should be a move that makes sense to you. Then spend a little time stepping back and forward through moves around the blunder and imagine yourself being more aware of the situation and playing the better move.

Dear Allen, 
You played 13 games… Please check this article and apply it… 
https://chessmood.com/blog/golden-method-to-increase-rating-in-chess
As a general rule, the older you are the faster you lose focus. (Please check when you lost more games, at the beginning or at the end… Normally at the end you will lose focus). 

Also read our blog to find many good recommendations on how to play and analyze blitz or rapid games.

I always recommend my students older than 50 to play 3 games rapid max., or if Blitz 5 games. Full focus, analyze all the games together (not one by one after playing one game), then take a rest and if you still want to play, then do the same. Decide beforehand how many games and do your best. 
To play a lot of blitz games in one session is not beneficial for your growth…

Hi, Allen! I can sympathize, I've also recently made a return to serious chess study & play (I'm approaching retirement age) and my blitz results are horrendous! I'm hovering around 900-1000 on chess.com mostly playing 3+0. One thing to note about blitz is that the different blitz time controls are really very different games, and the player pools are very different as well. My impression is that the 3+0 pool is the strongest, it is also the fastest blitz option, being right on the border with bullet. That's the one I've been playing, but I think I'm going to move to slower controls and to controls with increment, because the time scramble aspect of zero-increment blitz is not something I really enjoy, and I like to be able to win easily theoretically winning positions, which with a 3 or 5 second increment is much more doable. One thing I think beginner players are lacking is the built-in habit of looking for opponent strong replies (checks, captures, threats) before making your own move. It is in my opinion the single most important habit to develop (every move of every game!). It is the single most important factor (I think) separating beginner and stronger players. In playing blitz, while there are many benefits (you exercise your opening repertoire a lot, and get exposure to a lot of different kinds of positions more quickly), the player tends to fall back on his/her habits. If the player doesn't have the habit of considering opponent replies, playing a lot of blitz may just reinforce this bad habit and make it harder to eliminate. Of course beginners need to sharpen their tactical vision via tactics courses and quizzes, especially doing tons and tons of really simple tactics to deeply ingrain the basic patterns so that when the appear on the board, you see them instantly. What many don't realize is that the single most frequent use of tactical vision is *defensive*: when visualizing your planned candidate move, pretend you've made the move and the position is "your opponent to move and win": did you just hang a piece? Remove a defender of a pawn? Allow a pin/fork/skewer/mate-in-one? Your opponent may never give you an easy tactic (at lower levels they often will, though!), but if you don't look before you move, you're almost guaranteed to give one to your opponent at least once a game! It doesn't have to be super deep looking ahead, either, try at first just considering ONE opponent reply before moving -- but look for strong moves, as if you were in their shoes after making your planned move. For beginners, this takes time to find these moves and analyze them, but as your board vision and mental calculation gets better and you'll be able to do this faster. It's important to force yourself to do this every move of every game. Never move without first considering your opponent's strong replies. Incorporate this into all your study: all tactics positions, all quizzes, all game play. This does take time, so to start with, perhaps focus on longer blitz controls, or even rapid / classical play. Good luck! If you want to play some games, I'd be happy to play with you and go over the games afterwards. My chess.com username is "keaaww". Regards, Ken

ChessMood Study Plan (new @ 140223)

I am very pleased to have an email from coach GM Avetik today, promoting the new study guide (& interactive quizzes). I have made a start on the Study Plan Roadmap for Improvement for 1500-2000 rating. Hopefully, I can complete all parts & I am accountable for this & hopefully it will be worthwhile & bring rating improvement, better knowledge & understanding & more chess enjoyment! Thanks ChessMood! Right Mood Right Move! ;-)

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Yes, these are very good developments! The study guides should be useful for a lot of people and the interactive puzzles are a big step forward. For interactive puzzles, I have one main request: I would like to see an improvement to what happens when a correct solution is given. Right now a big green tick is displayed for about 1 second and then the next puzzle is shown. The problem I have is that the green tick completely obscures the final position (see attached image). I believe this detracts from the learning experience because often we are still staring at the position and processing the patterns involved. Having just received the positive feedback that our solution was correct, I suspect it's a particularly important moment of time for cementing our learning so one last glance at the final position is likely to be useful. Solution: There are a few possibilities. Maybe just move the tick to be next to the board. Or just give the tick image a transparent background so we can still see the position behind it.

