Chess forum by Grandmasters

In the French - BlackMood, isn't the 2nd option (video 6) a bit weak?

Greetings to all, I would like to discuss with you GM Jesse Kraai's ideas about the French Defense and how to counter some of the lines he suggests with White. GM Jesse Kraai tackles the variation that trades the light squared Bishop in video 6 - 2nd option of the Starter Course - BlackMood Openings with the following line: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Qb6 5.Nf3 Bd7 6.a3 Bb5 7.b4 cxd4 8.Bxb5+ Qxb5 9.cxd4 The whole idea is to grab space on the queenside with the thematic pushed a3-b4 while Black sets up his exchange device. White's next move: 10.Nc3 develops with tempo. I have a feeling Black's plan isn't that effective. I am delighted to see that ChessMood recommends the 3rd option (video 8). I gladly make mine this surprising weapon!

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ChessBase Question

I have a question please for those pro ChessBase users. I see in the videos where GM Avetik will make multiple moves with the same color pieces. For example when showing an ideal position he may move the Black pieces 4-5 times back to back while none of the White pieces move. How is this done and how can I recreate it if anyone knows please. Thank you, Leslie

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This is easy Leslie?, this is the “Enter null move” command. 

In the ChessBase board window, go to file (upper left), and then customize. Here you will see all the commands shortcuts. I always replace the enter null move shortcut so it's the "n" key or whatever you like. Much better than Control + Alt + 0 which is the combination by default.?

Hey Leslie :) Not related to your question, but I've started to use Chessbase recently and wanted to know how good is your experience with it? For my part, I still feel more comfortable to work on my openings with Lichess (DB & studies) and I'm not sure how good was my investment! But maybe I need more time to be well-acquainted with the software! Have a nice day :)

How to see future events on the new site?

Hello friends, When I go to Learn->Events, I only see a list of events that are already completed. Earlier on the old site, I could see the future events along with completed ones. Am I missing something or is it a bug? Also on that page, I do not see dates listed for events, maybe because I am only seeing the completed events. Can someone please help me. I'm attaching a screenshot of how the page looks for me.

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The other day there was a very useful list of upcoming events that were listed left to right but it seems to have now changed, perhaps this is part of the tweaking of the new website? I also thought there was a planned stream this morning on chess psychology but when I went to attend it was no longer there, it may have been cancelled.

5 important updates

Hello Champions! 
After launching the new website and a few sleepless nights, I finally found time to write you ? 

I wrote you emails, but in case you missed it, I'm posting it here too. 
We have 5 important updates. 
Let's go one by one ?

1. Quizzes

On the new website, we’ve added quizzes that are attached to the courses. 
So, after finishing each course, you can solve the offered positions and master the acquired knowledge.  

2. Tactic Mastery 

We’re working on special features to help you to improve your tactics. 

Meanwhile, we’ve added a quiz to our most popular course - the Tactic Ninja. 
There are 777 tactics! 
It’s gonna be super useful for you. After finishing the course, you can spend 5-15 minutes every day to refresh your mind, or warm up before an online session.  

Here is the link: https://chessmood.com/quiz/the-tactic-ninja

Similar warm-up you’ll find in the Mating Matador course. 

3. New events for PRO Members 

We’re going to have more streams, webinars, games with GMs, and interactive lessons (only for PRO Members.) 

Here are the upcoming events: 

March 5 - Interactive lesson “How to counter rubbish over-aggression in the opening?” 

March 8 - Webinar “Questions and answers with a GM” 

On Tuesdays reaching from 1200-2200
On Saturdays reaching from 2200-2800 

Note: They’re separate streams, and based on your level you can attend the one you’re more interested in. 
In both, we’re going to play and stream with only ChessMood openings!  

4. Tech issues 

As we informed you earlier, you pay the same amount you used to pay before raising the prices. 
In case, you have any issues with your plan, please contact us. 
Our tech support girls will help you to resolve any issue you have. 

Yeah, and if you find any bugs, or have suggestions related to the new website, please let us know. It will be very helpful.  
 

5. Terms of service 

Soon we’re going to update our terms of services. 
We’ll add a very important point. 

If any of our students don’t raise their rating (online or offline) after a few months of joining ChessMood, we’re going to sue them. 

Our lawyer prepared the documents already. 

Hahaha ?
Joking ?

But if seriously, 
the best compliment you can have for us, which is more than any nice words, it’s your chess growth, raised rating, or positive changes in your life. 

