3 brilliant moves : https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/95239193699?tab=review

I'm white

https://lichess.org/It4GxE9J/white 10 mover victory

Bug Report

Hey, champions! 

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

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

Thanks in advance.

With best wishes,
ChessMood Team 

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

Thanks again 
 

Replies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

🙂

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

GM Avetik is the coach of the month on chess.com!

In this exclusive interview, you’ll understand his coaching philosophy in detail, which is exactly what 
we follow here at ChessMood. Discover:

🟢 Why do chess improvers stagnate?

🟢 Why does almost everyone underperform at some point and how to overcome such challenges?

🟢 The responsibilities of a good student.

🟢 How chess helped him bond with his father.

🟢 The ‘success’ traps society places on you.

🟢 The ‘main game’ you should win in life and much more.

Read here👇

https://www.chess.com/article/view/coach-of-the-month-avetik-grigoryan

Replies

Just a doubt! The recommendation page [suggested in chess.com] has books but I just wanted to know if it is based on chess.com, FIDE or lichess ratings. Thanks for the great insights in the article.

Thanks in advance!

Congratulations! It s well deserve . This is a big exposure for chessmood . 

Congratulations Avetik, I also vote him coach of the year!

Hohvannes is GMC (Grandmastercoach) for 2024!

Huge Kudos! GM Avetik really deserved it!
Hovhannes sir will win it next year

something in the article seems wrong for me.
“A year later, at 7.5 years old, I got my first official national rating (equivalent to FIDE rating): 2000!”

I do not know a single 7.5 years old today with fide rating close to 2000 and I searched the fide rating list for players with year birth 2016 or earlier(2015 is already at least 7 years and 10 month old)

The leader has rating that is slightly less than 1700.

https://ratings.fide.com/profile/651088894

I know that young players have often fide rating that is lower than their real level but I also believe that today the top young players can get faster improvement thanks to the help of computers so I cannot believe that a 7.5 years old could be close to a level of fide rating 2000 many years ago so I guess something is wrong in the conversion of official national rating to fide rating(or maybe the national rating system in armenia gave initial rating that is too high).

There ought to be some way we could get Avetik something nice. A case of beer or whatever he wants.

I just finished the ‘annihilations’ section in Tactic Ninja and I managed to do a nice one on my opponent while playing blitz!

New podcast with IM Eric Rosen and an article based on it

Champions,

The episode with IM Eric Rosen is out on the 🎙️ChessMood podcast🤩

He shares some of the most important lessons from his journey in chess, content creation and beyond, including:
 

- How he overcame a 4-year long plateau to become an IM.

- A lesson that took him years to learn on dealing with failures.

- What it was like to train chess at the famous Webster University.

- His 3 keys to succeeding in chess, streaming & more.
 

You can watch the full podcast through the link below.

We have crafted a short article too, in case you prefer to read. 

Enjoy❤️
 

Link to the article⬇️

https://chessmood.com/blog/eric-rosen

Full podcast episode (also available on Spotify & Apple Podcasts)⬇️

https://youtu.be/GfBY_VZBGhk

What are the lessons you learned from IM Eric Rosen?

Replies

Model Games with ChessMood Openings

Hello ChessMood Family! 
Now I'm adding model games in each section of our course, so you have a better understanding of the positions. Some of them, I'll also add in the book, that I'm writing now (later about that.) 

Why did I write this post? :) 
If you played nice and instructive games with our ChessMood openings - please post here. 
I would be happy to add them as well. 

P.S 
The first course, where I'm going to add model games, gonna be the Scotch game. If you want to make a research in your games, start from the Scotch :) 

Replies

I start the ball rolling .. my model Scotch game, just follow the course with the simple f3, g4, h4, g5 attack to open the h-file .. with Qd2-Qh2 followed by checkmate :)

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/5478551153

One request, if possible, add more games for anti sicilian and benko as they are more frequent in nature

This game I played yesterday. Scotch game :) Hope I made the right moves.

https://lichess.org/0I9PcNjda2MS

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/daily/279917930?tab=analysis

So I found a few games, which I will probably share with you and comment.
First game was played in Scotch Classical Variation with surprisingly move from opponent on move 6 so I think that would be even more instructive.
I mean 4.Nxd4 Bc5 5.Nb3 Bb6 6.Nc3 Qf6?!
That move wasn't covered in course so I was a bit confused for a moment. But for me that was a little innacuracy because queen on f6 can be easily attacked by for instance Nd5 or just pushing pawns.
So I did useful Qe2 move and I obviously defend pawn because of threat Qxf2#.
Further that was normally development, opposite castling. So I decided to go on immediately f4,h3,g4 against Nge7 setup how is covered in course.
After my 12.h3 he played tricky Qh4 probably with plan to pushing f5 some day with a nice tactic after moving my bishop from e3 somewhere and playing g4. However I decided to go for this. So I played I think nice positional move 13.Bxb6 making c7 pawn weak and having nice square on b5 for my knight to attack it. The only drawback of it is that the rook on a8 become playing but I think everything was in right time.
So after 13. Bxb6 axb6 as I mentioned earlier I played this agressive move 14.g4 and I have seen that tactic 14.g4 f5 15.exf5 or gxf5 no matter Nxf5! and after capturing the knight Bxb3! with attack on queen and a little bad pawn structure. But that also should be fine for me.
However I have seen very nice and crazy queen sacrifice which even engine can't saw initially :D
14.g4 f5 15.Nb5 (with threat of taking c7) Rac8 16.exf5 Nxf5 17.Qxe6!! Wxe6 18.Bc4 Nfe7 19.Bxe6 Kf8 20.Bxc8 Nxc8 21.Nxc7
And at this point I have strong compensation: two rooks and pawn against the queen and also opponent has three weak pawns on b7,b6,d6
After 21.Nxc7 Qg3 22.f5 he just resigned.

Conclusion:
1. I think that game can be very instructive with unusual idea of taking bishop on b6 and unlucky opening the rook on a8 but getting posibility to attack the c7 pawn.
2. Playing against Qf6 in Bc5 setup(Classical variation) .
3. Amazing queen sacrifice :D

I played this game today. ???? I hope I made the right moves

Here I tried to follow the plans I learned from chess mood scotch course. https://lichess.org/AYFEEwql/white#46.

Won a scotch game(10+5) format trying to follow suggested plans in scotch course.

https://lichess.org/VZo0fEM6FsCZ

I was doing good in this match(3+0) format & kept pressure on higher rated player (250+ point on lichess platform) but due to time out i lost.But it is nice game.

https://lichess.org/Ax11W69KBaqJ

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/daily/280898128


Typical and ilustrative game against 4. ... Qf6.
My opponent decided to go long castle 8. ... O-O-O which is covered in the course how to play against it.
So first eleven moves I was playing almost immediately.
Later is just logical attack, pushing pawns and bringing more pieces to the queenside. Move 16. b6 breakthrough.
And after 21. Bf3 Qe7 I am winning much material or getting his queen like on move 26. Rb7.
And he just resigned.

Here is a game I played with the Accelerated Dragon. I don't know if it's aggressive or complicated enough to be called a model game but here it is:

Here is a game I played with Scotch. It's more aggressive than the Dragon one :) .

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5600625181

Caro kann exchange variation.

Played a scotch game in (3+0) format.

https://lichess.org/UF8ZumoM7a04

Here is a game I played with the Accelerated Dragon. The end of the game was not a resignation, he left the game, obviously disgusted with his position :) 

King Hunt in Main Lines of Grand-Prix. He played new move which is not in my pgn. Qc7?! 

https://lichess.org/Fjh0K6bkF5WJ

I know scotch model games has already been updated, but I played this today. Just following basic attacking plans, we get a crushing position!

Here's a dragon game, engine says 99.2% accuracy!  

https://lichess.org/fipHeGa80sXy

Attack Against Caro-Kann!Fantastic idea Qc2-Bg6-Qd3-Ng5-Qh3!and checkmate in very strong GM Mustafa Yilmaz Elo 2630!                                                                                                                                                             https://www.chess.com/live/game/5918369704

Sicilian 2... Nc6 https://www.chess.com/live/game/5990775709

Using a4 to break up the queenside and what happens if Black is foolish enough to leave the kingside without the dark-squared bishop.

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2020.12.17"]
[Round "?"]
[White "WickedUk"]
[Black "moshe090967"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B23"]
[WhiteElo "1748"]
[BlackElo "1778"]
[TimeControl "300+5"]
[EndTime "9:56:01 PST"]
[Termination "WickedUk won by resignation"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. f4 g6 6. d3 Bg7 7. Nf3 e6 8. O-O
Ne7 9. Be3 b6 10. a4 Bb7 11. a5 O-O 12. axb6 Bh6 13. Bxc5 Bxf4 14. Qe1 Bd6 15.
Be3 c5 16. Qh4 Re8 17. Ng5 h5 18. Nxf7 Qxb6 19. Qf6 Kh7 20. Ng5+ 1-0

https://www.chess.com/live/game/6004099658

Hello All,

Here is a game I played with the Anti-Sicilian Part 2 Qb4! Novelty. By the way, the move 23. Qf3, was sort of a wasted move before realizing that I could trap the Black queen only if my queen was on e2. I could have moved it to e2 right away!

Against Benko, white tries new move and i used a plan of ...Ra6 ....Qa8 and ....Rb8 

https://lichess.org/5xPLaNAiYBnk

I have to say that chessmood openings and videos are really helping. I’m at my highest rapid rating yet. 

Model game (well aside from the last move) in the Nc3 anti-Sicilian 3... a6 line at 60 10 time control.

Would have been a candidate for a prize winning game if only I hadn't blundered at the end in time trouble. As well as not noticing the g1-a7 diagonal was open, I missed Ne6 forking tricks based on Rxf4 Qh8 Qxf8 and Ne6. If only I didn't blunder under pressure I might be dangerous :-)

Also a few show me your cards moments - 9. O-O 10. h3 12. Qf2 - I may have learned something after all.

I just joined ChessMood, this is my first game w/ any of the openings (except accelerated dragon which I already play).  It will take me much longer to learn the Scotch & I'm not sure about switching my black replies to d4 or playing Grand Prix attack (I've spent alot of time on c3-sicilian) but I will still watch the videos, it's good to have multiple weapons.

Nf6 Scandi (I'm white)

https://lichess.org/Z125gNH3qPo0

My first win against the classical Maroczy bind.  Demonstration of White's bad bishop vs a good knight.

The Alekhine course is missing the refutation to the Mokele Mbembe (2... Ne4). Here is a game that demonstrates why this isn't a great move with some help from Black who decides his knight is better off trapped and then gives the bishop up instead.

The analysis gives Black's better try as: 4...Ne6 5.d5 Nc5 6.Nf3 d6 7.b4 Nca6 8.c3 dxe5 9.Nxe5 - however Black has moved his knight a lot to an awful place, and is White weak at all (other than maybe c3 is in the way)? I guess the twisting and turning of the knight like a water spirit is where it gets its name. Would be good to see whether Chessmood refutes this (not quite a gambit) with d3 or d4.

https://lichess.org/NafTrTAB/white#45

This game has right to be in Model Game section as I followed the basic attacking plans mentioned in the courses. I didn't make the strong possible moves but instaed played simple and logical good moves.

Quick & nice win in (3+2) format using scotch opening.

https://lichess.org/Ie8b6wKUBmmU

Model game in the Scandinavian 2...Nf6 3.Bb5+

Model attack in the Antoshin Philidor when Black wastes time (Nd7->e5->c6). Why couldn't I have had this during the tournament :)

Here is a model game of how we handle the Scandinavian. Tempo, Tempo, Tempo!

GOOD GAMES ♟♟

https://lichess.org/d5KhfCZV

Another nice attack demonstrating why the Philidor is not a safe option as some players think - and at 3 0 too

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2021.03.30"]
[Round "?"]
[White "WickedUk"]
[Black "dmattea"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C41"]
[WhiteElo "1807"]
[BlackElo "1768"]
[TimeControl "180"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Be7 6. g3 O-O 7. Bg2 Nc6 8. Nde2 Ne5 9. O-O Bd7
10. f4 Nc6 11. h3 Ne8 12. g4 f6 13. Ng3 Qc8 14. Nd5 Qd8 15. Nf5 Bxf5 16. exf5 Nb8 17. Nxe7+ Qxe7
18. Bxb7 Nd7 19. Bxa8 Qd8 20. Bd5+ Kh8 21. b3 Qb8 22. Bb2 Nc5 23. g5 fxg5 24. fxg5 Qd8 25. f6 gxf6
26. gxf6 1-0

Some of my online "gems":

 french Bd3

https://www.chess.com/game/live/12075297947

https://www.chess.com/game/live/12069901593

https://www.chess.com/game/live/9225944555

someone finally got his queen trapped :D https://lichess.org/D39P4Un1Nx33 
 
 

against pirc Bf4-Qd2, though i transpose to it via London/Jobava, oponents who want to play KID don't know how to react often.

https://www.chess.com/game/live/12075220253

https://www.chess.com/game/live/9567414917

https://www.chess.com/game/live/8444585457 

https://lichess.org/84loR2gjmVhK

trapping the Ng4 https://lichess.org/vSfsATpQaZLW 
 
 
 

100% percent accuracy, only top 3 stockfish 12 moves, 17 centipawn loss. One of my 10 memorable games with more than 98% accuracy. Antisicilian with attack and king hunt. Hope it can get a nice place on this list as it is the first time for me to post here. Time control 10+0. 

Demonstration of play against in the a6, e6, Nc6 setup in the Nc3 anti-sicilian.

The analysis thinks 13. h3 is better, but I wanted to punish the king being in the centre and didn't want to reason about Nxc2 and Nxa1. Opponent made some minor mistakes during the game before he blundered, and then left his queen en-prise, messed around for a couple of move and disconnected. 'When the Mood gets to your opponent' :-)

Hi this is my favorite game from the scotch that I played my self https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/18604785105?tab=analysis

I really liked 28.Rh7!!

My name is Vedant Garg 

@Chessmood_Odysseus Can we have a pgn for download containing all the great games in this thread please?

Not quite our move order, but effectively deals with Qb6 in the Nc6 anti-sicilian part 2.

I played a really nice game & won against 500+ higher rated player (on Lichess) with ChessMood opening.

https://lichess.org/OMzooV0cdBEV

Here, a game against the modern.

https://lichess.org/JW907JDt/white

11 moves and a pawn checkmate.

https://www.chess.com/game/daily/22851684697

This is my first scotch game

https://lichess.org/6UTyRWqV/white

https://lichess.org/HBgDaXu0/white

Hi Avetik and Chessmood family :)

Fantastic job with the French Bd3 course. Have really enjoyed it!

Here is a "daily" chess.com game using that system.

https://www.chess.com/game/daily/358728769

Not sure it qualifies as a model game, but I managed to implement several of the ideas you mentioned, including the "b4 strong move :-)" and a kingside attack.

cheers!

PS: btw Black challenged the center with an early f6, which itself seems quite tricky and does create some challenges for White!

Using the French Chess Mood idea of b5 followed by a4 and Na3 in the following game

https://lichess.org/Ejbo3mTthN3L

Here's an accelerated dragon game played in a classical time-format OTB, where White plays Nf3, Nc3, Bd2, Be2 and d6 - setups similar to this seem to be really common at the lower levels (and with the older plays in chess-clubs who don't know openings), although most don't play this passive.

