Curiosity

I am interested in taking  chess courses  that cater to the 1200 rated player. Can you give me the names or numbers of a few of them  to see if I am interested in purchasing them? 

Replies

At the moment you can check for free the course:

1. Starter Course - WhiteMood Openings

https://chessmood.com/course/whitemood-openings

But I recommend you to become a promember then you can enjoy all of courses at anytime:

https://chessmood.com/courses

Our most special and worked out courses are only available for promembers, like the

https://chessmood.com/course/tactic-ninja

or the

https://chessmood.com/course/opening-principles

or

https://chessmood.com/course/mating-matador

But you can check any course since some videos are free and see what you feel.

When I jumped from about 1300 to 1500 the following things were in particular necessary for me:

Tactics - avoid dropping material, being able to see more tactics

Endgame - being able to correctly play K + P Vs K especially

Knights - in particular all types of forks

(I already had some reasonable openings for the most common lines, and muddled my way through the less frequent ones).

I soon after won the British U125 rating (about 1500) championship with 5/5 back in 1998

To do this I was playing probably a match game every week or two, maybe a tournament every few months, as well as a few online games (not a lot since I could only access the Internet at work - long ago!). I was also reading (often more browsing) several books, some were good for my level and some certainly weren't. You don't want to know how much I spent on books (and they are about 3 times the price now).

Where I'm going with this, is I can't say for certainty you'll make that jump in the next few months, but if you did study the courses that Odysseus mentions and probably the pawn ending one too and play some serious over the board chess you'll probably get there a lot quicker than being left to work it all out from purchasing the right books or courses elsewhere costing you more. It would take 2-3 months to go through the courses mentioned at the recommended speed of a section a day. There are several reports of a couple of hundred points increase after doing even just the tactics course whereas for me long before this resource it took 1-2 years!

The pro membership is a bargain at the current price (set to rise soon except for existing members before then) and if I could have paid that (let alone the adjustment for inflation!) for 3 months and made the same gains it took in 2 years I'd have jumped at it. It does sound a sales pitch, but I think at your level given the reports of similar people, it would really be worth it. And 1500 is just a stepping stone as there are some great courses here and a whole opening repertoire to get you (much) further.

Hope that helps.

Origin of blind swine mate

Wikipedia mentions a Polish master referring to rooks on the 7th as swine, but that doesn't really explain much to the non-English speaker.

Here's what seems to make sense and is a probable explanation:

Rooks on the 7th are also known as pigs on the 7th, as they eat all the pawns. Swine is another word for pigs, or relating to pigs. An alley is a gap between buildings that is a small path or road (there are many alternative regional words for this). A blind alley means it doesn't lead anywhere, typically blocked by another building or wall. Hence the attacking rooks are the swine, and the 8th rank blocking rook makes the blind alley, hence the likely explanation.

Replies

One other thing, a road that doesn't lead to another open road (known as a cul-de-sac or close), has a 'dead end' (possibly literally as hundreds of years ago it was a very dangerous place to be). Which is also fitting as that is what happens to the king!

Question in Bd3 French de line

Coaches, 

I am really enjoying the Bd3 french, I've had quite a bit of success with it. 

I encountered a line in a G/45 game that I had a question about. Can you recommend a plan after the following:

e4 e6

d4 d5

Bd3 de

Bxe4 Nf6

Bf3 c5

Ne2 cd

Qxd4 Nbd7*

I wasn't sure what to do here and couldn't come up with a great plan. I ended up winning the game (game link below). I saw that Grischuk played this move against Magnus in blitz back in 2012 and won, any help would be appreciated. Magnus played Nbc3 in that game, which appears to be best.

Bd3 game (lichess.org)

Thank you for all of your great work coaches.

-Ben

Replies

Hey Benjamin! Good question. 
The way to play is 8.Nbc3, and after Bc5  9.Qf4! 
This is the important move, keeping an eye on Ne5. If 9...0-0, 10.0-0, next Qg3.
It's very uncomfortable to play this for Black with their development problems on the queenside. 

scandinavian

chessmood family can you please help me with this line.  1. e4 d5 2. exd5 nf6 3.Bb5+ c6 4. dxc6  bxc6..

where do i place my bishop then black next move is e5..