I officially promise to do my best to help you. 
Hopefully, you’ll do your best on your side. 

With a smile and love,  
Avetik ❤️

#CoGro (Constant growth) 
#RightMood_RightMove 

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Thank you for everything you are doing for us! :)

Uh oh... Champions, we are in trouble now...See point 5.Terms of service & being sued for non rating growth. GM Avetik is getting serious & about to kick my xxxx! I had better start learning & winning some games quick! Failure & non improvement is NOT an option! I do seriously need this kick up the rear & to get moving here and there is many a true word spoken in jest (apparently?!). When the going gets tough...the tough get going (I just have to toughen up!). Thanks for all your hard work & I am sure all these improvements will work wonders for me & every champion! Keep it up coach & Chess Mood team...RMood/RMove & COGRO all!

The quizzes in particular are a significant step forward for ChessMood! I feel fortunate to have joined at a great time (about a week ago).

The new website looks great ! Can you please advise how to get to the tactical mastery (point #2 above with link) from the main Chessmood page? Thanks much!

I hope this isn't a silly question, but yesterday I signed up as a pro member, and when I go to chessmood.com (signed in), it still says things like "Become a pro member" and I do not see any acknowledgement that I am already a pro member. How do I confirm my pro membership?

Where should i solve puzzles and train tactics

I could like to solve puzzles and train tactics but i dont where to do can some of you suggest some good websites or books or pdfs

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Events: how to interact or hear what the others participants say?

I suppose that I have to do something on my PC but what? thanks for your response.

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You need to view the live stream from youtube via the link - participants type in the chat. This is also a problem with the replays now are embedded so the chat is lost. Perhaps the presenter could repeat any questions before answering which would help embedded viewers.

When you follow the event live, you can interact trough the youtube chat (you must log into youtube with your account and it is free). 

Then when watching the replay if you want to see the comments on the chat, you can easily access the youtube page from the event page in Chessmood. You just need to click on the title on the top of the video and you will be redirected to youtube. 

In the pic attached from yesterday's event, https://chessmood.com/event/counter-rubbish-overaggression-in-opening

 you can see the title on top, this is where you must click to go to youtube.

Power-points of Webinar counter over-agression in the opening

Dear champions here is attached the power-point of the Webinar when we talked about how to counter rubbish over-aggression in the opening.

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GM Gauzyan, Excellent stream, I had to watch it on delay but am very glad I did as there were several very valuable learning points. Thank you for putting this on and thank you for the slide with the important take home points! Have a great day! Leslie

Keeping track of progress

Hello, Is there a way that your progress is tracked? After you watch a game of the 100 games you should know, is there a way to see what you have already watched? Similarly, if I watch a video and have to leave before it is complete, is you place kept somewhere? Thank you

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agree, would be extremely useful.

Yes, it would be very helpful! It would also give a feel of completness to have a tracker showing we are working :)

Time Zone

Hello! I am in the Kolkata/India, Chennai/India, New Delhi/India, Mumbai/India Time zone. In the earlier website it was showing the time according to this time zone. Now, it's showing Singapore/Asia time. May I know how to change the timezone?

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Location in your profile is probably the source for this assuming it's not a bug. Worst case you could always go on holiday to Singapore and fix the issue that way ;)

Yes, my timezone is incorrect too: it is 2 hours out. My location is correctly set so that's not the problem. In any case, even if the system was getting your timezone from your location that would not be a great solution because you can only select a country for your location and plenty of countries have multiple timezones. The simplest and best solution would be to add a timezone setting to the profile so we can set it ourselves. Update: things are more complicated that I realized. The wrong timezone is used on the events page, but the correct timezone is used when I click into the event.

How do I get my courses back?

After the site update, all the courses I bought using Moodcoins: the courses about the Nimzowitsch Defense, the Elephant gambit, and the Stafford gambit disappeared, and now I only have the free Whitemood openings course. How do I get them back? ?

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Vladimir, please use the following page to contact support and explain exactly what is happening, you had also a different account that you also posted about in a different thread. They will happily help you, do not worry!

https://chessmood.com/contact

After your confirmation that you sent the email I will delete this thread and the other one since they are not exactly “chess related”. Thank you very much and sorry for the “bug”. 

Bird opening

How can we play against bird opening as Black

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Is the Bird so difficult to meet?  A very simple setup that gives black a fully playable game is Nf6, d5 then Bf5.  Or fianchetto the kings bishop instead of Bf5 if that is more your style.