I got into a position where I was dominating the centre, and later the entire board and the opening was a definitive success, although sadly couldn't break through and things fell apart shortly after, but the opponent made some mistakes in the endgame letting me get into a drawn position (although he refused to draw and lost on time).

May be instructive for the opening and and middle-game at least?

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 g6 4. d3 Bg7 5. Bd2 e6 6. Be2 Nge7 7. O-O O-O 8. Qc1
d5 9. Bh6 b6 10. Bxg7 Kxg7 11. exd5 exd5 12. h3 Bb7 13. a3 Nf5 14. Re1 Re8 15.
b3 Nfd4 16. Nxd4 Nxd4 17. Qd2 Qd7 18. Bg4 Qc6 19. Rxe8 Rxe8 20. Kf1 Qf6 21. Re1
Rxe1+ 22. Kxe1 h5 23. Bd1 Bc6 24. a4 Bd7 25. Nxd5 Qe5+ 26. Ne3 Bc6 27. f3 Nf5
28. Kf2 Qg3+ 29. Kf1 Nd4 30. Qf2 Qe5 31. Nc4 Qf5 32. Nd6 Qd7 33. Ne4 Bb7 34. Qe1
Qf5 35. Nd6 Qd7 36. Nxb7 Qxb7 37. c3 Nf5 38. Kf2 Qd5 39. Qe4 Qd6 40. f4 Qe7 41.
Qe5+ Qf6 42. Qxf6+ Kxf6 43. Kf3 Nh4+ 44. Kf2 Nf5 45. g4 hxg4 46. hxg4 Nd6 47.
Bf3 g5 48. fxg5+ Kxg5 49. Kg3 f5 50. gxf5 Nxf5+ 51. Kf2 Kf4 52. b4 Ke5 53. Bh5
cxb4 54. cxb4 Nd4 55. Ke3 a5 56. bxa5 bxa5 57. Bg6 Nc2+ 58. Kd2 Nd4 59. Kc3 Kd5
60. Bf7+ Kc5 61. Bc4 Ne2+ 62. Kd2 Nd4 63. Kc3 Ne2+ 64. Kb3 Nd4+ Black won on time.

French Schlecter Bd3 vs the Tarrasch's Nf6. Over the board all moves in 75 minutes (most not needed and early exit to the bar). Black rated in the 1600s and left wondering where it all went wrong.

Anti Sicilian best game! Pawn storm and Knight sac!!

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

Another busted Stafford Gambit with a pawn sac on a2 from Black that did not work. Bd2 should be played before h3 on move 6, but it transposed anyway. Is it nice to see how the Stafford gambits players know that they are going down (and they know it) once you play c3, Bd2, h3 and c3... If we could see their faces... ;-) The only mistake according to Stockfish was not playing d4, but I played e5 with the hope that they would take on a2 and trapping the bishop... We will need to add a swindle mode to Stockfish....

Scotch with 8.h4

https://lichess.org/v9jIkz6W

VYK4444 vs. BJBeacon | Analysis - Chess.com

ALMOST PERFECT Grand Prix

I got advantage,and slowly slowly improve the position!

https://lichess.org/JQxVq3tc/white

I've got very nice position after learning how to play against English Opening. https://www.chess.com/a/tQgRL81c2TVjL

https://lichess.org/YhqROmyu/white#67 I play against IM Eric Rosen and He played Stafford Gambit! I play chessmood Stafford Gambit Refutation line, and I got his queen and winning position!! But I used too much time and Rosen flagged me? But I played perfect!!

https://www.chess.com/game/live/40533015549 I played against 1950 player. and I am 1850 player. And I defeated him in 12 movies very badly using chess mood openings(It got converted into alapin 1.e4 c5 2. c3 Nf6 3.e5 Nd5 4.d4 cxd4 5. c5)

?5 min + 3 23/3/22 Voprak v Chris 65 2219 on Lichess 1 Nc3 d6 2 e4 g6 3 d4 Bg7 4 Bf4 Nf6 5 Qd2 O-O 6 O-O-O c6 7 Bh6 Bxh6 8 Qxh6 Qa5 9 h4 b5 10 f3 b4 11 Nb1 Be6 12 h5 Bxa2 13 hg fg 14 Nh3 Rf7 15 e5 Nbd7 16 ef6 Nxf6 17 Ng5 Rg7 18 b3 Bxb1 19 Kxb1 Qf5 Bc4+ 20 d5 21 Bd3 Qd7 22 Rde1 a5 23 Ne6 Rf7 24 Bxg6 1-0. Cheers Mike Waddington

?5 min + 3 23/3/22 Voprak v Chris 65 2219 on Lichess 1 Nc3 d6 2 e4 g6 3 d4 Bg7 4 Bf4 Nf6 5 Qd2 O-O 6 O-O-O c6 7 Bh6 Bxh6 8 Qxh6 Qa5 9 h4 b5 10 f3 b4 11 Nb1 Be6 12 h5 Bxa2 13 hg fg 14 Nh3 Rf7 15 e5 Nbd7 16 ef6 Nxf6 17 Ng5 Rg7 18 b3 Bxb1 19 Kxb1 Qf5 Bc4+ 20 d5 21 Bd3 Qd7 22 Rde1 a5 23 Ne6 Rf7 24 Bxg6 1-0. Cheers Mike Waddington

?5 min + 3 23/3/22 Voprak v Chris 65 2219 on Lichess 1 Nc3 d6 2 e4 g6 3 d4 Bg7 4 Bf4 Nf6 5 Qd2 O-O 6 O-O-O c6 7 Bh6 Bxh6 8 Qxh6 Qa5 9 h4 b5 10 f3 b4 11 Nb1 Be6 12 h5 Bxa2 13 hg fg 14 Nh3 Rf7 15 e5 Nbd7 16 ef6 Nxf6 17 Ng5 Rg7 18 b3 Bxb1 19 Kxb1 Qf5 Bc4+ 20 d5 21 Bd3 Qd7 22 Rde1 a5 23 Ne6 Rf7 24 Bxg6 1-0. Cheers Mike Waddington

?Alapin Sicilian. harmonie5 (2228) v Voprak 5 min + 3. 25/3/22 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 cd 4 c3 Nf6 5 e5 Nd5 6 cd d6 7 Bc4 Nb6 8 Bb3 de 9 d5 Na5 10 Nc3 f6 11 Nxe5 !? not mentioned by Mister Gaby in his survey but dangerous. fe 12 Qh5+ g6 13 Qxe5 Nxb3 (expecting Qxh8 when I intended Nxc1 without allowing Bh6) but 14 ab and now both of my rooks are in trouble. Rg8 15 Nb5 Bg7 16 Nc7+ Kf7( Kd7?? Qe6+) 17 Qf4+ Bf6 18 Nxa8 Nxd5!? 19 Qb8 ( Qc4 Be6) a6 20 O-O Be6 21 Qxb7 Qxa8 22 Qxa6 Qxa6 23 Rxa6 leaving an unclear endgame Rb8 24 Re1 Bf5 25 h3 h5 26 Rd1 Nb4 27 Ra7 Nd3 28 Be3 Nxb2 29 Rd2 Rxb3 30 Bd4 Nc4 31 Rd1 Ne5 32 Re1? hoping to get to the e7 pawn but overlooking Nc6 33 Bxf6 Nxa7 34 Bxe7 Nc6 35 Bg5 Rb1 with best play a draw should be reached but defending is no fun. 36 Rxb1 Bxb1 37 g3?! Be4 38 h4 Bf3 39 Kf1 Ne5! 40 Be3 Nd3 41 Bd4 Ke6 42 Be3 Kd5 43 Bg5 Kf4 44 Bd2 Kb3 45 Bg5 Kc2 46 Bh6 Kd1 47 Be3 Ne5 48 Bf4 Ng4 49 Bg5 Be2+ 50 Kg2 Ke1 51 Bf4 Ba6 (Nxf2) 52 f3 Bb7 53 Bg5 Ke2 54 Bf4 Bxf3+ 0-1

?Alapin Sicilian. harmonie5 (2228) v Voprak 5 min + 3. 25/3/22 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 cd 4 c3 Nf6 5 e5 Nd5 6 cd d6 7 Bc4 Nb6 8 Bb3 de 9 d5 Na5 10 Nc3 f6 11 Nxe5 !? not mentioned by Mister Gaby in his survey but dangerous. fe 12 Qh5+ g6 13 Qxe5 Nxb3 (expecting Qxh8 when I intended Nxc1 without allowing Bh6) but 14 ab and now both of my rooks are in trouble. Rg8 15 Nb5 Bg7 16 Nc7+ Kf7( Kd7?? Qe6+) 17 Qf4+ Bf6 18 Nxa8 Nxd5!? 19 Qb8 ( Qc4 Be6) a6 20 O-O Be6 21 Qxb7 Qxa8 22 Qxa6 Qxa6 23 Rxa6 leaving an unclear endgame Rb8 24 Re1 Bf5 25 h3 h5 26 Rd1 Nb4 27 Ra7 Nd3 28 Be3 Nxb2 29 Rd2 Rxb3 30 Bd4 Nc4 31 Rd1 Ne5 32 Re1? hoping to get to the e7 pawn but overlooking Nc6 33 Bxf6 Nxa7 34 Bxe7 Nc6 35 Bg5 Rb1 with best play a draw should be reached but defending is no fun. 36 Rxb1 Bxb1 37 g3?! Be4 38 h4 Bf3 39 Kf1 Ne5! 40 Be3 Nd3 41 Bd4 Ke6 42 Be3 Kd5 43 Bg5 Kf4 44 Bd2 Kb3 45 Bg5 Kc2 46 Bh6 Kd1 47 Be3 Ne5 48 Bf4 Ng4 49 Bg5 Be2+ 50 Kg2 Ke1 51 Bf4 Ba6 (Nxf2) 52 f3 Bb7 53 Bg5 Ke2 54 Bf4 Bxf3+ 0-1

I just played a game that I think deserves the description of a model game. :) It's in the model Sicilian 2.. a6 variation, and since I've thus far had problems there, I'm particularly proud. I picked up the idea of pushing f4-f5 in spite of the e5 pawn hanging from GM Gabuzyan. 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 { B23 Sicilian Defense: Closed } a6 3. g3 Qc7?! { (0.17 → 0.89) Inaccuracy. b5 was best. } (3... b5 4. Bg2 Bb7 5. Nge2 e6 6. d4 cxd4 7. Nxd4 Nf6 8. Qe2) 4. Bg2 b5?! { (0.38 → 1.31) Inaccuracy. e6 was best. } (4... e6 5. Nf3 d6 6. O-O Nf6 7. Re1 Nc6 8. d4 cxd4 9. Nxd4) 5. Nh3? { (1.31 → -0.02) Mistake. a4 was best. } (5. a4 b4) 5... e6 6. O-O Bb7 7. d3 Nf6 8. f4 d5? { (0.38 → 2.08) Mistake. b4 was best. } (8... b4 9. Na4) 9. e5 Nfd7? { (2.10 → 4.12) Mistake. d4 was best. } (9... d4) 10. f5 b4 11. Ne2?? { (5.21 → 2.36) Blunder. fxe6 was best. } (11. fxe6 fxe6) 11... Nxe5?! { (2.36 → 3.65) Inaccuracy. exf5 was best. } (11... exf5 12. e6 Ne5 13. Nef4 f6 14. a3 d4 15. Nd5 Bxd5 16. Bxd5 Nbc6 17. Rxf5 O-O-O 18. Bg2) 12. fxe6 fxe6?! { (3.08 → 4.02) Inaccuracy. f6 was best. } (12... f6 13. Nef4 Be7 14. Qh5+ g6 15. Qe2 Qb6 16. Nxd5 Bxd5 17. Bxd5 Nbc6 18. Qg2 O-O-O 19. Bf4) 13. Nef4 Qd7? { (3.94 → 7.12) Mistake. Bc8 was best. } (13... Bc8) 14. Ng5 Bd6 15. Ngxe6 g6 16. Qe2 d4 17. Nxc5 Bxc5 18. Qxe5+ Kd8 19. Qxh8+ Kc7 20. Qe5+ Kb6 21. Nd5+ Ka7 22. Nf6 Qb5 23. Bxb7 Kxb7 24. Bf4 a5 25. Qc7+ Ka6 26. Rae1 Nc6 27. Re6 Bb6?! { (19.98 → Mate in 9) Checkmate is now unavoidable. Qb7 was best. } (27... Qb7 28. Rxc6+) 28. Qxc6?! { (Mate in 9 → 14.08) Lost forced checkmate sequence. Rxc6 was best. } (28. Rxc6 Ra7 29. Qc8+ Rb7 30. Nd7 a4 31. Bb8 b3 32. Rxb6+ Qxb6 33. Nxb6 bxa2 34. Nc4 a1=Q) 28... Qxc6 29. Rxc6 Kb5 30. Re6 Rc8 31. Rf2 Bd8 32. Nd5 Rc5 33. Nf6 Rf5 34. Be5 Rg5 35. h3 Bxf6 36. Bxf6 Rd5 37. Re5 Kc6 38. Rxd5 Kxd5 39. Bg7 Ke6 40. Rf8 { Black resigns. } 1-0

Also posted for game of the month, Grand Prix Attack :) https://www.chess.com/game/live/54629918539

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/32426413275?tab=review I played just as Avetik sir told me in the course to play

I played this game nicely but it was one of the last rounds so I took the draw [Event "National schools Under-11"] [Site "?"] [Date "2022.05.19"] [Round "8"] [White "Vandan Alankar Sawai"] [Black "Reyan Md"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ECO "B38"] [WhiteElo "1428"] [BlackElo "1590"] [PlyCount "52"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. c4 Nf6 6. Nc3 Bg7 7. Be3 O-O 8. Be2 d6 9. O-O Bd7 10. Qd2 Nxd4 11. Bxd4 Bc6 12. f3 a5 13. b3 Nd7 14. Be3 Nc5 15. Rac1 Be5 16. Rfd1 e6 17. Bf1 Qe7 18. Ne2 f5 19. exf5 Rxf5 20. Ng3 Qh4 21. Bd4 Bf4 22. Be3 Be5 23. Bd4 Bf4 24. Be3 Be5 25. Bd4 Bf4 26. Be3 Be5 1/2-1/2

I played this in an online tournament. It was a pretty good Caro Kann defense. I was with the white pieces. My opponent and I both could have learned something from this game. 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. h4 h5 5. c3 e6 6. Nf3 c5 7. Bg5 f6 8. exf6 gxf6 9. Bf4 cxd4 10. Nxd4 Ne7 11. Nxf5 Nxf5 12. c4 Bb5+ 13. Bd2 Bxd2+ 14. Nxd2 Nc6 15. Be2 Ng7 16. Qc2 Kf7 17. g4 Nd4 18. Qd3 Nxe2 19. Qxe2 hxg4 20. Qxg4 Qa5 21. h5 Rag8 22. Qg6+ Ke7 23. cxd5 Nf5 24. d6+ Nxd6 25. Qd3 Qe5+ 26. Qe2 Qxe2+ 27. Kxe2 Rg5 28. h6 Rg6 29. h7 Rg7 30. Rc1 Kd7 31. Nc4 Nxc4 32. Rxc4 Rhxh7 33. Rd1+ Ke8 34. Rc8+ Kf7 35. Rc7+ Kg6 36. Rg1+ Kh6 37. Rh1+ Kg6 38. Rg1+ Kh6 39. Rh1+ Kg6 1/2-1/2. We agreed to a draw.