Ye, I am still waiting for 2000+ rating Study plan. For interactivity - I like it very much. I am missing some features that can be included in the future: 1) All failed puzzles could be collected somewhere to repeat them again 2) Sometimes I would like to load analysis board. Maybe it is not important if everything is clear, but sometimes it is really helpful to analyze move that you do not understand 3) I would like to know on which courses there are interactive puzzles added 4) There are "Quizzes" after some courses and I have not really noticed them before (not sure when those appeared). I would love to seem them inside the course and not as separate button :D

Mood coins

How i can use it and how many does I need

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E.g. for buying a course just select "or get lifetime access" on the right side of the page, then click buy the course and among others there is the option of making the purchase with MoodCoins - just one more hint: if you type a few key words (such as e.g. moodcoins) on top of the forum in the search window, you can easily find answers that have been given before, which might be useful for us chessmood students

Hi, One place you can use the coins is to buy a course as lifelong. The number then depends on the course, and the duration for example you require 500k for some. One good way to gan more coins is through solving the daily puzzles.

Question on an interactive quizz

Hello, is there an error in the quizz in tactic ninja course, clearance section, 5th interactive quizz, exercise 7? I dont see the solution...

Replies

Thanks for reporting this, we will fix it asap.😅

Always trying to improve and do our best! COGRO!!☺️

Fixed!👍

Scotch Game 4...Nxd4 5.Qxd4 Ne7

Hello ChessMood Family, Recently, in one of my games against a friend, he played 1...e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 and Scotch Game and later on, on the 4th move he took on d4 which is covered in the courses, I played 5.Qxd4 Ne7 6.Bc4 Nc6 7.Qd5 Qf6 8.Bg5 Qg6 (This is not covered if I am correct) 9.0-0 and he played 9...Bd6, I found it a bit annoying, he then played 0-0 and got a not-bad position, after the game was over when I checked with the engine it was showing that 9...Bd6 is the best move and it was around equal at first around depth = 30, after that it changed but still I would like to know what to/you all play against 9...Bd6. Hope to hear from you!

Replies

Instead of 6.Bc4 followed by 0-0, I'd play 6.Nc3 Nc6 7.Qe3 followed by Bd2 and 0-0-0. White is much better here.

Scotch Bc5 Bb4+ Be7

I know this has been mentioned on the forum before, but is there the possibility of adding an advanced section on this line. Here's a game I played today against a 2181. Both the engine and GM Ris suggest 8. Bg3 instead of Qd2.

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At the end of the game the engine says 0.0 and c5 is the suggested move, though I had 10 mins vs 27, so I think my opponent should have practically seen a few moves before offering a draw.

Sethuraman's "1.e4 Part 1" course on Chessable covers many Scotch sidelines and offers some interesting alternatives to the CM Scotch repertoire. The explanations are brief, but the lines are top-notch. (The video isn't worth the extra money.)

The chess song the world is waiting for

I have an idea for a chess song and i'm looking for some help to write it. In the idea, there are two voices, which represents two characters playing chess against each other. The first voice represents a nice guy who plays good positional chess and sings with a beautiful melodic voice. The second voice represents a villain who grabs a pawn and stubbornly tries to hold on to it, allowing his opponent to get a more active position. His voice is quite annoying too. Each verse, the first voice sings about something that gives him a long term advantage (space, activity, bishop pair, etc.) and the second voice will always replies screaming "I'M UP A PAWN" something like: i have complete control on the only open file I'M UP A PAWN my pieces works together in beautiful harmony I'M UP A PAWN and so on

Replies

You might want to see what ChatGPT can come up with. It's quite impressive in this sort of thing.

The way your wrote 'I'M UP A PAWN' made me instantly think of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NisCkxU544c I know it has nothing to do with chess (or be helpfull for the song, sorry about that) but the idea is the same. Sentence Like a boss (i'm up a pawn) Sentence Like a boss (i'm up a pawn) ...

Where to start

Well, the title is a bit missleading and also not really. (Just to confuse you even more :-D) It's missleading as it's pretty obvious where to start on chessmood with the vids. It also isn't but that's just my chess in general, I really need some structure in my practice but march 3rd I have my 1-1 call. So looking forward to this! Anyway, back to the point ... I always had a bit of a FOMO but since I'm a member here it's skyrocketing :-D ... There is so much content to watch here in ChessMood, which is awesome ofcourse, but with the great additions lately I'm getting lost. I always want to stop with what I'm watching and watch the new content. Anyone else with the same feeling?

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Hi Gabriel! Welcome to the family 😍

The first thing to check is the study plan while  waiting for your 1on 1 if you are a yearly promember.

There you will find where to start and what to do according to your rating…. Check it out:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NyVJXCzrN6LoiJGZgUhkEeS5almcQbH8JzE2jJETBYA/edit

😀Happy learning 😉