Hello, May I suggest two (or three) ways to handle the Bird opening with Black ? 1) GM Sam Shankland's idea (Chessable - Lifetime Repertoires - Black vs Sidelines) Here is a sum up: "The Dutch is not great but is not terrible either. (...) A Dutch with a tempo up can get you into trouble. (...) If White gets e4 under favorable circumstances, he's going to end up with a comfortable position. If Black can prevent that, he is generaly doing very well." 1.f4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 White has a choice to make on how he want to develop his f8-Bishop. Classical Set-up: e3 → Be2 (→ d3) Reverse Leningrad: g3 → Bg2 vs Classical: 3.e3 Bf5 ==> London-like set-up vs Leningrad: 3.g3 e6 4.Bg2 b5 ==> Opposite fianchetto with queenside expansion 5.O-O Bb7 6.d3 Nbd7 ==> it's hard for white to execute e4. 7.Nbd2 Bc5+ 8.Kh1 O-O 9.Qe1 Black couldn't prevent e4 by force 9...Bb6! 10.e4 dxe4 11.dxe4 Nc5 12.e5 Nd5 The d5-Knight is ready to jump to b4 and Black's active pieces mean a bit more than White's space with e5. "Black is already a bit better." The reason why ...Bf5 is less strong vs the Reverse Leningrad is because such line : 1.f4 d5 2.Cf3 Cf6 3.g3 Bf5 4.Bg2 e6 5.O-O Be7 6.d3 O-O 7.Nfd2 The g2-Bishop does a great job along the long diagonale and e4 is coming. 2) NM Bryan Tillis (Chessable - Opening Oddities): 1.f4 Nh6!? An astonishing move at first glance that make sense when you look deeper (Tillis:"an underrated move against the Bird"). I think this approch needs more study but is really fun. I remember these three lines to show the interest of such a move: ===== 1.f4 Nh6 2.e4 d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 Scandinavian Defense but with the moves f4 and ...Nh6 thrown in. It seems to me that the h6-Knight is more useful for Black than the f4-pawn for White. 4.Nc3 Qe6+ followed by g6→Bg7 ...Na6 if c7 need to be protected. The Queen can eventualy be relocated on b6 with tempo on the castled King. ===== 1.f4 Nh6 2.e4 d5 3.e5 c5! Improved French Defense with the e-pawn waiting to be pushed and the h6-Knight on a natural square vs the f4-pawn. ===== 1.f4 Nh6 2.b3 preventing the Black's kingside fianchetto 2...e5! From's gambit but with an extra piece on the field! 3.fxe5 d6 4.exd6 Bxd6 5.Nf3 Ng4 and the fun is starting so does the memorization in some lines. Let's end with: 6.h3 Bg3# :) ===== 3) One last suggestion is 1.f4 g6 as already mentionned above by Peter. I have never looked at the variation. I only know that Bryan Tillis has worked a bit on it. Hope you will find your happyness among these lines! Take care.

Change email

Excuse me, how do I change the email of my account? I made accounts for both emails, deleted the second one, but it still shows that this email address is already taken.

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I think u should delete your profile first,then refill the blank and Save the information you have done.

Hi Vladimir, is this solved already?

Watching and learning from super GM life Tournaments

My question is: With the possibilities to follow super GM matches life with online commentators which is certainly nice and entertaining. But, how to make something/most out of it is my question.

Certainly half following during a couple of hours is not the best but.. how to do it better?

thanks for your views on this.

michael 

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Maybe take some notes of interesting ideas/unseen patterns and begin to store/group them. Also, checking your opening pgn on what GM played to refresh the memory also helps, especially if opponent tried some dubious move, which wasnt in the course, then the ideas should really stick how to punish that type of play.

Should Blitz be played?

I play rapid (10+0) time control most of the time. Is playing blitz bad for my overall game? Will it reduce my planning skills which are required mainly in rapid and longer time controls? If not, how many blitz are fine every day?

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I joined recently, and reading through various blog posts I was happy to see that Avetik is quite positive about playing blitz. He also has some excellent advice regarding blitz: Here he talks about the importance of analysing your blitz games if you want to improve: https://chessmood.com/blog/analyze-blitz-chess-games Here he talks about session length and generally having some discipline and structure around your blitz sessions: https://chessmood.com/blog/golden-method-to-increase-rating-in-chess And here he talks about time controls. Basically, using increment is important for improving. Particularly endgame skills!: https://chessmood.com/blog/what-chess-time-control-to-choose This last one has been a useful catalyst for me to start switching my time controls for bullet/blitz from 1+0/3+0 to 2+1/3+2. I will probably just keep one account where I play 3+0 so I have a reliable way to measure improvement. Btw, on chess.com even 5+5 counts as blitz. For a game that goes over 60 moves, which is not that uncommon, this time control gives you more total time than 10+0.