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. Bf4 d5 4. c3 c5 5. 6. Bb5 a6 7. Ba4 b5 8. Bb3 c4 9. Bc2 Bd6 10. Bg3 Nh5 11. Ne5 Nxg3 12. Nxc6 Qc7 13. hxg3 Qxc6 14. Rxh7 Rxh7 15. Bxh7 g6 16. Qg4 Kf8 17. Qh3 Kg7 18. Nd2 e5 19. Qh2 exd4 20. exd4 Bf5 21. Bxg6 Bxg6 22. O-O-O Rh8 23. Qg1 b4 24. Nb1 Qa4 25. Qe1 Qc2# 0-1 https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/55914878905?tab=analysis I was with the black pieces. An Indian game: London system opening. ( according to chess.com )

Win Morphy style with 2 pieces sacrifice with a bad account with the French when White takes with the Queen on d4. https://www.chess.com/live#g=57485783179 Love the attacking courses and Chessmood variations!!!

a good game in scotch. my opponent played some weird moves [Link "https://www.chess.com/game/live/57199045999"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Bc5 5. Nb3 Bb6 6. Nc3 Nf6 7. Qe2 d6 8. Be3 O-O 9. O-O-O Qe7 10. f3 Re8 11. g4 Bxe3+ 12. Qxe3 Nd7 13. Nd5 Qd8 14. h4 Nce5 15. g5 c6 16. Nc3 f6 17. Rxd6 fxg5 18. hxg5 Nf7 19. Bc4 Qe7 20. g6 Qxd6 21. gxf7+ Kf8 22. fxe8=Q+ Kxe8 23. Rxh7 Qf8 24. Qg5 Qe7 25. Qxe7+ Kxe7 26. Rxg7+ Kf6 27. Rg8 b5 28. Bd3 Kf7 29. Rh8 Kg7 30. Rd8 Nb6 31. Na5 b4 32. Ne2 c5 33. c3 Rb8 34. cxb4 cxb4 35. Nc6 Rb7 36. Ba6 Rc7 37. Nd4 Bxa6 38. Ne6+ 1-0

Hello, This is Aravindakshan here. I played an offline Open event in Bangalore, India recently and scored 7.0/9.0 points. I played ChessMood Opening Scotch in 4 of my 5 white games. This is the link to my Lichess study of my games:- https://lichess.org/study/kwAaXOvc This is the link to my performance:- http://chess-results.com/tnr673076.aspx?lan=1&art=9&fed=IND&snr=49

Below is the link to an online blitz game(3+0) in the Schlecter French where I felt comfortable throughout the game. I used to play Tarrasch and I can see so many patterns recurring but better versions of them. In my opinion(I may be wrong) Schlechter feels like an improved Tarrasch in most lines. With respect to this game, against stronger opposition I would have faced better resistance and I cannot miss chances like I did in this game but on the bright side I was never worse. https://lichess.org/jmIihtDE/white#0

I won this game last month after following a Chessmood Caro-Kann line , with a rook sac and royal fork in the end : https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/56749224873?tab=review

Beautiful Scotch game with ChessMood lines that got me to 1900 in blitz on chess.com :) https://www.chess.com/game/live/64408898665

I have idea for common "Mistakes" in Scotch from my game in tournament over the board (Rapid game and Blitz game followed next day with the same opponent). I am ~ 1900 in Rapid and Blitz, my ELO is 2000, however, I made this mistake. The idea for black was mentioned in course, but not in this particular move order. This mistake was not covered in the course or is it?! I would found it in classical control, but in rapid - missed, because this is just one of my first tournament games in Scotch. https://lichess.org/study/oO7yjp5w/gwxJPssl

https://www.chess.com/game/live/65109123343 Beautiful French Defense Dream variation in action! Bet opponent was like how do I get that king so safe in the middle of the board?! 😀

Caro Kann exchange, unfourtunately misplayed endgame in time pressure with piece up. Opponent was polish WFM. I was not prepared for this game, I played what I remembered from video, this variation I watched only once about a month ago. However, I remembered there were two variations - to grab a pawn or not to grab... See Second chapter in this study: https://lichess.org/study/3Q73OCzx/cWP7KUpf

This is me playing white in the Pasini variation against the Modern Defense on Chess.Com, 3+2. I checked the game afterwards on Lichess and the evaluation indicated that white had played pure-as-snow-perfect. Had I been my opponent, I would have filed a complaint. :) 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 d6 4. Be3 a6 5. g4 b5 6. Bg2 Bb7 7. h4 h5 8. gxh5 Rxh5 9. Bf3 Rh8 10. h5 e6 11. e5 Nc6 12. hxg6 fxg6 13. Rxh8 Bxh8 14. exd6 cxd6 15. Qd2 Qf6 16. O-O-O O-O-O 17. Bg5 Qxd4 18. Bxd8 Kxd8 19. Qg5+ Qf6 20. Rxd6+ Kc7 21. Qxf6 Bxf6 22. Rxe6 Bg5+ 23. Kb1 Nd4 24. Rxg6 Nxf3 25. Nxf3 Bxf3 26. Rxg5 Nf6 27. Rf5 1-0

Beautiful Dutch Attack game (2100 blitz). Almost all theory, all from the course material. I didn't do much myself :D https://www.chess.com/game/live/65680991793

https://www.chess.com/game/live/65684587771 2. Nc3 vs e6+d5 2400 fell into the trap:)

https://www.chess.com/game/live/66213046485

Nice game started with Philidor Defense from Black and turned towards Scotch idea. In the end Rook sacrifice helps to finish the game faster. https://lichess.org/8x7UsX4v

[Event "2023 \"Druskininkai Rapid Open \""] [Date "2023.01.08"] [Round "7"] [White "Renate"] [Black "Misiuk, Martynas"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B23"] [WhiteElo "1926"] [BlackElo "1907"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 g6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Qxd4 Nf6 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. Qa4 d6 7. e5 dxe5 8. Nxe5 Bd7 9. Nxd7 Nxd7 10. Be3 (10. Bb5 Bg7) 10... Bg7 11. Rd1 O-O 12. g3 Qc8 13. Bg2 Nb6 14. Qb5 Qe6 15. O-O Qc4 16. Bxb6 (16. a4 Qd4) 16... Qxb5 17. Nxb5 axb6 18. Rd7 Rxa2 19. Rxb7 Na5 20. Rxe7 Rxb2 21. Nd6 Rxc2 22. Bd5 Rd2 23. Bxf7+ Kh8 24. Ne4 Re2 25. Bd5 Bd4 26. Rd7 b5 27. Ng5 Bg7 28. Ne6 1-0 Move 9...Nxd7 is not covered in the course or I missed it.

https://www.chess.com/game/live/68013813743 Just wanted to share the nice Petrov trap mate thanks to chessmood.

Like to add one game played against Sicilian line. Opponent can't have any time to attack the White. https://lichess.org/jhXthUha

https://www.chess.com/game/live/68472838505 Oponnent play diffrently than in the course, but this game show, how powerful french defence/attack can be, when oponnent is a beginner and have not much time to think.

Dutch Attack Vs. London System Checkmate in 19 Moves with 94% Accuracy 😙 https://lichess.org/ZlTnTIBT1Ybt

https://lichess.org/VVMeIjnY#45 & https://lichess.org/iojWn1dd#63 These are, perhaps my best games I have ever played against caro-kann & sicilian(without watching the course) with pressure 😅

https://lichess.org/zt3PKJ5B Hi Avetik, this is my game from a OTB tournament a few days ago. According to stockfish I hit a 96% accuracy playing the French Attack Tarrasch variation. The opening worked great-it destroyed his pawn structure so I was delighted to go into a winning endgame "and the rest was technique" or so they say. 😉

https://www.chess.com/game/live/71092655099 - Schlechter variation https://www.chess.com/game/live/69247092545 - Anti-Sicilian 2.Nc6 https://www.chess.com/game/live/70563169081 - Anti-Sicilian 2.e6 https://www.chess.com/game/live/67393235807 - Anti-Sicilian 2.d6 https://www.chess.com/game/live/62686135723 - Anti-Sicilian 2.g6 https://www.chess.com/game/live/64089245861 - Anti-Sicilian 2.a6 https://www.chess.com/game/live/70298076875 - Scotch game https://www.chess.com/game/live/70157657025 - Alekhine defense https://www.chess.com/game/live/69003302489 - Philidor defense https://www.chess.com/game/live/59693487751 - Caro-Kann defense https://www.chess.com/game/live/65474486631 - Pirc defense

French attack - exchange variation https://lichess.org/ggSyEoJPLsVd

French attack - Knight/Exchange variation vs. higher rated player https://lichess.org/8ab4234eTLte

Hello GM Avetik and Chessmood. Firstly a BIG thanks - I took the plunge and subscribed to take advantage before the prices went up. I am so pleased I did - it's been great to refresh Tactics and Mating patterns first off. But I think the biggest difference has been taking a fresh look at my openings - I have suspected for a while that many of my variations with white (I play 1. e4) were becoming tricker to get an advantage with at my level. With black I played 1. ... e5 against e4, following a Ginger GM course, which again were trappy and relied on surprise, but harder to win with against an opponent that knew what they were doing. Against anything else with black I played KID. Anyway - I started going through the chessmood openings 2 weeks ago and it has been enough to FINALLY break the 1800 chesscom blitz rating. I had my first FIDE rated OTB tournament ever this weekend. I know, NOT the time to try out new openings, right? But round 1 I saw myself paired against someone 200 points higher. He played 1. d4 -- I hadn't watched those chapters yet so I had to play my old stuff. Managed to get a draw there, so a good start. Round 2 I had white, against the highest rated (1985) in the under 2000s bracket. He played Scandinavian - I hadn't watched that chapter yet either, so played my usual stuff again! Was heading for a draw until he blundered a queen trade that gave me two unstoppable passed pawns. My best win ever! Round 3 I had white against a young girl again 1975 rated (I am about 1750). I played Scotch and we got the romantic variation. She looked thrown when I played h4! But little did she know I didn't know what I was doing with it yet either. I played Rh3 too early, I blocked the path off my dark squared bishop, and she forked my queen and rook. Round 4 I had ANOTHER 1950 opponent. He again played 1. d4, again my usual stuff, again a draw. Which brings my to my final round, which I played yesterday against someone similar rating to me. He played 1. e4, and I played 1. e6 -- apart from 2 blitz games, the first time I have ever played the French. Would you believe he played 2. d4 and 3. Bd3! and I thought "He is a chessmood student"! Anyway - the position got super crazy after 4. c3 e5 - neither of us really knew what to do. I was worse nearly all of the game. Fought back to a 3 vs 2 pawn endgame in my favour but with the structure split. We both thought it was a dead draw, but engine says it was winning for me! Many instructive moments - clearly I need to do more work on my endgames next (and yes, he is a Chessmood student, and we are going to try and meet up for some training games). https://www.chess.com/a/iRqUrq1YFaPQ?tab=analysis

elo 1200-1300 chess.com rapid vs Stafford gambit https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/74839923283?tab=review PS I just learned it 2 days ago from the courses, after losing to this annoying gambit a few times, so I'm happy with this win :D

Thank you so much. Not a perfect game (expecially in analysis...) but so fun! https://lichess.org/cXLFfaOS/black#88

https://lichess.org/study/YGTKETx8/P1DrseeY My game with white, Scotch with Qh4. I am playing Nc3 (and Nb5 later)

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/76034382051?tab=review I just posted it for the best game contest . Do I have to put it here also as it could be a good model game for stafford gambit for my level of play ?

I finally got to play a good attack in the Scotch! Opponent played 6...a5 the advanced move which I seem to be facing more nowadays. https://lichess.org/65kURKmnbqRC

https://lichess.org/zi0MIMDr/black#50 french defense with e5

I just played the basic white mood line against Alekhine . I didnt find model games of it . It was a 90 min +30 sec online game . I got a good position after dubious moves by him but then I got fancy with e6 to keep his king side locked. I tried to make it work in middle game , keeping the pieces especially my bishop pair but he finally untangled himself and got a better endgame . I tried all I could but I was losing and at the end , I got lucky in time pressure as he blundered his queen ! I m studying the bishop pair course ( first quarter of it ) and usually it influence too much how I play ..this game is a good example as I should have give away a bishop many times in the games but held on too long on them..https://www.chess.com/game/live/76869012173

Got a nice Grandprix attack with the rook sacrifice AND exchange sac [Event "?"] [Site "Chess.com iPhone"] [Date "2023.05.05"] [Round "?"] [White "richard_mark"] [Black "anesheim"] [Result "1-0"] [FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"] [WhiteElo "1628"] [BlackElo "1734"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 d6 3. f4 Nf6 4. Nf3 g6 5. Bc4 Bg7 6. d3 O-O 7. O-O a6 8. a3 b5 9. Ba2 Bb7 10. Qe1 Nc6 11. Qh4 Nd4 12. f5 Nxc2 13. fxg6 Nxa1 14. Ng5 h6 15. Nxf7 Rxf7 16. Bxf7+ Kf8 17. Bxh6 Nc2 18. Bxg7+ (18. Rxf6 exf6 19. Bxg7+ Ke7 20. Bxf6+ Kd7 21. Bxd8 ) Kxg7 19. Rxf6 exf6 20. Qh7+ Kf8 21. Bb3 Bd5 22. Bxd5 (22. Nxd5 22... Ke8 (22... Qe8 23. Qh8# ) ) {1-0}

Classical game, Caro Kann, not the best play, but for model game could be useful. [Event "Round 9 National championship, women"] [Date "2023.05.05"] [Round "9"] [White "Chessmood member"] [Black "G.L."] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B13"] [PlyCount "91"] 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. Bd3 Nf6 5. c3 Nc6 6. Bf4 e6 7. Qe2 Bd6 8. Bxd6 Qxd6 9. Nf3 O-O 10. Ne5 Nd7 11. f4 f6 12. Qh5 f5 13. Nd2 Nf6 14. Qh4 Ne4 15. g4 Nxe5 16. fxe5 Qd8 17. Qxd8 Rxd8 18. gxf5 exf5 19. Nf3 Be6 20. Rg1 h6 21. Ke2 Kf7 22. h4 g6 23. Ke3 Rg8 24. c4 dxc4 25. Bxe4 fxe4 26. Nd2 Ke7 27. Nxe4 Raf8 28. Rad1 Bd5 29. Nf6 Rxf6 30. exf6+ Kxf6 31. Rdf1+ Kg7 32. Kf4 Re8 33. Re1 Rf8+ 34. Ke5 Rf5+ 35. Kd6 Bf7 36. Re5 Rf6+ 37. Kc7 Rc6+ 38. Kxb7 Rb6+ 39. Kc7 Rxb2 40. Rf1 Bg8 41. d5 c3 42. d6 c2 43. Re7+ Kh8 44. d7 Rb1 45. d8=Q Rd1 46. Rxd1 1-0 Real names hidden and link to live game in lichess available upon request.

Accelerated Dragon model game with lower rated opponent, who played incorrectly

Wow.  🤩🤩🤩

What a game. 
You all pieces played actively. Great job!