Replies

I guess that Bc4 or Be2, even Ba5 are good. You should try what feels more comfortable to you. White is already a pawn up and Black has a weakened Queen side.

Hey Jay! 
Bc4! 
Then the best way is d3,Nc3,Nge2,0-0! 
Nge2 is better than Nf3, as there will not be Bg4 - unpleasant pin. The same setup is strong against Scandinavian Gambit as well, which you can find in the WhiteMood Openings course. 

Bad and good news... (if you missed the email)

Dear chess friend! 
I have two pieces of news. 

Let’s start with the bad.
Very-very soon we’re launching the new website.
Now, you’re surprised, “Is it bad” ? :)
No, no :) 
It’s gonna be much nicer, more comfortable and with new features. 

The bad part is that the prices will rise…

Now, the good news.
They’ll remain the same for you :)

Yeah, we decided to keep it the same for all our early PRO Members!
You trusted us when we were new in the market, how dare we not appreciate it? :D 

 Just one thing.

Make sure there are enough funds on your card or PayPal.
Once you leave the PRO Membership, you can’t come back with the old price.

And one request.

If you have friends, that wanted to become a PRO Member one day, this is the best time, before the prices rise.
Please send them a message. I’ll appreciate it a lot.

Thanks for your support!

The more students we have, the easier it is for us to create more materials for you, add features on the website and much other stuff.
So, thanks for helping me make the chess world a better place.

With best wishes,
Avetik 

Replies

The upcoming changes! (important)

Hey everyone! 

Very soon we’re launching our redesigned website and the prices will rise for new PRO Members. however, it’ll stay the same for our students who became PRO before the new website! 

If you don’t have any intention to become a PRO Member, speed up your growth and join hundreds of our students who raised their rating significantly, it’s up to you. It’s your life.

But if you wanted to become a PRO Member one day, that day is today.
Before we launch the new website.

As Tim Ferris said, “Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you.”  :D
And after we launch the new website, today’s price will not be available anymore.

Below is the link, where you can become a PRO Member, get unlimited access to 300+ hours of courses, live training and much more. 

https://chessmood.com/become-a-pro

And as Zig Ziglar said “You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. ”

It’s your move.
With best wishes,
Avetik

P.S
I’ve always hated selling. I’ve hated marketing and advertisement.
But then I “got a call” from Jay Abraham, who said “If you have a product that you GENIUNELY believe will change the world, you have the MORAL OBILIGATION to sell it.”

I have a moral obligation… That touched my heart.
So, while it might sound I’m selling you the PRO Membership, I genuinely believe that ChessMood is the best place to speed up your chess growth and I’m trying to help you.

Hopefully, you appreciate my honesty.
Cheers. 

Replies

I agree with you. Became a pro member and this is the only website where I have found content which is targeted to people who are starting chess. Looking forward to more courses and material for player around 1200 levels.

Middlegame skills, how to enhance?

What is the best way/routine to improve middlegame skills? 

The classical game are perfect and very instructive but I think we need to practice idea and plan about our chessmood repertoire! Are you agree?? 

And..we also have to consider how much time to spend on middlegame weekly because there are a lot of fields to train as tacticts and endgame skills. (I consider the parte of OP done)

Replies

Themed tournaments

Hi all,

If you are like ,e then you are probably struggling sometime to practise what you learn in the opening videos. I found that doing some rapid games are not working for and want to find another way and was thinking to create some themed 1 day per move tournaments for PRO members

rules should be:

1. you cannot use an engine
2. you can use, and should, the video course on the theme we are playing.
3. you play white and black, so 2 games.

If anybody is up for this I will create this on Lichess or chess.com depending on where people are playing online

Please reply here if you are interested

Replies

Theo,

Thank you for organizing this, I would participate.

I think it will also contribute to the community feeling as people become more familiar with each other. 

Thanks

Blackmood opening...We're waiting!

We're waiting the blackmood opening...The whitemood OP course is fantastic!