Depends what you want. Sometimes blitz is all players want as they like to play the game but don't have time (or perhaps the patience) to be sat for hours or to want to think deeply. If your goal is your long play and blitz is a way of improving that, then blitz can be useful to practise your opening repertoire (since you get through a lot more games) and also to help pinpoint weaknesses, intuition and judgement issues which perhaps are hidden in longer play since you have more time to correct faulty thinking. Analysing positions (and getting the right depth and accuracy), looking at and weighing up alternatives and thinking more about what your opponent should play and longer term plans is something that doesn't happen so much in blitz, so you want to balance your play and play longer time controls when you can. That said I find 15 5 or so a good happy medium which is good also for practising for 30 minute rapidplays.

Advice for new, lower ranked players

Hello ChessMood family,   I am relatively new to CM. I am a lower ranked player (around 1300) and an adult. I have time to study. I have greatly enjoyed CM so far. After my GM 1:1 call, I have focused on Tactics Ninja (almost done), the Speedboat course (loved it!), and Openings. I am looking for Pro Members advice for my level. My only difficulty so far is that CM seems well suited to players above 1700 or so. 

I specifically am interested in thoughts on CM's new release of a condensed repertoire for lower players. WhiteMood was perfect as I had become established with the Scotch and Grand Prix. But I am a bit unsure about BlackMood. I have enjoyed learning the Accelerated Dragon and Benko. But I realize they have a lot of sidelines. Now I am offered the French/Dutch system. I am incredibly thankful to have these options and they reflect the intense time and effort the CM grandmasters have put into the site. But I am unsure where to put my time, especially as I want to keep my Opening study to 25% or less of my total time. I realize solid advice for someone at my level is: minimal opening study, don't blunder pieces, work on tactics!!

Thanks in advice for your thoughts!  John

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Below 1700 games are decided pretty much on tactics and basic endgames alone. Other than dropping material, a tactical blunder will appear, or poor endgame technique with pawns or rooks will decide the game. As long as you avoid a known trap or a complicated tactical position your opponent knows parrot fashion, you're still be at the level where opponents either want to avoid opening theory, know a mainline and little else once they're out of it, or out of the book quite quickly. Set them problems and watch them fold.

The openings 101 and Whitemood courses are at the right level. Get a feel for the openings and play healthy chess (i.e. basics avoiding bad pawn structures without compensation, play for quick development, the centre where appropriate, get your king safe...). After each game you can then learn a little bit more of the opening, what was the suggested line, and if you deviated did your move have drawbacks compared to the main line. If a line is proving particularly problematic, then you can go for a more detailed look.

As for the Blackmood course, I can't comment having not looked at it, but IMO the courses for the black openings aren't _that_ complicated that you can't learn them, although there isn't the overview for them. Your opponents at that level won't be able to play them either, the question really is whether they know the basic plans and can improvise better than you can. I suspect you'll get more sicilian deviations than the open sicilian or rossolimo, and the maroczy won't appear at all (or if it does your opponent will be clueless). Expect 2. f4, GP attack, closed sicilian etc. As for the benko, I'm not sure how weaker players deal with it (since c4 is quite common) but I suspect they'll avoid the mainlines. There will be a number of d4 deviations, the London and Jobava in particular. c4 might occasionally appear, but again just knowing something about the key positions should be enough.

Don't spend all your time on openings (as you've identified), but do view it as a long term process so that as your other skills improve you're not having to start from scratch.

Thanks, I reviewed your forum post and it's very helpful. I will look for some streams where the "master" is playing someone around my range. I'm very familiar with Gotham and Ginger GM, will look on Youtube. Also I have watched about 4-5 of the CM streams and was awestruck: it was amazing to watch GM Gabuzyan beat players easily with our openings, while he was explaining his thoughts, in a 3 minute game, then look and see that his opponent was rated 2500! 

New Website

Will there be a TACTICS TRAINER in the New Website?

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Seems so. Cf. the end of the Ninja course. 

BlackMood - move missing

Section 2 Video 35, 4,Ngf3

At 2:09 Isn´t Black moving a second time without White has moved?