Especially I liked Ra3 move! 👍

french attack 1.e4 , e6 2. c4 d5 https://lichess.org/tvSNSzZ3XYBo

Nice game. 👍
How to punish, if opponent plays many moves with a piece. 

After Qa4+ you could also cover the check Bb5 or just b5, as they can't take b4 bishop, because of Nc2+ 

french attack exchange variation with 4.C4 https://lichess.org/OI4aj1o6/black#7

https://lichess.org/Xn4URsOa/black french defense: advance variation

A 75min+30s game I played yesterday in the Schlechter French. My opponent was an old man who actually used to be around 2100 national some 5-10 years ago, but dropped to 1900. I just felt like I was in control the entire game.

Well played. It is nice to see your opponent blunder at the end. I am 150 points weaker and it is nice to see that people still can drop pieces under pressure. GG :)

Here is a Sicilian Nc3 Nc6 game I just played as white.

https://lichess.org/NpcC8rkB/white#17

It says I'm not allowed to upload PGN files, so I can't upload the game as others have.

Punishing a mistake with the Scotch: https://www.chess.com/game/live/82495200427 😀

Here is another Sicilian. This one is from the Nc3 d6 line. I made at least one opening prep error and one late middlegame error, but I had enough pressure on Black to win anyway.

https://lichess.org/tUUez7VE/white#21

Lost Exchange Caro Kann, positionally was a bit better, but lost in complications in time trouble.

The opening move is whether to play 12.Bb5 or 12.Bc2 here. 

And after 12.Bb5 Qb6 whether to play a4 or Bc6-b4 (not Nb3 as it was in the game).

https://lichess.org/lXAxvk7X#53

Caro-Kann, Exchange variation

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/84502981909?tab=review - A nice game, winning out of the opening, and converting it.

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/84486877981?tab=review - A good game in the opening, getting a winning advantage against an FM with 3250 rating performance!!

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/84254391621?tab=review - A nice game in the Schlechter!

Not my own game, but in the Womens championship, Eline Roebers played the Scotch with longcastle and attacking on the kingside. Its a really nice game to learn from imo

https://www.chess.com/events/2023-fide-womens-world-cup/01-01/Roebers_Eline-Al_Fayyadh_Yamama_Asif_Abdula

https://lichess.org/study/ooIQWCmJ/VSIzKaGh

Exchange Caro Kan with early e6, good attack with white, unfortunately lost in time trouble.

A crushing game in the Nc3 Sicilian. https://lichess.org/2zxTCD9E

https://lichess.org/QCeSB4nb/black#54

https://lichess.org/4UZpb2oK/black#78

https://lichess.org/AG3cyqtN/black#48 - Uncommon lines

https://lichess.org/Pu7NVlXk/black#21

https://lichess.org/study/hmOBMuUf/XVTfbqSK

Sicilian Alapin with black. Could play better, I mixed multiple variation, but this was first game in Alapin and I watched CM course for first time just a day before this game … so a bit mixed everything, but ideas were correct in general :)

https://lichess.org/AJoaTLzC/black#41.    Pretty easy but good game in Dutch with many main ideas, especially I like b5 move. And sorry I'm always forgetting that I should change bishops to c3 without waiting…

C'est ce qu'on appelle un chef d'oeuvre (French Attack)

I thought this was interest line of the French, Vistaneckis Variation  Hope you think so as well.

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/daily/565420913?tab=review  Hope I link it correctly

Let me know how you like it

[Event "?"]
[Site "Chess.com iPhone"]
[Date "2023.10.10"]
[Round "?"]
[White "sqallir1"]
[Black "defensivefredy"]
[Result "1-0"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
[WhiteElo "1977"]
[BlackElo "1996"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Bd3 dxe4 4. Bxe4 Nf6 5. Bf3 Be7 6. Ne2 O-O 7. O-O c5 8. c3 Nc6 9. Be3 cxd4 10. Nxd4 Nxd4 11. Qxd4 Qxd4 12. Bxd4 a6 13. Re1 Rb8 14. Be5 Ra8 15. Nd2 Rd8 16. Nc4 Bc5 17. Rad1 Nd7 18. Bc7 Re8 19. b4 Ba7 20. Nd6 Rf8 21. Nxb7  {1-0}

Puzzle-Fixing

Dear ChessMood Family, 

We have over 10,000 quizzes on the website, and we're adding hundreds of new. We try to be as careful as possible, but there is still the human factor… 

If you notice a mistake in any of the quizzes, and you share the link and details with us, that will be much appreciated! 

Thanks! 
ChessMood team 

Replies

Maybe this is not about positions itself, but I do not understand why we have the same puzzle, but with different colors. I do not think it makes sense when these puzzle comes one after another. Second thing is that in Tactics Ninja for instance I think it would be better to have one quiz after each section rather then small quizzes (with just 2 puzzles, sometimes the same puzzle with opposite colors and sometimes the same puzzle as just discussed in example) :)

In general I agree on the puzzles with opposite colors feeling a bit pointless. In addition Puzzle 4 in "The Endgame Roadmap - Section 7 Weak Squares" marks Bd4 as a Mistake expecting a5 instead while the Puzzle 1 (reversed Colors) expected Be4 before playing h4. https://chessmood.com/course/chess-endgame-roadmap/episode/5070/811

Endgame Roadmap, Queen Wanted, Protected Passed Pawn. In the first puzzle after 1.a4 Kc5 there are a bunch of winning moves. I played 2.Kf3 which is fine but was marked incorrect. Only 2.Kh3 g5 3.Kg4 is given as correct. I think it'd be reasonable to allow 2.Kf3 g5 3.Kg4 as well. The same puzzle is repeated immediately afterwards with colors reversed so should be fixed there as well.

Dear Chessmood team, I would like to report 2 mistakes in the Endgame Roadmap (I think so ;-): Section 10, first Quiz, third task: After 1. h5 there is ... e5 with the idea a5-a4-a3-a2-a1 and/or Lg8 totally equalizing. So 1. h5 is good, but not winning. Section 10, third Quiz, fifth task: 1. g4 is at least as good as 1. Nf3 (isn't?)

BlunderProof, Section 9, 4th problem. If White to move, I think Be2 is correct. Perhaps you intended it to be Black to move, with ...Qxe3.

Hi. The Troitzky daily puzzle of today, 4/20/23, has a cook (dual). 1.Rd4 Bc2+ and here gives 2.Kf6! like wrong, that is precisely what I played. The right answer is Kh6 but if you check with an engine you will see that both, Kf6 and Kh6 lead to a draw. Kh6 stalemates but 2.Kf6 e2 3. Rd5 e1Q 4. Re5+ Qxe5 5. Kxe5 and is a draw because of insufficient material on the board. TYVM and expecting to be fixed (and my 500 Moodcoins of course) 😜 Llorenc Boldu Zabih

In Tactic Ninja (btw:excellent!!) in Section 20, Nr. 4, last example Avetik gives a Game Carlsen-Ivanchuk and the hint, what could happen, if there was no pawn d4. But Nd4 would not win a piece as said because black can rescue it after... Bxf6 exf6 Qe5!

In the 7Q course, the quizzes for Question #2 appear to be repeats of the quizzes for Question #1.

Tactic ninja puzzle 3 : not sure how sacrificing the Bishop on e5 before sacrificing the Q on h8 is better than immediately Qh8 with the same forking trick.

ChessMood PRO Members

Hello champions and welcome to the ChessMood team! 
We all are from different countries, different ages, have different professions... But one thing bounds us - the passion for chess.

Champions, we'll grow together and keep a warm relationship in our team. 
Please tell a bit about yourself in this post. 

#ChessMood_Family 

Replies

Okay, I'll be first :) 
I am GM Avetik Grigoryan.
I have born on 27.01.1989 in Armenia. My father had a big passion for chess (he has 2400 in chess.com) and when I was 4, my father went to the war... 
That time my Grandma taught me to play chess... 
Eventually, with some magic, I became a GM :) 
At 22, being at my top rating 2623, I stopped playing professional chess and started a career as a professional chess coach. 
I have been the coach of Thailand's national team (2017-2018) and trained many Grandmasters. 
In 2019 I founded ChessMood and it was one of the best things I've done in my life. 

Knowing many of you personally, I would miss a lot, not knowing you. 

Dream - To create the best educational chess platform and help you to pursue your goals and dreams. 
Good luck to us :) 

Hi everyone - I joined ChessMood about 6 months ago, and I'm really enjoying it, and learning huge amounts.  I'm 59 and live in London.

I started to play chess around 18 years old, but bogged down at around 1800 for many years.  Started to work more seriously on my chess about 15 years ago, with intermittent bursts of activity.  In the last few years, I have slowly improved to get above 2000, and I want to get up to 2200 as chess is going to be my main hobby in my upcoming retirement!

I'm Hunan, 31 years old, working as a programmer in San Francisco. I have always enjoyed playing chess, but never taken it seriously. I started spending more time playing in May of this year and have been improving very slowly, trying to keep the pieces together, trying not to blunder, trying to learn to think (around 1200 on chess.com at the moment).

I had noticed "Chessmood" on top player handles on chess.com, so I was intrigued what it is. I found an interview of GM Avetik by our own Jay Garrison and I learned about the mission and the approach. If you have had any interaction with Avetik, you immediately get the sense that his passion and his dedication are on another level.

I look forward to hearing about you all. We needed this thread!

I'm Peter, a 44 year old Austrian currently living in San Francisco. I played my first rated game at 14 and was an active tournament player in my high school and college years. For ten years I offered weekly free chess training for kids and coached our biggest talents at national competitions. Since turning 30, I've only played national league (~10 games per year), and my chess has mostly stagnated. In 2015 I moved to the US and haven't played OTB chess since then. My (inactive) FIDE rating is 2210.

ChessMood has inspired me to set myself a new goal: to become an FM strength player in all phases of the game. The first step in this journey was to switch to 1.e4, a move I hadn't played in almost 30 years. :-)

I am a lawyer in New York.  I lived in Brooklyn for many years, but I now live in a small town about 1 1/2 hours north of the City. 

Hi fellow ChessMood Pro Members,

I only recently joined ChessMood as a Pro Member. This seems like a really nice and inspiring community. I am 53 years old and live in Düsseldorf, Germany. I am married and have two teenage children. I am a qualified lawyer and work full time as a law professor. I learned chess as a teenager and played casually. I stopped playing after a few years, turning to computer and video games.

I restarted playing chess in 2007. My training was unsystematic: I bought a lot of books, started many, but finished none. I also regularly watched the coverage of top tournaments. My rating then was around 1300 in classical on ICC and around 1600 in correspondence on chess.com. 

At the end of 2010, I stopped playing again, but restarted briefly between 2012 and 2014. My correspondence rating peaked at 1693, my bltz rating on chess.com was around 1000. In 2018, I made another restart, motivated by the Perpetual Chess Podcast. For more than two years, I practiced daily, mainly doing spaced repetition. I bought numerous courses on Chessable, at least finishing a few, like 1001 Chess Tactics for Beginners, Free Scandinavian and Icelandic Gambit. I also started the Yusupov series, but still have not finished the first book. In July, I became a member of a local chess club, where I had played an open OTB tournament at the beginning of the year until Corona put an end to OTB chess. My lichess classical rating is now around 1800, my chess.com correspondence rating is around 1750 and my blitz rating on lichess is around 1520. I hope that ChessMood will bring me to the next level and beyond! My long term goal is to reach 2000 FIDE, 2300 Classical and 2000 Blitz on lichess.

I look forward to play and chat with you all!

Hello ChessMood family!

My Name is Jay Garrison, I am 47 years old and live near Phoenix, Arizona. 

When I was 4 years old, my father taught me to play checkers. By the time I was 5, I was winning every game and he decided he would teach me a tougher game: Chess. By the age of 7 I was winning every game of chess against him and any of my fathers friends he could bait into playing me.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a chess scene near where I grew up, and didn't play much growing up. When I would play a game against my friends, I would win easily, and they wouldn't want to play any more. So the game of chess was just a novelty to me, that I thought I could beat anyone any time, and didn't pursue it seriously. Instead, I pursued American rules football. At the age of 22, I suffered an injury that ended my football career before it really started. (I was invited to training camp for the Arizona Rattles - an Arena football team - but got hurt just a couple weeks before I got to camp, so never played) 

I was seeking an outlet for my competitive spirit after my injury when I saw a movie called Searching for Bobby Fischer. I thought, hey, I am really, really good at chess, I will go do that! So I looked up a local chess club and went to play. I ran into a room of experts and masters, and as you can imagine, I lost every game. I couldn't believe it! I didn't ever lose at chess, yet it happened! So the next day I went to the library and borrowed a book on chess - Bruce Pandalfini's Weapons of Chess. I played in my first tournament a couple months later and received a rating of 1422.

Then I moved to a small town that didn't have any chess, and as a young father of 2 boys, I couldn't afford to travel to tournaments, and chess was set aside so I could pursue a career and raise my family. In 1997 I moved to the Phoenix area and found a local club and was playing once a week. Then in 1999 I played several tournaments and reached a rating of 1600+ USCF, but then earned a promotion at work that once again kept me from playing. 

I didn't come back to the game until 2014, when I took a part time position with a local club to go into schools and teach chess as an after school program. (One of the most rewarding things I have ever done! I love working with the kids teaching them chess!) I played a couple tournaments, including the 2015 US Open that was held here in Phoenix and got my rating over 1700 USCF, but every time I would get close to 1800, I would slip back down. For several years I was stuck in the 1700's and finally gave up on improving, and walked away from chess again.

Then @GM_Avetik_Grigoryan came into my life. In 2018 I was invited into a Facebook group by Coach. I didnt think much of it, and didnt really participate much other then reading a few posts by others. Then a post was made that peaked my interest (I dont even remember what the post was anymore) and I made a reply that caught Coach's attention, and he sent me a private message thanking me for my answer to the post. I could tell he was sincere and it struck up a private conversation between us that ended in forging a friendship that will last a lifetime. 

When ChessMood launched in early 2019, I signed up right away. I decided to give myself one more chance to improve my game. I remember my 1:1 call with Coach when I signed up and how he listened to my goals (At the time I wanted to reach master) and how he asked me "why" I wanted that, and then helped me lay out a plan to achieve it. 

Then 2 months later, while on my evening walk (I was watching opening videos as I walked hehe) I got a huge sense that I was supposed to do more. I immediately reached out to Coach and asked him if he could meet with me, as I had a question for him. He set aside time for me the next day (I still am in awe at how freely Coach gives back to us all, and makes me want to be just like that!) and I told him of my premonition: I am going to be a GM, will you coach me? He didn't laugh at me, he didn't say people my age cant reach that level, he only asked me 1 question: Why? And after I gave him my whys, he said, "Lets make history!"

And here I am! In the last year and a half, my online ratings have increased 300+ points, with 2000+ on LiChess. My OTB at first took a dip, back to about 1650 before shooting up to over 1800! We are postponed on reaching 2000+ only because of a lack of OTB tournaments, but I know we will crash right by that when we can get active again! 

ChessMood is my second family, and I can not wait till we all get to meet up and play chess and drink beer together! #RightMoodRightMove #COGRO

Hi Family!

My name is Sergio Carrera. I am 48 and I was born and live in Madrid (Spain). I am married and have a 5 year-old child. I work for a large IT Company.