I had my own png file but it is almost useless at my level (1500-1600). I finally understand idea and positions about my white repetoire, I felt that something was missing and with this course I found the last piece of equation. When you are a 1600 player your opponent don't study a lot of theory and position in the board are very very different. 

Thanks Chessmood team for this update!!

Alessio 

Replies

I completely agree.  I keep checking for the blackmood openings.  I love openings but at my level, rated 1000, my opponents usually play something strange by move 4 that derails everything and I struggle to punish them.  The new course has been great!

It will be coming shortly to all your screens! :-) it takes a lot of time to create, verify, record, check the videos but we love to to do it, for most of us it is a dream job, working on chess all day! The feedbacks on the Whitemood openings have been fantastic and we have to do the same for Black! ;-)

Thanks for your kind words! 
We'll keep doing our best. 
Please cheer up us with your raised ratings! :) 

Why did the blog stop?

Why did the blog stop?

Replies

Maybe there are not enough hours in a day.

Tactic Ninja, Mating Matador, simplefied repertoire for White and Black ... New website ... 

Well, the blog did not exactly stop, it is just in standby mode, but I am sure that the most important points to learn are already explained.

And yes, doing lots of courses and different things for all of you, the new website is almost, almost ready, fingers crossed!!!

Dear friend, we had to make decisions and instead of doing all, sacrifice something. 
We'll restart once a week blogs right after launching the new website :) 

The best games of February, 2022, and the prizes

Hello ChessMood family, hello champions and future champions! 
Welcome to the "Best games of February 2021" competition.
Under this post, we invite you to post the best games that you will play this month. 

The Prize fund is 350K MoodCoins which is equal to 350$.  

The 1st prize  - 150K
The 2nd prize - 100K
The 3rd prize-  50K
The 4th Prize- 30k
The 5th Prize- 20k

Good luck with your games and keep the Right Mood! 
#ChessMood
#Right Mood - Right Move 

P. S.
Here are the winners of January, 2022:

Vladimir Bugayev
Skipper Chess
Arman S.
Yuma Okabe
Regis H.

Replies

Hello ChessMood family!

We saw some really amazing games in the 1st month of 2022, filled with unique ideas, attacking games and positional masterpieces! It was a pleasure to go through them. 

Here is the list of prize winners for January 2022...

The 1st prize goes to Vladimir Bugayev for this fantastic positional game.

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/35359014531

The 2nd prize goes to Skipper Chess for this deadly attacking game with a nice finish. 

https://www.vint.ee/en-gb/replay/12589506/

Arman S gets the 3rd prize for their creative idea of bringing the Rook into the game. 

https://lichess.org/BQf4mU6Q

Yuma Okabe bags the 4th prize for their interesting positional exchange sacrifice with 16.Rxd5 and a nice tactic to finish off the game.

https://lichess.org/ejOJLqJv/white

The 5th prize goes to Regis H. for their brave 11... b4 move.

https://www.chess.com/game/live/36163167649

Congratulations to all of you, and thank you everyone for sharing your games :) 

It’s a great start to 2022, and we look forward to seeing you all grow.

Till then, keep the right mood and Cogro!

See you in the next month’s contest!

Attacking Game!
and cool mate

https://www.chess.com/game/live/37552286853

Almost perfect philidor attack

https://lichess.org/Qxuv8NDY/white#53

Not bad for a bullet game huh? hehe

Thank you Coach!

https://www.chess.com/live#g=37830055965

https://www.chess.com/live#g=37883453035

https://lichess.org/Zh0vivPh/white#33

The reason we should castle or else we end up like this!

ChessMood Openings OP 

#RightMoodRightMove #Cogro

Positional french

https://lichess.org/kyztxtcy/white

https://lichess.org/BN9t1IuBB2ec  trying to create weaknesses ( minority attack)

https://lichess.org/tUYQVNSS/white#41

The reason we should develop fast and not go for material 

Center break!!

https://lichess.org/vIRPC6rQ/white#47

Fast attack in CM antisicilian

https://lichess.org/a9WEI4rt/white#1

Grand Prix ...and another win!

https://lichess.org/fsPzCyvL3CLB 

nice Petroff crush with improvement on the course !

https://lichess.org/8FXOfCs1CHAC 

I won against FIDE2100+ with right mood!

https://lichess.org/6O6VCWZN 

Also when I started this game,I was very excited and I played very dynamic!!!