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 Nc6 4.Ngf3 Nf6 5,e5 Nd7 and now Black is moving 6…f6 and White´s move 6 is missing.

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There is nothing missing here. It is a general explanation. Please try to understand the ideas, not focus on move by move orders.  If you look at the same video on min 3:34, Black has moved like 9 times but White did not move, we just moved the Black pieces to show you the general plan.

Happy learning!

Hats off to ChessMood

I really enjoyed watching the new BlackMood videos today, I am excited about learning them further and putting them to good use. You guys do a wonderful job continually putting out amazing content and these newest videos are no exception. I know GMs Avetik and Gabuzyan, as well as the entire support staff, work very hard on these and it shows. Thank you for doing great work!

Leslie

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Thanks @Leslie_Smith. Very much appreciated! Happy to hear that! Now you just need to start playing our variations while enjoying every moment of it!! 

Anti - Sicilian Part 1

Anti - Sicilian Part 1

In the Bg4 variation, after 9. f5 Bxf3 10. Rxf3 Ne5?!?!? how to continue? Should Rh3 be continued or not?

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This is the position...

Hello Vedanta,

I think 11.Rh3 with our regular attacking ideas looks well here. We are not scared of Nxc4 dxc4 because doubled pawn on c4 will never allow black to play d5 and we can also use a half-open d file for our rook in the future.

Never quit on yourself!

I just returned home from the Southwest Class Championship held in Dallas Texas, and I wanted to write about this while it is still fresh in my mind. I played up to the "A" section instead of the "B" section my rating falls into (My USCF was 1743 going into the tournament). I wanted to test myself against higher-rated opponents while still giving myself chances to win.  

What I want to write about isn't how the tournament went, though I will give those details at the end for those interested, but how much work you actually put into improvement before you see results. 

How many players work on their game for a few hours a week, and after 3 months of not noticing any results suddenly quit deciding it is a waste of time? How many try for 6 months, 9 months, or even a year without results? What amount of time is too long to wait for the improvement you feel should be proportional to the amount of work you know you are doing? 

A little over three years ago, while on one of my extended breaks from chess, I met GM Avetik Grigoryan online. We chatted in private messages for a couple of months, hardly any of it about chess, and he re-ignited my desire to improve at the game I have loved my entire life. I had quit completely two years earlier thinking I had reached my peak, and no longer was seeing improvement from my time invested in studying. My rating was around 1750 USCF and had been there for a long time. 

A short time later, ChessMood launched and I began my work in earnest. I started by learning a whole new opening repertoire. Previously I had been playing only the Trompowski as white and Simon Williams' Black Lion with the black pieces, so learning a complete arsenal of new openings was quite daunting. 

With my new weapons in hand, I charged into battle, ready to slay any opponent unlucky enough to cross my path! However, my opponents didn't cooperate with my designs, and instead, they fought back and slew me just as often as before.  While my online rating grew slightly, my OTB rating slid backward since I found myself in many unfamiliar positions that left me feeling uncomfortable. How many times have you switched openings, had bad results for the first couple of months, then decided the opening was trash and moved to another one? I spent close to a year getting completely familiar with the new opening repertoire before I felt comfortable with the positions I found myself in, but the result is I no longer fear my opponents' preparation and I very rarely get a bad position at the beginning of the game, even against strong players. 

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?), a game of chess is rarely decided with the choice of opening, and it didn't seem to matter how well I was doing at the beginning of the game, by the end I was on the losing side just as often as before. While my online rating did continue to grow (this was helped by being locked down with little else to do!), my over-the-board rating stayed static around the 1750 mark (Hindered by the same lockdown...)

Also in that first year, I added many other training activities to help accelerate my growth, including online tactics puzzles, reviewing annotated games, reading books on strategy and endgames, as well as playing as often as I could. My knowledge of the game of chess grew by leaps and bounds, but my results continued to be less than desired. (Is this story feeling familiar to anyone else, or am I alone in this?) 

By this point, many players would have thrown in the towel and invested their time elsewhere. However, my love for the game of chess and my commitment to myself and those that have invested their time and knowledge in me has kept me motivated to keep doing the work necessary to improve. 

With the second year of improvement stunted by the inability to play OTB tournaments, it is hard to quantify any real progress from this time period. My online blitz rating had increased by over 500 points, however, I was much lower-rated in blitz than any other format, so I am not sure that is saying too much. On the bright side, I wasn't discouraged by a lack of progress in this second year, as it was beyond anyone's control. 