I started playing chess online in December 2018 (I already knew how to move the pieces because I had been taught  when I was a kid). I did not know any opening, so I bought and started reading the following books that I saw recommended in Internet and began to play the very first moves of those openings, against virtually anything and without really understanding them:

- 1.d4 Repertoire, by Boris Avrukh

- Chess Openings for Black, by Lev Alburt

Then I bought "Reassess your Chess", by Jeremy Silman and I read it in a few days and I fell in love with Chess and in April 2019 I played my first OTB tournament and in June 2019 I joined a local club. Currently, I am 1320 elo FIDE and 1650 on chess.com  and 1970 on lichess and I would really love to improve, and I am commited to improve.

My job is very demanding, so I decided I could not invest more than 10-15 hours a week without taking too much time from my family. With that in mind, my short-term goal is to achieve 1500 elo FIDE by  March 2022 and 2000 elo FIDE by March 2027.

I joined Chessmood last July and it has been the best chess-oriented decision I have made. 

We will grow together!

Hello All,

I am Sadkrith and I just turned 13 in July,2020. I live near Chicago(100 miles approx.) and currently in grade 8.

I started learning Chess from my Dad when I was around 6. Chessmood happened around 8 months ago when my Dad subscribed to the Pro membership. The immediate change thereafter was to switch to 1. e4 from 1.d4 that I was playing. I am thoroughly enjoying the game and dream to be a GM + Cardiologist. My Lichess & Chess.com ratings are around 2200 and 2000 respectively.

Coach Avetik & GM Gabuzyan have enriched my understanding of chess and hope to see the positive results OTB.

Hi everyone, I’m relatively new here as I became a pro member just a couple weeks ago.  I’m 38, living in Brooklyn New York with my wife and 6 year old daughter and 2 dogs.  My dad taught me chess when I was young, but I didn’t really do much until college when I joined the chess team there and got a uscf rating of around 1700.  After college I kind of dropped chess since I didn’t have time for it.  About a year or two ago I started to get back into it.  Unfortunately I still don’t really have time for otb tournaments, but I’ve been playing on lichess and chess.com where I’ve reached a high of 2150 on lichess.  I’ve taken a bit of a hit the past couple weeks trying to switch to e4 and learning all the new stuff but I’m sure things will start trending in the right direction after some study since Avetik does a great job of explaining things.

I am WIM Siranush Ghukasyan from Armenia, Yerevan
I was born on 25.11.1998. My uncle is a huge fan of chess and he always wished me to grow and become a good chess player. I've started studying and playing chess when I was 6, but I knew how pieces move when I was at the age of 4, and I've learned it from him.

At first, I hated chess because I thought this game is not girly :D

But when you start to play games and feel the pleasure of victory, it is impossible not to be in love with chess :)

My international rating is 2222.

My goal for now: I'm WIM since 2016 and my next step is to become a WGM  (I have one WGM norm)

Big thanks to GM Avetik for ChessMood and for his devotion to helping us to reach our goals.

Hi I am Till. I am one of the old geezers here (55). I started chess at 15, got to about 2200 (mostly tactics, but no real understanding)  when if was in my early 20s, stopped because I got excited about maths, moved to Japan, got excited about Shogi, stopped, got serious about physics and programming, .... You get the picture.

Now I play correspondence chess and online bullet to relax but a few years ago got a bit more serious again about studying chess at the site of one of chessmood's  competitors. I discovered chessmood when all courses were unlocked. I wasn't sure about joining for a while since I really don't have any chess-related goals besides having fun, but then I decided it is time to fill some of the gaps in my general chess education and I liked the selection of topics here.

Hello everyone

My name is Jamie, I am 40 years old and live in England. I work full time as a poker professional and coach, so luckily I am a little more flexible with time than most people despite having a family.

I played chess when I was a teenager up until my mid twenties, until I discovered poker really. I was never particularly good at the game. I think I was just shy of 1950 elo or something. We have a weird BCF system in the UK (which is now changing to elo also) so the conversion is somewhat tricky.

I started again on and off playing bad blitz/bullet for the last few years, with sporadic attempts to get somewhere near the average level I used to be. A few months ago I played a correspondence game with a friend and i rediscovered how rich chess is when you have some time.

I decided that I wanted to take chess somewhat seriously again and be competitive over the board. I took a lesson with a IM who outlined some very good ideas for improvement which revolves mainly around endgame and classical middle game studies.

I found chessmood via a friend who suggested I check out the perpetual chess podcast. I did, it sounded interesting so I checked out the site and watched a few free videos. I loved that the scotch was being proposed as this is one of the main openings I was planning to learn.

I signed up and following the blog  on openings, memorizing, what time controls to play etc have already seen some solid improvement (in the one opening I know!).

Great site and great people, I already met a study partner (shout out to Marc!) and did my 1-1 call with GM Avetik. He approved and improved my plan already a little bit and I also found out he used to play poker also!

I posted in the study partner thread already but if anyone wants to train please let me know. I am game as they say!

Hi everyone

I am Shahinur Haque , 37yrs old from Bangladesh. I have one kid near about 5yrs, he is a boy. In my early childhood i used to play chess regularly. Chess was my passion. My story of learning chess is little bit similar to the legendary Capablanca. At the age of 6 or 7 in front of my village house there was small grocery shop which was run by one of my cousin. At the evening at their leisure time two of my cousin used to play chess. I just learn from them and started beat them within next few days very easily. I am not sure how it was possible, may be they were very weak player. Then my father shift with us to a small town for my better education. Until completing the school i used to play chess regularly and win some school competition.

In the mean time i have completed my graduation in medical science and become a doctor in my country and started my job in a research organization. Then it was 2017 ; i was in Japan for 6 month at Osaka University in a fellowship program . The program was easy and i had enough free time for myself. Moreover for the first in my life  i was truly alone. Then i took an online course it was about how  to find out  the one thing in life. After this long course in conclusion i discovered that Chess is the one thing of my life. Then i come back my country and started to play competitive chess. That time i didn't have any FIDE rating. After my first tournament in 2018 i got FIDE ID and rating as well. Now my OTB FIDE rating is 1641 and online rating is around 1900 at lee chess. Now a days besides my Job and other family responsibilities i use my maxim time in practicing chess. During Covid-19 pandemic i knew about Chessmood through social media. And i become the PRO member and i am glad that i become part of chess mood family. I want to continue my chess growth and become a chess master within next 5 years.

Namaste every one. I am Tanmoy. I had born on 14/04/1989, same age as our head coach Avetik. I had learn Indian rule chess from my father and grand father at the age near 5. Later at the age 12-13 I had learn the international rules which is a little different from Indian rule chess. I always want to learn chess from a professional coach. But in my area there was nothing about chess. From my college life, when I get a computer and start playing chess against computer. 2 years ago I had joined chess.com and started to think chess seriously. My two dreams was to become a math professor and a fide titled player. My first dream was achieved last year. Now I have focused on my second dream. I have joined ChessMood pro team in April, this year and my rating is increased from 1300 to 1700+ in chess.com Blitz. So I feel I am going towards my dream. 

Also I wish to grow our ChessMood family bigger and bigger and one day come out an world champion from our ChessMood family.

Wish you all the best. 

Hi, my name is courtney, I am 33, from ohio in the USA, and have played chess as a hobby since age 5, but never competitively other than a few tournaments when I was a kid.  I did play in a chess team in high school and a chess club in college, but it was pretty casual.  I am rated about 1500 or 1600, but I always thought it would be fun to try and reach expert level, so that is my goal.  I work as a doctor, and for fun I do chess and card tricks.

Thanks,

Courtney

My name is Mateo Jackson. I am 10 years old. I was born in Vancouver, BC Canada but now live in Alberta. I am in grade 5.

I have been playing chess for 2 years. I am really happy to be part of Chessmood. My goal is to be a GM. I started playing in tournaments in 2019 but due to Covid there has been nothing but online. My chess.com rating is 1600. 

I am working really hard to get these openings solid! I am  excited about the club on Lichess to practice. 

Hi!

I'm Tiago, from Portugal. I'm 41 and expecting my second son in a few days. I was born in Oporto in a family with a few chess enthusiasts: my father learned chess from a magazine and teached some brothers.

My father, who is around 1500, teached me the rules and one day, when I was 11, one of his brothers, who joined a chess club, invited me to go there too. I played there until college, but never got any formal training. 

After college (I’m another chessmoodie for “team law”) me and some friends started our own chess club, mostly devoted to kids. It had some interesting results (we had about 50 members and won two youth national rapid championship) but ended abruptly: my friend who had the idea and was the man behind the scene had a fatal disease since birth which came to an end, and although we kept the club for a couple of years after his death, live changed for the rest of us too.

For me it was a carreer change: i made the public tender to enter the judiciary and moved to Lisbon. I had a classmate who i knew from my youth national championships and we put a chess set at the school bar. We got a few other players and when we moved to our internship, in a city called Braga (northern Portugal) we started a very serious chess club called APAXES en passant. APAXES was a word play with apaches and the initials of Almoçaradas, Passeatas, Aventuras, Xadrez, Estadias e Salgadinhos, something like Lunches, Tours, Adventures, Chess, Stays and Appetizers... we even made a theorical novelty: “dessert gambit”, when we skiped the first round after lunch, to eat well and get a lower opponent in the second afternoon round!

When internship was over, we all went to different courts in different cities. It is now 2012 and I was placed in Loulé (in Algarve, southern Portugal) and i started playing here. Chess is not very developed in Algarve (no more than 80 players in 4 clubs) so i started playing in a club in Spain too, in Ayamonte, right after the border (+- 80kms away).

During this period, i got some formal training and played more games than i used to. I think my understanding of the game got deeper but my FIDE elo has been always around 1900, although with some ocasional good results (U2000 Canada Open 2014, Algarve Regional Championship 2016/2017 and our team (Loulé ++ www.facebook.com/xadrezloule) got from Algarve Championship to Portugal Division 2. I guess it is true that knowing chess is not the same as playing it, as our coach says.

Last year i started a 3 year program to teach Tax Litigation in Lisbon, at judiciary school, so my life has been between Loulé (family) and Lisbon (work). Meanwhile I'll try to improve my chess to pass it own to my children the same way my father gave it to me.

I think you are the best companionship i could expect to make this middle age chess struggle. =)

See you in the board!

(Lichess: TorredosClerigos or Tiago_ChessMood / Chess.com: TorredosClerigos)

I’m Sean Raasch. I’m 37 and have spent a great deal of my life translating my passion through songwriting. I own a small business which opened right before COVID so I’ve been struggling but with extra effort we are starting to do pretty well. My father taught me how to play chess and his grandfather from Fozcoa, Portugal Antonio was a master and moved to the US during the 1918 revolution there. My goal is to try and keep talented chess in my family through the generations. I believe in giving something your best if you choose to take it on. That being said, I have a lot of work to do. For anyone interested in the music and even a song with a chess reference.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6fJam13nZgh4SqEYzIVu5y?si=uvvjkcyzT_W1qVM6dVtv5A

Hello, I am Nils from Germany, 48 years old, married with twins at the age of 8 (boy and girl).

I used to play chess in a club in Hamburg during high school. That was in the 80’s with chess informant, GM Helmut Pfleger and GM Vlastimil Hort on German TV and the Mephisto chess computer. Highlights were the ‘Berliner Sommer’ tournaments. During university I played coffeehouse chess with friends and participated in the Passau Open tournament twice. That was in the 90’s with the upcoming internet and the free internet chess server.

Around 2016, I got exited for chess again and joined a club in Frankfurt/Main. But this time I wanted to learn chess in a different way and study it like at university: How did chess evolve and what did the first World Champions write on the game of chess? And what would be the right basic courses? I began with Lasker’s Manuel on Chess and Capablanca’s Chess Fundamentals and had a look at the My Great Predecessors series which turned out to be too difficult for me.

My first basic course was the Steps method of which I finished the manual and all workbooks of step 4 and the lessons on endings of step 5. Subscribing to the Saint Louis Chess Clubs’ youtube channel brought me to Winning Chess Openings und Winning Chess Endings by Yasser Seirawan as my next basics courses. My current basic courses are Beyond the basics (level 2 of the Artur Yusupov’s series) and the Woodpecker Method by Axel Smith and Hans Tikkanen.

My rating is around ELO 1990 and DWZ 1900.

I want to improve und widen my understanding of all phases (opening, middlegame and endgame) and want to be able to convert this understanding into my games. My focus lies on over the board chess with classical time control. Before Corona, I used to play about one league game a month and about two tournaments a year. Additionally, we have regular non-rated tournaments at our club with different time controls.

My long-term goal is to earn the FM title. Reaching that goal after retirement and the kids grown up would be fine with me.

My opening repertoire should consist of sound main lines of both more dynamic/aggressive and more calm/positional systems. Unfortunately, back in 2016 I started with more aggressive and to a certain extend dubious side lines from which have not managed to replace the Smith Morra, yet.

My other main systems for White are:

Scotch Four Knighs (from Yusupov: Beyond the basics) and Scotch Game (Negi: The modern Scotch)

French advance variation (from Yusupov: Beyond the bascis) and exchange variation (from Sielecki: Keep it simple 1. e4)

Exchange variation against Caro-Kann (from Sielecki: Keep it simple 1. e4)

My main systems for Black are:

Petroff Defence (from Yusupov: Beyond the basics)

QGD (from Yusupov: Beyond the basics and Ntrilis: Playing 1.d4 d5) and Grunfeld Defence (different sources)

Regarding tactics I completed all easy puzzles from the Woodpecker method over 7 cycles. Before moving on to the intermediate puzzles, I want to first finish Beyond the basics and woodpeck the tactic exercises form this series over 7 cycles.

Regarding endings my plan is to woodpeck all endgame exercises form Beyond the basics, too. And after that, maybe to start with 100 Endgames you must know.

So, having these quite concrete study plan already, why did I become a PRO Member on ChessMood?

First, I lost track during the Corona lockdown (my wife and I suddenly had to take care 24/7 for our kids while our school and day care centre had to close). Second, I liked what Avetik said on the Perpetual Chess Podcast.

My regular time budget for serious chess improvement:

Around 3 times a week in the morning before work for 75minutes. Another 1 to 2 times in the evening for about 75minutes. And about 2 times a month for about 180 minutes in one piece in the weekends. This does not include tournaments I follow on youtube and blitz games.

The tools (besides books) I use are:

Shredder 13 (GUI and engine) for creating pgn-files and analysis,

ChessBase Prime Membership using the Web Apps (researching games and copying my repertoire in the Openings App),

CT-ART for tactics and Chess King App for endings (doing some puzzles in the subway etc.)

ChessBase DVDs (mainly openings and the Master Class series on the world champions)

Hi,

I am Jesse Turner. I have been 45 for half of the year and will be 45 for the rest of the year. I work best in groups so I tend to offer my pro Zoom account for people that like to do study groups. I can handle over 100+ people at once, but I don't expect any more than 2-10. I don't care about training partners. I am more concerned with getting to know people personally and getting a mutual respect with people and preferably more than one people. I like to help others as well as others helping me. So if anyone would like to start a regular meeting day let me know and I can look at starting it. (Best is probably discussing things we learn here and working out the logic, or analysis of the games here and analysis of our own games.) I am a migrate from another GM facebook group. Found more about this from GM Grigoryan who is I think still a member there, and then realizing he was the contact here. So I decided to try it out. 