And I crushed him with just 18 moves!!

This bullet game is a good application of old timer Damiano's mate from the new Chess Matador course.

Thank you Avetik!

https://lichess.org/5dD57roaQFzI

Cheers

Ovi

When powerful coordination beats material 

https://lichess.org/0dj5Mygi/white#0

https://lichess.org/fP4w9D6R#55

dangers of playing h6

I’m almost definitely going to get banned from lichess with this game.  Don’t know how I did it but it’s 0 inaccuracies/mistakes/blunders

https://lichess.org/1JaWIrpM/white

Winning my first 2700 GM on Titled tuesday

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/38679854447

I could have mated faster, but this was a great game for me with the Scotch.  Loving the Whitemood Openings.  Lichess said Avg. Centipawn Loss of 26 (which is amazing for me)!!!

First 2400 down with caro can

https://lichess.org/fjlnHeTby1qG 

Grand Prix 

https://lichess.org/RwuDq1DM/white#35 

Perfect game!

https://lichess.org/nIBnnJT3/white#37

Grand Prix working again

https://lichess.org/j4wv3nD2/white#39 

Caro can - 20 move win with chessmood opening

https://lichess.org/s21DLVWuZAAW 

Here is one of my best games from the Southwest Class Championships in Dallas.

Here is another good game from the Southwest Class Championships

nice

Scotch game, follow the course and checkmate#

https://www.chess.com/game/live/39401970291

Green_Keo vs UndertakervsKane: B10 Caro-Kann Defense • lichess.org

Opponent made a mistake Nc4 and I won the game after Rxb7. (Second highest rated opponent that I have defeated).

Haven't played chess in a while, and still increased my rating by 130 points.

Anty sicilian works again! 

https://lichess.org/KHOppnXr9sOM 

Intuitive rook sacrifice vs GM

https://www.vint.ee/en-gb/replay/12642824/

Breakthrough in opposite-coloured bishop ending. 71. ... f4!

https://www.vint.ee/en-gb/replay/12649173/

Chessmood setup in English opening, mating attack

https://www.vint.ee/en-gb/replay/12648863/

Good positional game vs IM

https://www.vint.ee/en-gb/replay/12716259/

https://lichess.org/AyfQ3Sj3/black#16
Was losing for the majority of the game but made a comeback in the endgame!

Thank You Couch!!

Cool scotch squeeze

https://www.chess.com/game/live/39898121979 

Simplified Opening Repertoire

Just a note to the Chess-Mood team. I really appreciate all the extra work that has gone into this. I have to admit that whilst I like the e4  attacking style, I sometimes become seriously unglued in 10 min games and in very tactical open positions find, because I am not Tal, I can make a serious slip that takes +6>  on LiChess to a loss or draw. 

Thanks I appreciate all the work . Very helpful.

Replies

Yes, this is one of the main problems of any chess player, keeping the concentration and not making blunders. We are working on a course that will help to solve this too although it is more complex than anyone could have imagined at the beginning...

In the meanwhile step by step, try to keep calm and good mood while playing, we always forget how important it is to have the right mood and not to play when you are too tired!

A stunning alternative to a mating matador mate!!

Unbelievable!

In the mating matador course, the Balestra mate, example #5, there is actually a non-balestra mate possible.

After the Nb3#, there is also Ba3# and  white can't avoid mate delivered with the queen and knight.