As my third year of focused chess improvement was beginning, I decided to finally take GM Avetik's advice a get a regular coach to help me pinpoint my areas of greatest opportunity for growth. He put me in touch with the wonderful Nicolo Pasini (recognize the Pasini variation in the ChessMood courses? Yes, that Passini!) and I started working with him to improve my game. Unfortunately, with Nicolo on the other side of the world from me, finding a time to connect that worked for both of us was difficult and not consistent. I then reached out to a GM that lives locally to me that I have known for years and asked if he would be willing to help me. In late March we agreed to start, and I have been working one on one with GM Barcenilla since that time. 

He quickly identified my weakness in tactics, which I had previously tried unsuccessfully to cover up by avoiding complications, and set up a plan to help me quickly improve my vision on the board. He is also helping me deepen my growing knowledge of our ChessMood openings, giving me new middlegame ideas and opening my eyes to new ways of looking at the chessboard and the way the pieces interact on it. However, even with all of this growing knowledge, my rating continued to flatline and stay about 1750 USCF. (As a side note here, he had me playing only open sections since April, and it was a little tougher to beat the players rated 300-400 rating points higher than me)

So now we come full circle and back to where we started from. Three years of focused study on the game of chess, and not a shred of tangible improvement if one is only focused on the rating chart. I entered the "A" section of the Southwest Class Championships in Dallas Texas with a USCF rating of 1743. I played 7 rounds of chess with an undefeated 5/7 score (3 wins and 4 draws) gaining over 100 rating points to reach 1855 USCF. Does this mean it will continue on this path upwards? No one really knows and only time will tell, but I do know I saw more possibilities on the chessboard during my games than I have ever seen before, and that only encourages me more. 

The reason I tell this to all of you who read this isn't to get a pat on the back or accolades for my accomplishment (Though I will gladly accept all of those, as we can all use affirmations from our peers!), but to hopefully encourage all of you not to quit too soon. Give yourself time to absorb what you are learning before it shows in your results. Trust in the process, keep putting in the work, and the rewards will eventually come. 

GM Jay

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Congratulation ,

Jay,

Thank you for that great story, very inspirational!

I almost went to Dallas to enter that tournament but decided to enter a local one instead. There are other large Dallas tournaments later this year I am thinking about also attending, are you planning to go to any others in Dallas? Perhaps if you do we can meet and say hello?

Leslie

Thank you Jay for your nice and encouraging story.

You mentioned ",,,and opening my eyes to new ways of looking at the chessboard and the way the pieces interact on it," which sounds very interesting to me. I remember myself when I was about six years of age and was taught how to play chess. I got specific images in my mind and did not see the board and the pieces as they were but more like a medieval battlefield around some towers.

May I ask you to elaborate a bit on it, please?

/Göran

Well done Jay!

Your story reminds me of an analogy with a melting ice cube.  

The temperature is -5ºC in a room with an ice cube and you have to put a lot of physical effort in to raise the temperature by 1 ºC.  The temperature is now -4ºC and the ice cube is still standing there.  No observable change.

Finally one day you put an effort in and the temperature of the room climbs above 0ºC for the first time and suddenly the ice begins to melt.  Soon there is only water.  Massive change!

  It's not just the last bit of work that caused it but all the preceding work that raised the temperature from -5ºC.  Sometimes you have to put in a lot of work to improve at something and the results of your efforts are unseen but one day a tipping point comes and you see a big change.   So the moral is don't give up the big changes are coming...

Wow Jay.

That is so impressive, kudos to you or your tenacity and positive outlook. I am in a similar situation to when you started with Chessmood (I only joined this week!). I am hoping to return to OTB chess now after a long break(20+ years) now that I have retired and would like to return to the level I was before (about 1600 elo) and maybe grow from there. I have been studying on my own using the Yusupov orange books , 100 endgames YMK, tactics books/trainers and trying unsuccessfully to create a reliable opening rep. without any discernible improvement. I am hoping that Chessmood will help me push forwards on all fronts to at least get towards my goals. However, it looks like a long hard climb which I am trying - I am just not sure that I will have your endurance, but your story is truly inspirational.

Very inspiring Jay!! Keep it up!!!

 Great post GM Jay, thank you. Great to see you getting the success you deserve. Right mood, right move is surely right, good buddy!

Hello Jay!

Nice story, congrats and keep going!!!