My goal in chess is to hope to improve as much as possible. I am rated currently 2012 USCF and 2120-2180 lichess. Seems pretty consistent that I stay in that range. I hit 2000 USCF after 40. I learned at 12, and I started actually looking to improve at 22. I had a lot of problems with improvement related to dyslexia. Not understanding any written materials. I was basically stuck under 1200 till 30. My short term goal of course is to see if I can bump up over 2100 USCF and if they correlate, 2200-2300 lichess. I tend to make practical errors against the people I want to be like. Either not believing I can be on their level, or making a strategic error that also has the strategic correction in my mind at the time of the decision, so I need to figure out how to determine better the correct idea. I am a little weak tactically, and most of my main weaknesses is planning and lacking ambition in most cases.

I hope to get to know people and hope to come closer to accomplishing goals.

I've been a PRO member for a few months now but realized I never introduced myself here. This is going to be a bit long (GM Avetik is familiar with it since my long message to him when scheduling our one on one call :P).

My name is Vishnu Sreekumar. I turn 35 in November. I have a wife and 6 year old daughter (who has also just started learning chess). I am a cognitive neuroscientist currently finishing up my postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health  in the USA. I specialize in human memory. I hope to open my own research lab at a university next year, where I will eventually also incorporate research into expertise and learning in chess. 

I started playing chess at the age of 7 or so. My dad taught me the moves but after I beat him about 1-2 months after I learned the moves, he stopped playing with me. I then had to wait for summer vacations until I could play my uncles who were stronger players. I also played age group tournaments as a kid, with my highest achievement being a podium finish at the U14 Kerala State Rapid tournament alongside E P Nirmal who some of you may know as Nihal Sarin's second chess coach. I then stopped playing competitively at around age 13 or 14, because I started developing an interest in biology and physics. After school, I went to study physics for 5 years at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and then decided to get a PhD in cognitive psychology (basically building mathematical models of the brain). Only in Jan 2018 during my postdoctoral fellowship did I think of returning to chess because there was a tournament near where I lived. I got 4/7 in the U1700 section there and won $100 but in the very next tournament, I got crushed by little 10-12 year old kids because I was playing 1. ...c5 with zero prep as I had done in my childhood but these kids were all booked up. That is when I decided to start training. My first stable USCF rating in early 2018 was 1650. I got to USCF 1950 in 2019 and then dropped back to 1850 again due to severe time trouble issues but I solved them partly (the trick was to play a rapid tournament with the sole goal of managing my time better and not worry about results and indeed I lost 4/4 games but didn't fall behind on the clock but my regular rating shot back up after that tournament) and returned to 1940 after my first tournament in Jan 2020. I have only played 4 NMs so far OTB with a +2 -2 score and one FM who offered me a draw in a slightly worse position (for him) but I was a bit cowardly and accepted his offer. Haven't played tournaments after that since the pandemic hit. 

Between 2018-2020, I read around 25-30 chess books cover to cover, including doing Aagaard's Positional Play cover to cover. I used to do tactics on the train to and from work, would work with books early in the morning before my family woke up and lighter chess reading at bed time (e.g. Seirawan's Chess Duels, to give you an idea). My primary focus however was on calculation training, and only started working on openings in late 2019. So I worked very hard but there are so many areas that require work and will see significant improvement once I've done that work. I've been playing a lot of long time control games against 2000-2200 players online during the pandemic and have been analyzing with them and have learned a ton. I used to be underambitious when it came to chess goals but after my call with GM Avetik, I realized there was no need to do that. There is no evidence so far that I'm stagnating in my chess growth. So I will try to get to FM in a reasonable period of time but my primary focus is on plugging the vast holes in my chess education as I have only been properly studying chess for two years. As a kid, all I did was play. No one even told me that I had to review my games and learn from them. However when I restarted as an adult, I had a GM mentor who encouraged me to do that. I now have 3 hardbound books of handwritten annotations to my games (all done first without an engine and I spent 3-4 hrs on average on each game). 

I think, breathe, and live chess. It is always on the back of my mind even when I'm doing other serious tasks. Yes it is disrupting but I cannot escape it. I'm sure many of you feel the same way. Good luck in achieving your goals, I look forward to being an active part of this community! 

P.S: I'm liszt85 on both chess.com and lichess if anyone wants to add me there.

Hello ChessMood family! I love reading through all of your posts.  I have been a member of ChessMood for quite awhile, but I've taken a break from chess since the pandemic hit and life got a little chaotic. However, I love GM Avetik and the ChessMood team/family so I continue to be part of the community. 

My name is Matt and I am 36 and a physician assistant, practicing emergency medicine in Missouri.  I started playing chess sometime in middle school, around age 14, and basically got beat by everyone I played.  This was really annoying, so I started playing more and trying to improve through the after school program when I wasn't playing other sports.  I played a lot in the 1200ish rating range, and then bought Jeremy Silman's Reassess Your Chess in grade 10 and studied it basically all one summer.  The next year I came back and jumped around 500 rating points and actually had a great year playing competitive chess.  After that year I moved to a small town with no chess team and basically quit playing except on yahoo chess.  Rarely I would meet someone to play with casually, but that was it. 

After college and graduate school, I started picking up new hobbies and looked up a local  chess club here in Missouri and became interested again. I don't have lofty goals, but I always thought the 1800-1900 range would be attainable and make me competitive enough for most local competition, so that has been my focus.  I'll be honest though, sometimes I love the idea more than the actual work required to get there. However, with ChessMood I truly feel like I found a learning platform I can stick to and not get burned out on.  

In addition to chess, my hobbies include traveling, exercise/lifting, learning new things, investing and growing wealth, inventing products to reduce waste in medicine and hunting/outdoor activities.  

I am glad to see everyone here and I hope you all reach your goals! 

Matt

Hi, I'm Nick from the UK. I just discovered ChessMood (I found the YouTube channel first) and I absolutely love the opening repertoire - it's just what I was looking for and fits with a lot of what I was already playing. I'm in my 40s but still trying to improve. In the last 3 years or so I managed to go from about 140 ECF to a new peak rating of 187, which is a jump from roughly 1750 about 2100 ELO, so I know that improvement as an adult is possible. The only thing is, if you stop practising, your rating can slide back down! I'm a stand-up comedian and writer by profession and the pandemic has really hit my work hard, so I'm mostly at home at the moment. Obviously there's a big negative to this (no money). But the positive side of this is a) we got a puppy; and b) I have some time to spend seriously applying myself to chess again.

Anyway, I'm delighted to have found ChessMood in time to be able to access it while I could still afford to. A week ago, I'd never heard of this site; now it's the one I spend the most time on. Thank you and congratulations to GM Grigoryan for a fantastic new chess resource during this Golden Age of online chess.

Hello!

I'm Hugo, a Software Engineer from Argentina. I'm 33 years old. I've played chess since I was a kid but always with friends and family (and against the computer), so I've been studying and playing online for the last six months.. and I'm completely hook!. I don't have an official rating but I'm around 1600 in classical in lichess.

I'm extremely happy to be part of this community and hope to meet you all!

My name is Tom, I live in the Detroit area, I'm 70 years old, and have been addicted to chess since army basic training in 1974. I am a classic underachiever with high IQ and low self-discipline, so my USCF hangs around 1500 or so. My only "claim to fame" would be that I've played three generations of Finegolds: I played Ron in a local tournament, Ron's son Ben in an OTB game in the local chess club we both were in at the time, and Ben's son Spencer in the Michigan Open. I lost to all three. Ben was in high school and "only" a master (maybe expert?) at the time. Ron was a master and had played Bobby Fischer. So I played someone who played Fischer! Of course, that would be more impressive if I'd won. I retired last year, so now I have more time to study the Bible and chess, my two favorite subjects. :-) I very much enjoy this site.

Hello ChessMood family!

My name is Francois. I was born in Switzerland, but I have lived in the US since 2001. I moved to Mountain View, California, after 14 years in Florida.

My first degree is in Education (licensed teacher). I later got a M.S. in Computer Science and did different things in the software field (engineering, consulting, entrepreneurship).

I love games, in particular chess, poker and backgammon. I did not play chess for about 10 years but rekindled my interest in 2016. I opened an account on chess.com where I enjoy playing, watching videos, and solving puzzles. As of today, my chess.com ratings are: rapid 2030, blitz 2061, and bullet 2003.

My main objective is to learn and have fun, but it would not hurt if I managed to become a stronger player. I would consider it as a real success if I could add 200 points to my chess.com ratings. The awesome content prepared by the ChessMood GMs will help me reach this goal, but based on the recommendation of Avetik, I am interested in teaming up with a study/sparring partner of similar strength (1900 - 2200). Let me know if you are interested :)

Dear Chessmood family, 

I'm thrilled to be part of this community. I just joined and had a wonderful conversation with GM Avetik. I will do everything he recommended - watch the Happy Pieces video series, review 3 famous games per week, and learn the openings (all from the white side) over the next 1-2 months.

I'm 38 years old, work full time in NYC and have 2 young children, so chess has definitely taken a back seat in my life over the past few years. 

My son, who is almost 6, has gotten into chess and it's re-ignited my interest in this wonderful game! Before I stopped playing in 2014, I was rated 2243 USCF (2076 FIDE). I have a goal of becoming a FIDE Master, and will work hard to achieve it. 

I would really like to play some training games to practice these new openings.

Hello everyone. My name is Alex. I am 38 years old. I am from Odessa Ukraine, but I moved to New York when I was little and later I moved to Tokyo after the university. I have only recently joined the Chessmood, although I keep trying to solve a daily puzzle every day. I'll keep the rest short.

I noticed an earlier post from Edu Tokyo. I believe we know each other in real life.

Hi Dear chess family,

My name is Vladimir Bugayev. I’m 49 years old, moved to Brooklyn NY from Tajikistan in 1996. Did here all kind of things worked in moving company, as a home attendant, limo driver, ambulatte dispatcher, programmer, Swiss company representative, yellow cab driver until one day discovered that I’m not bad at all at teaching chess (have been playing chess professionally since 7). I’m especially good at knowing how not to teach ;)) I have 3 kids 17, 15 and 11 made all kind of mistakes with their teaching :)Two of them currently are on top 100 list of their age in USA. I’ve also volunteered and organized a chess team at my children’s school. So we are a real chess family, even won twice already World Team Amateur East as best family team. I’m myself a US National master with current USCF rating of 2255. Teach chess to kids as a full time job. Love to play blitz, this is the way of relaxation for me, instead of alcohol ;) What I really enjoy here on the chessmood - how coaches use what they teach and you can see it with your own eyes through their games and streams, really cool. You can find me on lichess and chess.com under name of batradz.

Best,

coach Vlad

Hi all!

My name's Meeth Shah. I'm from India but brought up in Kuwait. I'm 19 years right now and will turn 20 soon, I'm currently a University student studying Computer Systems Engineering in London at the Queen Mary University of London. I've been playing chess since the age of 3 but did not play between the ages of 4 to 11. I restarted chess at the age of 11 playing for my school competitively and managed to make it to the National Playoffs at the age of 13. I'm also an athlete that runs the sprint events and the relays and have made it to the National Playoffs for the same 3 years consecutively. I spend about 3 to 6 hours on chess on a daily basis now, my passion for chess just grows daily. I would love to get to know more people here and train with them and/or discuss chess topics and am open to discuss other topics apart from chess as well. I've just joined this platform and am very new to this platform. Hoping to talk to you all soon and making new friends! Cheers!

I am Shankhodip De, I am 11 years old and  I am from West Bengal, India

My highest elo was 1590. My elo now is 1573

I learnt chess from my father when he saw this game in our school book. Then he taught the rules of the game and really wanted me to play this game.

I first joined the club Alekhine Chess Club, there were many Bengal players who rose from there there were many international tournaments played there and Korchnoi, Short,Tiviakov, Anandetc.

Hello,

I am Matthäus. I am 14 years old and  I live in Sweden. I learned chess because my brother played it but he never wanted to play with me but I started playing in the same club. I have been playing chess since I was about 6 but I never started taking it seriously until right before the summer. Sadly that's when the pandemic started but luckily my club have still had small tournaments so I got my FIDE-rating then which was 1400. I am still only 1450 but I feel as if my rating is a bit higher since I can compete with 1800(I have a positive score:)).

Lichess: Matbuc123 (1900 blitz, 1700 rapid)

Hello I'm Claudio Thoux  from Italy, I'm 48 and I'm a school Director (actually 11 schools... to many). I play chess since I was 6... and always loose with my father & brother. That's why when was 20 and I met Italian female champion on holiday helding chess courses I joined it and start studying chess. I went, as adviced, on east Indian and Sicilian,  studied a lot but only played once in FIDE tournament which was in Turin (we're I lived) Olympiad 2006. I did quite good but that was it. Then married & babies (2) kept me away from studying & only used to play bullet (argggghhhh). So,  I haven't done my monthly & year plan yet (I will) but daily one: one classical game,  follow YouTube GM Avetik's lesson, solve puzzle (if possible) and go on with openings. 15 minutes tactics on chess.com, no more, as coach said and... no more bullet (by the way I can understand smokers trying to stop smoking!!... I failed only 3 times in 45 days I'm in chessmood family)!

My dream? FIDE Master would be great and compete for Turin championship. 

My Id on lychess and chess.com is iaiobros

I wish the best to all chessmood family! 

It's interesting in watching these videos. You get to know the GM pretty well.  GM Avetik has a nice sense of humor. Just started additional scotch sections. GM thinks the only way someone would play nf6 is if they already planned on responding to your white bishop and oops! misclick. I was rolling, laughing out loud. I also like when he calls the knights stupid! Love it.

Hello Friends!

My name is Paul Sherman and I'm a 41-year-old chess improver from Northern Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C. I learned the rules of chess as a child but had never played more than a handful of games until I was 37 and had my first son. I was looking for something to do while holding a sleeping baby and had at some point downloaded the Magnus Trainer App. From there I moved to the Play Magnus App and then, a few months later, over to Chess.com and games against real people. Pretty soon I was hooked and spending as much time as possible (and more money than appropriate) playing and studying chess.

I don't have a FIDE or USCF rating, but I'm rated about 900 in blitz and 1400 in daily games on Chess.com. The biggest things I'm working on right now are time management (I lose the overwhelming majority of my games on time or because of time trouble) and strategy in the middle game. But I love all aspects of the game and enjoy working hard at improving.

If anyone would like to play, whatever their rating, my Chess.com username is psherman31. I can't wait to get to know you all better and work with you on improving our chess.

Best,

Paul

Hello! I am Sidharth Sreekumar from Kerala, India. Fide Rated - 1194 (haven't played in 2020 and 2021) I am 10 years old. I born right on the World Chess Day - 20.07.2010! My biggest achievement in chess is to win against Nigel Short in an OTB simul when I was 9. My aim is to become a World Chess Champion. 