Cheers

Ovi

Replies

Hey Ovi! Sorry, I didn't understand what do you mean? :) 

Santa Avetik Wishlist

Thank you to the Chessmood team for the new classes! I have just started the classes, but I can already say that, as always, the content is superb :)

This is just one opinion among others, and whether you do it or not, I am going to renew my PRO membership, but here is my Santa Claus (Santa Avetik?!?) wishlist:

=== OPENINGS ===

- Expand Benko Gambit (*)

- Expand Crushing d4 Sidelines (**)

- Complete Czech Pirc

- Complete Alekhine Defense

=== ENDGAMES ===

- Rook endgames (***)

- Endgame strategy (along the lines of Shereshevsky’s book that I have not read)

- More Instructional Classical Endgames (****)

(*) Just compare Philidor Defense (5h30) vs. Benko Gambit (3h09). If you’re 2200, the Benko Gambit should occur in ~8% of your games, while the Philidor Defense should occur in only ~1% of your games (taking into account Modern Philidor and 3….Nc6 that can also occur with a Scotch move order). I am not saying that the Benko Gambit course should be 44 hours long (if we take the Philidor class as the baseline), but could we expand a little bit?

(**) For example:

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Bg5

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. g3 (staying away from Benko and Maroczy)

(***) I am thinking of:
Basic theory along the lines of what Daniel Rensch did for chess.com

Typical situations (e.g. 3 vs. 3 on the kingside and one passed pawn on the queenside)

Practical rook endgames (along the lines of Kortchnoi’s book that I have not read)

(****) I am not worried about this one as you keep adding up. It’s really great stuff and I hope that you don’t stop anytime soon!

Replies

Classical Attaking Games & Instructional Classical Endgames will have 100 games like Commented Classical Games (this is announced in the introductions)! (New games are uploaded each week before they start streaming on Youtube)

I hope you will enjoy the content, personally, the Classical Endgames is my favorite series from Chessmood! 

PS: I think this content is already quite similar to what you can find in Shereshevsky's book! Also, don't forget about the Daily Lesson with a GM on Youtube, the material is also very nice there!

Yes, I completly agree e.g with  extending Benko Gambit for black.

Chessable are going very deep with their courses so we also need reliable weapon especially as black. Probably the most members are below 2200 but as they said there also GM.

I hope improved course will be on he new page :)

Dear friend! Thanks a lot. 
Yeah, these all are on our to-do list and I and Gabuzyan spend on average 5 hours a day recording material. Everything is coming :) 

Well, I would like to have a course on Benoni authored by GM Avetik.  There are many good courses on it. But as Dvoretsky said, "Evaluations, heard from the lips (or read in the commentaries) of the experts of an opening, sometimes help you to sense the subtleties of opening strategy far better than lengthy articles and specialized books."

Doubt in Petroff course

In Section-8 of the Petroff course after 6...Be7 7.Bd3 0-0 8.0-0 Bg4 9.h3 Bh5 10.Re1 Re8 11.Bg5 Nbd7 12.Re3 after Nf8 it is mentioned we are supposed to go 13.Bf5.

Why is it not possible to take 13.Rxe7 and go Nd5 here ?

Replies

Hello Pragkya,

Could you please clarify a number of the video?

13. Rxe7?! Rxe7 14. Nd5? Nxd5 and White is lost. White could try 14. Bxf6 instead but then White would have to prove that there is enough compensation for the exchange (however, I would play this with White in blitz).

Tactics website suggested by coach Avetik

At the end of the tactics Ninja course (a good course for sure!), Avetik suggested CT-ART as the best tactics course. Chess.com and Li were not even close in his estimation and I agree....I'm tired of doing tactics on chess.com that rarely come up in real games.

There are a few courses on this website. One in particular is the CT-ART 4.0 with tactics from 1400-2400 level.

The free app is great BTW, just tried it a few days ago.

Other courses incorporate various other lessons that do not always pertain to tactics.

Is the 4.0 course the one he was referring to? Avetik, specify please?