Bonjour everybody, My name is Sharan Sridhar, I am from India. I am 19 years old and currently doing my bachelor's degree in physics. My aim is to become a scientist in the field of quantum physics. I also have a great passion for chess. I started playing chess when I was very young(maybe 7 years old), I never went to any high level professional coaching and I was more of a club player who plays chess based on my intuition. I gained my Elo when I was 9 years old(around 1485) and I used to enjoy playing chess. However, my lack of chess knowledge, strategy and so on inhibited my growth and I eventually lost interest in chess when I was a early teen. Here and there I just used to play tournaments and never learnt anything. Last year I decided to improve my chess and I started to really work hard(6 hours a day) and I really raised around 200 Elo points in around 6 months(Now my rating is 1804).  Recently, Only after joining the wonderful chess mood family I found out what I was missing all these years and gained significant love for the game. I really want to become a Gm someday before I die and with the right mood I am really happy to focus on my chess and enjoy playing the game.

Hello all,  

Thank you for sharing all your passion for chess. 

I am very happy to be a part of chessmood family.   

I am trying to find a balance to be able learning more about chess and improve my rating.   I am playing a lot on Lichess, my nick name is KajsaWarg .  I  like to analysing my games and find it important for having a deeper understanding and learning from my  mistakes.  I  prefer rapid games.   

I am from Sweden.  Living in Stockholm, 

Looking forward to get to know you all and sharing  our thoughts about chess in this forum.   

Hello,

My name is Leslie Smith, age 50, I live in the USA. I have been playing chess on and off for most of my life and for only a few years in the late 1990s early 2000s I became a club level player. Life took over and until recently I rarely played, just some periodic very bad late night fast blitz on chess.com.

At this point in my life I have the blessing of time and have decided to reach the goal of Master. What I find interesting is that there are so many sources that say this is almost impossible at my age, well I plan on being that outlier. I am enjoying what I have learned so far with Chessmood and am encouraged by this great community. 

Best wishes to you!

Leslie

Hi --- I'm Keven aged 66 from Cheshire England. I am now fully retired. I had a business career in various  multinational corporations with endless international travel. In the Covid era I'm glad to just be home ! 

I have been interested in Chess since school -- back in the 'mists of time' for me !! I've been an active member of a local chess club and play league games within the city area. TBH I'm no more that local league standard but enjoy playing.

My goal now is to challenge myself to improve further and I think Chess Mood is the right set of courses and the right supportive environment, for me to move forward and keep my cognitive functions 'tip top' in retirement .

Hi Everyone,

I’m a 49-year old software developer from Wales, and my two passions in life, apart from good food, good company and spending time with friends, are skiing and playing chess.  I learned chess when I was six years old and achieved a 2000 rating when I was about 15.  Sadly, I reached a plateau and have stayed around 2100-2200 for the last 30 years. I have never had a coach, and I think my study has often been haphazard and not structured enough to make real progress.  This year I decided to do something different and put some effort into studying to see if I can raise my level to 2300+, and that’s why I’ve joined ChessMood.

I represented Wales as a junior and am on the shortlist for selection to the Olympiad team, but unfortunately, we are a weak chess country – so that doesn’t say too much.  I play for my local club, Nidum, which happens to have been one of the strongest clubs in Wales for many years.  This has allowed me to travel quite a bit with chess to various European Club Cups at some great locations and make some chess friends along the way.

For example, I have a 100% score against Mamedyarov.  Pity, it is in table football and not chess lol! 

Our poor club team has faced an Armenian club team in this competition several times. It was quite a pleasure playing alongside Akopian, Lputian, Minasian, Danielian and Vaganian (What a team!)  Wow!  They ended up winning the whole thing many times.  No surprises there!  My loss to Vaganian was terrible!  But it was a lot of fun and a real honour to play such a legend.  When I saw that ChessMood is run by strong Armenian Grandmasters who offer excellent explanations in their courses, I knew it would be well worth it.  The videos are truly superb, and I look forward to digesting them one by one. I’m excited to see how ChessMood can help me achieve my goals of adding 100-200 rating points and look forward to meeting you all and playing a few games of chess too!  Let’s Go!

Hello guys,

I'm Paulius Juknis from Lithuania, current elo 2143, aiming to reach 2300 (FM). I work as a software developer and have big passion for chess during spare time.

Looking forward to put in hard work and improve my game.

Happy to have found this chessmood community. Lots of quality courses!

Hi Team!

My name is Cristina Svensson and I am living in Uppsala Sweden. I played chess for some years when I was a teenager, in my homeland Romania, but after that I took a break for 4 decades. I am still playing like a teenager, hopefully I will evolve and learn some chess fundamentals by joining the  ChessMood family.

Hello everyone,

This it Itzael Mendivil, 34 years old from Mexico. 1360 rating in chess.com. 

I started playing chess against a computer with MS2 operative system and windows 3.1 back in early 90's.

I've been playing on and off since then but never studied chess formally. I had 1-1 call last night( 5/6), I am willing to follow the plan, put the work and see how far and can go. 

Nice to meet you!

I am Satish Nair from Canada. I am 50 but no one says I am 50. I play chess to burn calories, surprised!! Don't be surprised because if you do blindfold chess every day, you will burn calories. I live in the most beautiful city of Victoria, an Island that is the 7th best place to live in the world. Covid never consumed us but we never say never, we wear our masks. 

I have been playing chess since my 30's. I improve and improve and then breaks in my life bring my score down. But here I like to interact, play and get entertained on chess.

Hi everyone,

My name is Sarathi, 45 years old, a lawyer in New York City.   I play regularly at the Marshall Chess Club, and I am also a board member there.  My Fide is 2025 and I am aiming to raise it to 2100.  My favorite feature on the site is the puzzle of the day.  And also watching the streams with ChessMood openings.  

It is great to be part of the ChessMood family.   And I admire all the work and effort that all of the Armenian GM's and their staff have put into creating an amazing on-line learning platform.   Let's grow together!  

Hello everyone, I am Giorgos, from Greece, 15 years old. I started playing chess at the age of 6, but around 13 I started to be serious about my chess goals and improvement. Before 2 years, I discovered chessmood, after watching streams (I watch often blitz streams by strong GMs who have more than 2650 blitz rating). At that time, I started playing online and my ratings were around 1400. I became a pro member for the last 3 summer months, and in that period I raised around +300 online rating (all timings included), but from now on I will be a pro member permanently. Although I do not have a fide rating, my fide rating strength would be above 1700, as I have passed 2000 rating on lichess blitz, and have ratings above 1900 rapid and blitz in chess.com and lichess. My chess goal is to become at least a fide master, and if I reach that level, to try to get GM title with above 2600 Elo. I have completed almost all opening courses, apart from the Pirc set, Sicilian sidelines and The gambit set. I have also completed all the commented classical games, and the pawn and rook endgames. In addition, I made a reply in the sparring partners page, you can find me there. So I raised 600 rating points in 2 years and 7 months and now I am targeting 2300. 

Hello everybody,
as it always happen - by some beautiful coincidence of random meetings I met Avetik Grigoryan, well better to say I was given his contact as the "magic guy" who can help me to pass 2100 as I am stuck here for a year already! So I am here :)
We talked and while I was in my excitement of learning Evans Gambit he gave me some tips and ideas to start with... So after 1-2 months of thinking I've finally signed up and can't wait to grow as a chess player and reach 23 or 2400 (because why not?).
In few words, I'm 32, PhD in biochemistry,  working with neurodegenerations such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases.  I was taught to play chess by my grandpa, and later my father who is an active chess com player. I've learned in the most hardest way by just playing and repeating same mistakes thousands of times when slowly fixing them. Over 30 000 games and still hating Scandinavian and forgetting f3 pawn to move :)
But I love it, I love sacrificing and putting myself in the worst positions and trying to find the way out of it. 
But now I'm thrilled to learn from all of you and digest all these ideas, openings, tactics described here! I love the style and way of teaching, and I think it will be a great journey for me! 
Let's see how it goes and what is my rating and may be title (why not?)))) when I'm 40!
Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeers to everyone
Gor

Hi everyone!

Here is Tarik Selbes;  originally from Istanbul/Turkey but currently living in Leszno/ Poland. I'm a FIDE Master with two IM norms -hoping to get the third one soon- and also am a chess coach myself. Not really an active tournament player and have never played more than a few tournaments a year but want to change that and hope to play more chess in future. While I was looking for some materials to train myself, especially regarding openings,  a friend of mine recommended me this website and well, here I am. 

Glad to have joined it and looking forward to check the courses by established grandmasters and connect with others in the due process.

Hello there

I better introduce myself as well.
 
My name is Rasmus, I am 44 years old, married, have three children and work as a certified public accountant.

I played a lot of chess in elementary school, but got away from it again because of ice hockey, studies, and family.

I started playing again 6 years ago, have 1800 in ELO, but have spent more time starting a club with a friend, where the club is now on its way up in the Danish 2nd division. The club has started on the principle that we should become better players through online training and OTB training camps where we have had Bartosz Socko and Vladimir Malakhov as coaches. Both players have also played team matches for us.

But now the time has come for me to become a little bit stronger myself, and via Noel Studers blog I found this page where I have primarily spent my time watching the commented classic games, a discipline I have neglected badly in my youth!

My goal in the short term is to get up to 1900 in ELO, and in the slightly longer term to get up over 2000.

In connection with the pandemic, I tried a few online coaches, but unfortunately the quality was extremely low, so I lost the desire to try to find the right one.

I’m looking forward being a part of this community, to gain a lot of new knowledge and a lot of new relationships :-)

Hello All, 

My name is Imtiyaz Hirani, I am from Mumbai, India. I am 38 as of Aug, 2021. My father taught me chess when I was 8 and until I went to university, I participated in many local and state tournaments in under 17, under-14 age groups and luckily also did well in many tournaments. ;) 
The reason I say luckily is because most of the players that i competed with at that time on top boards where trained by professional coaches and I was mostly on my own with few chess books. 
I was always behind the game after openings, and in the middle-game i used to hold on and somehow win with end games. ;). 
After that I had to give up chess for focus on education. It wasn't an easy decision, but from whatever little chess experience I had, I knew that without proper coaching its very hard to progress beyond a certain level.

I am a software engineer and trainer. I teach coding to newly joined programmers in my company  and try to help them take their coding skills to next level. In many ways coding is also like chess. fundamentals and preparation are key words here too. 

Recently I participated in local online tournament and all the chess memories came back.  My family is also encouraging me to devote some time to chess so that I won't have regret that I completely gave up on chess. 

I don't have any goals regarding rating as such, but i want to improve my own game. I see the way GMs  prepare their moves, with deep planning, It really fills me up with joy playing and watching someone play like that. 

Hope someday I could play even 10% of the way they play. 

Finally, I am delighted to be part of chessmood community. I can see that many members have almost same story as mine. Hope to be part of the site for long. 

Thanks for having me. 

Dear ChessMood family,

At the request of GM Gabuzyan in our Facebook group, I would like to briefly introduce myself. It took me a while to respond to this request, as I have been busy at work and busy playing tournaments, which I will also tell about. By profession, I am a software developer, working on logistics optimization for the last several years.

I come from Riga, Latvia and was born in 1985. I learned to play chess at the age of 5 and was playing competitively throughout school, which covers years 1990-2003. At that time, I managed to become a candidate master, was rated over 2100 nationally and had a FIDE rating of about 2050. After school, I stopped playing, with a brief attempt at a comeback in years 2012-2013.

In the beginning of this year (2021), I decided to take up chess again. There are a number of reasons for that, but if I would have to condense it in one sentence, then I believe that chess, if done properly and taken up as a discipline, has the potential to help people become a better version of themselves.

So I have been working on chess since January 2021, practicing online on lichess.org. Eventually, in the beginning of July 2021, my search for a quality source of systematic chess education led me to ChessMood, which, as I already shared with GM Avetik and GM Gabuzyan, I am very, very happy with and already managed to complete several parts of the Nc3 Sicilian course.

Recently, I had the opportunity to play my first OTB tournaments in Latvia after more than eight and a half years. These were Latvian rapid chess championship, RTU Open rapid and RTU Open A standard tournament. Since my lichess.org rating is in the range 2250-2300 and online ratings are about 300 points higher than those in real life, my expectation was that I could expect a 1950-2000 performance, which would be a decent starting point for a comeback.

Unfortunately, the reality check turned out to be different. In the first two rapid tournaments, my performance was 1859 and 1609, and in the standard tournament the performance was about 1646, dropping 169 points of rating in total.

The standard tournament I started with five loses in a row, finding myself at the bottom of the table and playing a couple of games at the last board. Admittedly, at that point I was starting to doubt that coming back to chess was such a good idea, because if after seven months of preparation I end up there at the bottom, then maybe I should be doing something else in life.

Then, I managed to draw with a WIM, who was apparently also not having a great tournament, which lifted my spirits a bit and I scored 3 points out of 4 in the last four games.

So that was my first standard tournament after a long break and there were multiple things to learn. For one, I have not listened to the advice GM Noel Studer gives on his blog to take a few days off before the tournament - rather, I was tired after the intense pre-vacation week and went straight for the tournaments without rest, which affected the rapid and the first part of the standard event. 

I am also grateful for this experience of being off to a humble start, because it gave me a practical experience of how other competitors feel when the event does not go well for them and what it takes to persevere.

The good news is that, even though new to ChessMood, in these tournaments I have already managed to apply ideas from the Nc3 Sicilian courses and got very nice positions out of the opening, so I am continuing my studies under the direction of our grandmasters (and listening to their advices, on and off the board) and, hopefully, eventually I will share a more positive experience with you. :-)

Hi everyone.

I am J.Pragkya

I became a ChessMood PRO Member yesterday in hope of improving my chess.

I am 15 years old and live in India.

Hello everyone!

Olá everyone,

Claudio de Macedo is my name, 47 years young, Portuguese but grown up in Sweden. 

So good to have found my way here. I stumbled upon some videos of GM Avetik and I was hooked straight away. Just after a few days of joining ChessMood I decided to go PRO. Its very nice to see the community here and Im sure its a top place for growth. 

I didn't have a strong background in chess as a kid. I was taught by my stephfather when I was young. His level I suspect was not that strong and I remeber he wanted to play less the more I beat him. So unfortunatly my games became less and I wasnt even aware about chess schools.

Later in life I played sporadicaly over the board with people I met while traveling, but mostly I played on apps on the phone. I was working as a diving intructor for a long time in many places in South-east, Australia, Egypt and Europe.  

It was only 5 years or so ago, while I was traveling in India, that I started to play more regular and started to do chess training and took some classes. My love for this beautiful game had re-ignited. Nowadays I'm back home in Sweden, more settled with 3 small kids. Getting own time is precious and when I do I mostly study chess, watch videos, watch games and try to improve my play. I recently started playing at a chess club and my aim is to play league games for my club and get a title. 

My online ranking on Chess.com is around 1500 Blitz, 1650 Rapid and 1900 Daily. 

Hi all,I am Dr.Anoop.G,  from state of Kerala in INDIA. I am a 36year old Psychiatrist  in Government  Health Services  In my state...

I used to play from 10 to 14 years....learnt chess at 10years...but did not have the support to continue. Unfortunately  my dad considered all these are distraction  from studies.....

Years later now in 2021 ,the passion  somewhere  deep within got revived when I started teaching my 5 Yr old daughter  on her birthday  in June 30,2021. Her growing interest  and amazing progress really encouraged me to bring out my chess dreams....

I find this a wonderful  initiative...Thanks to GM team and members. 

I want to meet people, travel ,interact with like-minded people.Chess is something  that connects all of us beyond boundaries 

I'm Anton from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I'm 34 and I've been studying and playing chess somewhat seriously since March 2020.