Thanks and cheers to all!!

ovi

Replies

Hi Ovi, I guess so (CT-ART 4.0). I have this on my android phone and really like it and included it into my study plan (the number in brackets is the number of puzzles in the section):

CT-ART – 2^nd iteration – without advanced

·       1.1. Annihilation of defence (63) 

·       1.2. Distraction (140) 

·       1.3. Decoy (138) 

·       1.4. Discovered attack (86) 

·       1.5. Opening a file (86) 

·       1.6. Clearance (44) 

·       1.7. X-ray attack (11) 

·       1.8 Interception (40) 

·       1.9 Blocking, encirclement (31) 

·       1.10. Destruction of the pawn shelter (138)

·       1.11 Pawn promotion (52)

·       1.12 Intermediate move. Winning of a tempo (48)

·       1.13 Play for a stalemate (14)

·       1.14 Restricting of material (6)

·       1.15 Pursuit (27)

·       1.16 Conjunction of tactical methods (278) 

While I like CT-ART (it's based on Max Blokh's tactics book - something like The Art of Combination and other titles), I find there are a few flaws with it:
Some problems are still too long and not reasonable
The help system (once you've exhausted the hints) isn't very good
The broken English is annoying
The auto-play is annoying and sometimes gives away something you didn't calculate.
It could do with some coaching on the harder problems especially, so it's useful to do a course like Tactic Ninja first

It is a good choice (along with for example 1001 winning chess sacrifices on chessable, chess tempo and daily puzzle rush), though not sufficient alone.

I would disagree with chess.com's tactics being not representative of real games, they are from real games, more so than tactic books. However, it's 'moderated' from an algorithm which selects puzzles some of them aren't so good and also is heavily based on difficulty when playing timed. Thus the obvious move ones are lower rated (even if not objectively easy): the lower ratings are full of obvious back rank mates, the level progression is not always smooth, and you can't skip. It can be gamed somewhat by remembering at lower levels it's likely the obvious move even on something that looks unclear, and that there is only one best solution (so it won't go any further than where there are two good moves). Also sometimes the puzzles are based on defence, draws or status quo rather than tactics. It does help you recognise which patterns you know, as ones you get wrong. or need to think about a lot. may be down to not recognising patterns which alerts you to something you may need to train or remember.I find it's far more based on pattern recognition than forward calculation, and perhaps this is down again to being selected for rating based mostly on the timed version. However this also means it's a good training aid, even if you have to solve 20-30 obvious puzzles before you get challenged.

I think, you guys will like what we create on ChessMood for improving tactics :) 
Our tech team is working there :) 

WhiteMood Openings

I can't find the homework files for this course.  Please help!

Replies

https://chessmood.com/blog/the-most-effective-way-to-create-chess-pgn-files

Hi Randy, this approach should work very well with this new overview course including not too many line but orally explainig the ideas/plans. Therefore, I suggest to write many keywords regarding the plans and evaluation of the positions into your pgn.

Just came in per email

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Hoi4MbBZsEAUSfgek-8oTVD5LD03CtNh?usp=sharing

Randy, the drive link is in the description. 

Training with a board, or with a computer?

Hello coaches and all chess friends,

I have been working with different sources and courses in chess. And I seem to realize that some coaches are really strict about using a board when studying or analyzing a chess game or a position, and some are just fine and not that strict about that. 

In myself, I have not notcied a big difference, I prefer to use the board to have a real tournament feeling, but most of the time I depend on an elctronic 2D board using online websites or chessbase. 

And sometimes when I play over the board, I feel like I do slightly better than when I play online.

Now some websites like chess.com and also chessbase prgoram they offer a 3D view, but of course it is not a real board.

From your exprience, have you noticed any difference? What do you think is better for your progress ?

Replies

Do I notice a difference? Yes. And my conclusion was to work more with books and board and to watch fewer videos. Why that? Of course, I do stop the videos and make up my mind. But still, I feel that I do learn more (and can better concentrate) using a real board and writing down my solutions. However, this might be due to the way I grew up (born in 1971) and that my focus is OTB regular games (and not online blitz/rapid). 

The problem I find with a real board is I'm having to divert focus from the book or course to moving the pieces and that's disruptive. I also can't turn an engine on to check whether something made sense or was an error or to help answer questions why a certain move wasn't right here.

If you have lots of time and patience a board may be fine, but I prefer to use technology.

Standardisation of course ratings

I've noticed on the new (updated) Whitemood repertoire course it says for up to 2000 online rating (I believe the original was 1500). 2000 online rating where and what? Depending on the server 2000 at blitz could be anything from 1600 to 2000+ OTB. And the difference between blitz and long play on the same site could be 100s of points depending many factors.

Also if other courses (and GMs too) which (who) mention a rating could use the same rating that would be useful. Certainly mating matador so far is more 1400 than 2000 (though I expect it to get harder) and aside from a few of the trickier problems IMO the tactic ninja course was more up to 1800 and revision / practice for anyone else.

Perhaps better is to use some kind of level system, similar to Chessable. An easy system would be pawn, knight, bishop, rook, queen and king.

So for example:

level 1 (pawn): I know the rules and can play, but not much more. I'm a beginner.

level 2 (knight): I know some checkmates, openings, tactics, and maybe basic pawn endings, but I still drop material frequently and really have no clue about positional chess. Once I'm out of the book, I'm all at sea. I'm a novice/rookie, lower level club player.

level 3 (bishop): I'm good at tactics and checkmating, I know a bit more opening and endgame theory, but I'll often drop material still at a critical moment. Positional play is a bit meh. I'm a reasonably experienced mid-level club player.

level 4 (rook): I rarely drop material, I know quite a bit, and positionally I'm reasonable. Perhaps I don't calculate accurately or quickly enough, or understand the typical plans and ideas from my openings. I can make life difficult for stronger players, even masters sometimes, but I'm not consistent enough. I'm a strong club player.

level 5 (queen): My play is all round good, and with a little bit of work, maybe coaching, I could play professionally if I chose to. I'm a candidate master

and maybe:
level 6 (king): I'm a professional player. I'm titled (FM and above) or if I could spend some time playing tournaments I'd get my FM probably this year.

Then perhaps we could say:
Mating matador:
Ideal: pawn, knight  ;  Fun/revision: bishop, rook

Tactic ninja:
Ideal: pawn, knight, bishop ; Fun/revision: rook

Happy pieces:
Ideal: bishop, rook ; Fun/revision: queen

and so on...

It's never going to be perfect and some players might fit in more than one category depending on the subject, but it has to be better than arbitrary rating bands which are very subjective especially when the only real common system is FIDE OTB which even then is not always indicative.

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One way you could present each course's level would be to have icons of the pieces in circles in black and colour the background to the level:

Red: Maybe too difficult, would suggest to look for an easier or more appropriate course first. If you give it a go, don't worry if you can't follow it yet.
Blue: Ideal for players typical of your level. Work through slowly, you'll probably learn a lot here.
Yellow: You might find much of the material easy or revision. However you'll enjoy some great examples and it might be good practice or revision. You probably can get through it all quickly if you chose to do so, though going more slowly will be more beneficial.
White: Probably too easy and below your level

Since colour blindness might be a factor for some, perhaps hovering the pointer could explain the key above.

Rossolimo Meier - Caruana 11... Nf8?!

In video 54, this game is covered, perhaps because of it being recent (then) and top players and similar to the previous lines with O-O, thus making it easier to refer to an already given plan.

However, instead of Nf8 here, 11... f5 appears to be a far better try (big difference in evaluation of almost a pawn) which makes sense because there is no king on g1 to aim at (which is the strength of Nf8 after O-O is played). After seeing this on the engine, I checked Ris' book and he 'agrees' that Nf8 in this game is not convincing and f5 should be played. He then covers 12. exf5?!, 12. Qe2 (Divalishvili-Silich 2020) and Qc1 (Mokshanov-Rakesh 2020). Both games appeared after the course was recorded, so maybe an update should be considered here. I guess if it wasn't an advanced section 11... Nf8 would be okay to implicitly suggest, but in an advanced section f5 should be considered for coverage instead unless there is a flaw there, given advanced is intended for 2000+ where opponents are able to make more of it.

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David, with all my respect, you keep doing the most common mistake that prevent chess lovers to improve their rating fast. It is: 
GOING DEEP INTO THE THEORY AND TRYING TO LEARN OPENINGS LIKE 2,600 GMs.