I like to play practice games early in the morning, before work. Would be great if I could make some chess friends here. If you also enjoy playing 30+0 games, and if you are free in the mornings (EST time), let me know!

As white, i like d4 openings. As black, I love the French defense :)

If anyone else is from Ontario, you are welcome to message me. 

Hi together,

my name is Daniel and I am on board since last week. I am 37, married, have two Kids and live in Austria.

In november 2020 I was infected with the chess-virus and since then have been playing and studying the game passionately. Most of the times you can find me on lichess (rating 1600 classical) by the Nickname MtdGun. The Name stands for M-Mindset, T-Training and D-Dedication because I belive these are the most important principles when approaching any endeavor. Gun stands for Gunslinger, reffering to Roland Deschain from Stephen Kings Dark Tower Books. I chose it because I constantly feel like chasing my own dark tower, but never reaching it :).

I am always looking for training partners around my level so if you are interested, please contact me.

I usually practice and study in the morning and play games on Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Saturday at around 8 pm CET.

I'm really looking forward to beeing a part of chessmood family.

See you soon, Daniel.

Hello all,

My name is Muath Bin Hussain, from Sauid Arabia, a country that has no GM, nor IM, and only CM.

I am 34-year old, managing my own consulting and training company. We train people in business and management.

I am also part-time lecturer at King Fahd Univeristy. 

My passion of chess started in 2016. But I started truly putting effort and studying the game around 2 years ago. 

My goal and aim is to become a FIDE Master, a title that no one in my country has acheived.

Looking forward to my journey with you !

Hi all;

I am Hovig Aramali from Beirut, Lebanon. I am 36 years old mechanical engineer with more than 12 years experience in the consutruction field with PMP certification. I've been a chess player since long time. I have won many medals and trophees in different tournaments in Lebanon during my school years & university years, photos attached; however, as I became older, I stopped playing chess since my marriage especially that I was lucky to have 3 children, 9 years Christ, 6 years old Christiana and 4 years old AnnaMaria.

As I love chess a lot, I started to teach it to my son and I have now some students in Lebanon that I teach chess. Unfortunately, I do not have any ELO rating, but I would be rated between 1800 and 2200.

Besides chess, I also do scientific experiments with my children and I have a Youtube channel.

However, as the topic is chess, I am enjoying my subscription to Chessmood for now and I hope to learn more and more from its lessons.

Hello, I am glad to have found ChessMood.com. I am 70 years old.  I have been playing chess, mostly online, for about 10 years. Mostly fumbling around, that is not learning much, in the way traditional chess has been played. Book moves, and all that stuff, I did have three lessons, in my life. I am excited about being on ChessMood.com. I am impressed by the content of ChessMood.com.  I hope to learn a lot here. 

Hello everyone,

My name is Mark, I reside in the United States (South Dakota). I'm a mental health therapist (MSW), and I just began playing chess less than a year ago. When I was in 8th grade, I did learn how the pieces move, but that was the extent of my learning. Over the last year, I have not been playing very many games, but I have been mainly doing puzzles, tactics, and playing engines. However, I began playing some games on chess.com this month, and I must say my performance is very erratic! I hang pieces and make foolish trades, and sometimes, mainly with Black, I get blown away in the opening. The reality is: I love playing and learning chess, but I suck! Most things come pretty easy for me, but chess is not one of them (which I like about it!) 

Anyway, I'm here to learn, and I'm open to any advice on how to improve. My screen name is LollyDharma on chess.com, so feel free to hit me up for a game or chat.

- Mark

Hello everyone!
I'm really excited to finally be here :D

My name is Sandro, I'm a 22 year old computer science student and chess player+coach from Croatia :)
My FIDE is jumping between 2200 and 2260 right now, but I'm really hoping to reach FM this year. After that I will shoot for more titles because I absolutely love chess!
My online ratings are all about 2400, with Chess.com puzzle rating being around 3200-3300 ( https://www.chess.com/member/sandro970 ). I started playing when I was 7, and started seriously when I was 13. Former top 10 U20 in Croatia, Junior team chess champion in 2019.
Started coaching in summer of 2019 and haven't stopped since. I absolutely love it, fills me with great joy to be able to help someone reach their dreams/goals. It feels like I'm on my purpose which is why I will never stop coaching chess even when I finish university and get a normal job. I hope I will be able to contribute to this amazing community! Love the content btw :)

Outside of chess, I'm a huge fan of escape rooms, board games, video games and sports (playing, not watching xD)

Ask me anything, I'm very open and interested in meeting cool ambitious people!

Hi everyone!

I'm Francesco. I'm 33 years old, physicist. I am originally from Venice, Italy, but I moved to Los Angels with my wife just before the pandemic.

I've been on and off with chess since I was a kid. I always liked it a lot but hated too much to lose lol. I loved to go through all Alekhine's games, but I didn't have many chances to play. For about 5 years now I've been studying it more consistently, although, without a proper structure. Just going from one book to another and things like that.

I hope to finally have found in ChessMood a reliable resource for having a properly structured material suitable for my level. And to have the chance to interact with stronger players constructively. From what I have seen so far, I'm very happy with my choice!

Cheers!

hello chessmood family!!

I am Jay Ismael Macadaag, 36 yrs old from philippines..i love playing chess it becomes my passion but I'm not good in any tournament. i always defeated with time mostly. most of the tournament now is rapid or 15min time. I don't know how to improve. in my blitz game i always loss in time and most of the game i get blunder, but i never stop playing.

Hi, I am Michael (retired since 1 year and from Hamburg/Germany originally but moved to France near Geneva some 37 years ago). Started to have time for chess learning and playing some 2-3 years ago. 1 months ago I became a pro member and well, so far I can only say that the courses are by far the best I found so far (and several others were also well done for my level between 1800-2000 on lichess).

Looking forward for continued learning here for the next years

all the best and thanks for having started this!   

Hello Chessmood Family!

Then when I went to engineering college at 17 years old, I somehow got very curious and interested in Chess during my summer vacation of the first year. I started searching the internet to learn and playing online and played some college-level tournaments.

At 21 years of age, I graduated from college and got a job, and I still have that same job to this day - I work as an IT consultant. So Chess slowed down as my job took up most of my time. But my love for Chess has been alive and I have played some tournaments over the years, although not very regularly. I lived in the US for 6 years and got my USCF rating to around 1940.

I first heard about Chessmood when I saw GM Avetik talking to IM Sagar Shah on Chessbase India channel. Then recently I decided to make the jump and become a PRO member. I must say I have been very impressed with the quality of courses and all the things the Grandmasters do for us students - streams, webinars, 1-1 calls and more. I have seen other Chess websites but I do not think there is another website where they are doing all this for their students.

I hope to improve my strength/rating and make our Grandmasters proud by becoming a good student!

Hello Chessmood Family! I'm Albert, from Spain. I am 37 years old and I learned to play chess when I was 11 years old, when 2 teachers from the chess club came to my village to teach chess. I immediately became very interested in the game. I have had seasons competing a lot, other seasons without playing, but now I can combine my work with chess and I want to improve. I have been an online poker player for 6 years and I love competition and strategy: this is why I love chess so much. After seeing a lot of material to improve (other courses, books, etc) I have decided to try Chessmood as a PRO member because of the quality of its content and the personalized treatment that teachers have. I hope to be able to meet my improvement goals, enjoying chess and this community.

Greetings from Ohio, USA! I'm excited to be a new pro member. In real life I'm a medical doctor specializing in psychiatry. In addition to chess, I enjoy cycling and hot-air ballooning. I'm out to prove that a 66 y.o. can still raise his rating. I've been stuck at ~1800 for over thirty years. My goal is 2000+. All the best - Denny

Hello chessmood-family, happy to join the community! My name is Marcus, I'm 39 years old, I live in Germany with my wife and two little boys (3 and 6) and a dog. I work as a business engineer in the automobile industry (the one with the four rings...) Chess has been a part of my life since I was around 14. Like many others, I had an ambitious time when I was around 20 years old and reached a level of about FIDE 2150. Since then my primary focus laid on other things. First playing football, then working, then family...so I didn't improve much anymore. Recently I decided that I want to give my chess improvement another chance. My aim is to reach 2300 FIDE (meaning FM-title). Why?Because I want to show my kids that we grow when we work hard on our given talents in order to reach ambitious goals. Via the great blog of Noel Studer nextlevelchess I found chessmood and Avetik convinced me to give it a go. I like the concept and am very curious where the chessmood-journey will take me :-) Especially I'm interested in the mental part of the game. I'm convinced that right mood = right move is absolutely right! See you! Marcus

Hello chessmood family I recently joined chessmood. My name is Zaid. I am 32 years old.I am originally from Iraq but I currently live on small Islands called the Faroe Islands. I work in a salmon factory called Bakkafrost [the best salmon **]. I started playing chess around 2 years ago with turbulent results and got my first rating last year otb as 1500 FIDE. my goal is to become 2000 OTB in 2 or 3 years and just play good chess and enjoy what I do over the board. sometimes I get so stressed when I play over the board and think for a minute what am I doing here. I really hope this feeling goes away as I want to enjoy the game and not get stressed by it. I wonder if you feel the same. I wish that I have found chessmood earlier as from what I see, it offers great content. I think I would have saved money as well ** I play in the team league here on the Faroe Islands and various tournaments when the season starts. I hope to have a good season this year with chessmood. Zaid ^^

Hi Chessmood family! I am 37 years old.. I am rated around 1600 and my aim is to become a GM! It's tough but I've beaten a couple of GMs already so maybe it can be done... I am very much motivated since if I manage, I guess I will be the oldest that made it! I am strong at positional game and everything goes smoothly if I keep tactics away... I am not sure I can improve calculation at this age.. I seem to do a lot of stupid mistakes when it comes down to tactics or when the position gets messy even in the slightest.. a lot of times in completely winning positions my opponent will try to attack me with almost no pieces or foundations for an attack (just out of desperation) and still most of the times I will lose the game... Hopefully the tactic ninja course will make me invincible! :D

Hello everyone from Chessmood family! My name is Karanay, I'm a 21 years old chess player from Dagestan, Russia. Currently studying to get a master's degree. My lichess rating is 1700, and offline it's 1400-1500 (not FIDE). My strong sides are openings and strategy, but I often lose a game because of a stupid blunder and struggle winning won positions. My aim is to get rid of those problems and get 2000 offline rating by the end of the year and become a FM in a year. I hope Chessmood will help me to get better at chess :)

Hello everyone from the Chessmood family! I'm a 15-year old chess player currently living in the UK. I am really passionate about chess and want to become an FM by april 2023. Currently, my rating in the UK (not FIDE) is 1900-2000. My chess.com ratings are as follows: Rapid = 2100 Blitz = 2200 Bullet = 2000 I joined chessmood at the end of June this year and I am already seeing the results. The dynamic, attacking openings that chessmood have perfectly fit my style since I like complicated positions. I often lose games because I overpress in equal positions. Thank you GM Av for the affordable and high quality content! ChessMood is improving my chess a lot! :)

Hello chessmood family I have a question if you are over 2100 would you learn a new white opening as well as the scotch

Hey, team! My name is Bill and Im currently USCF 1488. Ive been playing for years but have stagnated. Got back into chess recently and have switched to the Caro-Kann and love it (I notice there seem to only be resources for how to play against the CK here). Excited to learn here and get better. Best of luck to all of you on your chess journey!

Hi all. I've been a pro member for quite a while so figured I should get around to posting an intro in this thread. I'm returning to competitive chess after a break of more than 25 years. My (very inactive) FIDE rating is about 2250. My goal is to get the FM title and my why is "unfinished business". I see this as a huge challenge given that I'm no longer in my 20s, 30s, or 40s! I'm focused on putting the work in, taking things one step at a time, and enjoying the process.

Hi all! My name is Antonio and in November I decided to subscribe the PRO membership after "studying" and evaluating this site for a couple of weeks. I'm from Italy, 52 years old. I'm an engineer and my job is in a telecommunications company. About chess... I play mostly on lichess, my rating is about 2000 in rapid and standard (my preferred time controls); in FIDE official tournaments my rating is slowly dropping, now I'm 1635. With ChessMood my aim is to raise the quality of my games and possibly to invert the descending trend, I have some expectations mainly in how to approach and manage the games against higher rated opponents. I start this experience with a lot of enthusiasm, I'm at the same time aware of the hard work is needed in chess to achieve some results, so I will try to enjoy with your help this fascinating path... Antonio

Hello Chessmooders, I'm Jared. I'm 36 and I live in Alabama, USA. I'm 1100 on lichess, playing mostly King's Indian and Bongcloud. I'm lost in the opening; however, and am hoping that learning the Chess Mood repertoire will significantly help my game. I'm going through the Chess Mood openings for white, ATM. Loving GM Grigoryan's style of lecturing. He's got that smooth voice and every section reminds me to stop what I'm doing and actually pay attention (which I need :P). Anyway, looking forward to meeting you folks. If any of you higher rated players want a laugh sometime, challenge me on lichess and I'll show you what an 1100 bongcloud looks like. https://lichess.org/@/BlunderingTactician

Hey Chessmood students, I'm Noah, 21, in California USA. 1200 on Lichess, and technically 700 on Chess.com because I selected 800 and lost some games when I first started chess. I'm looking to solidify my openings and truly start mastering a select few as my "pet" openings. It's ambitious, but I'm willing to put in all the work and commitment to becoming a GM one day hopefully

Hello everyone Today I joined chessmoodpro. My rating is fide1255, chess.com is 2200+, blitz is 1756. Lichess is 2100+, I don't like playing on lichess. My goal is to win below 1600 in India where I came from in March 2023. Before that I need to cross 2600 rating on chess.com first. I'm starting from Openings .

Greetings all. I'm incredibly excited to join ChessMood. From reading Grigoryan's blog posts and appreciating the communication style to finding other random GMs/IMs/FMs who recommend ChessMood, I somehow knew I'd end up joining ChessMood. Being an "adult improver", I have come back to chess after many years away. I got involved in competitive chess in elementary school but over time, my attention drifted elsewhere. Over the past year +, I got back into chess and found I now LOVE soaking up knowledge around chess topics. I really enjoy reading annotated games, soaking up training courses, and trying to put these learned skills into practice. (Though, I probably have spent too much on books and courses without much focus... Another reason why I'm here now in ChessMood.) I'm currently 1988 USCF (quick-rated). 2000-ish on Lichess and for some reason, stuck right around 1500 on Chess.com Because of my work, I rarely have dedicated time to just SIT for long periods of chess games. I have a lot of "interrupt-driven" aspects of life. Thus, I have been playing a lot of "Daily Games/Correspondences" games. I work as a high school programming and computer science teacher that also as the chess coach and mentor for the K-12 students. We live in the middle of "nowhere" on a very rural Native American reservation school. I'm enjoying seeing the growth in my chess students as they apply their newly acquired chess skills and incorporate those skills into other aspects of school and life. My goals.... - Gain greater confidence in the "middle game" because I feel fairly comfortable with openings as well as figuring out endgames in the midst of a game.... My biggest weakness (I feel) is that my middle-game tactics and strategy fails me too often. - I want to prepare myself to get back to OTB games. - I'm also looking to learn and grow ALONG SIDE other like-minded individuals and move beyond some of the "solitary" life that exists in the study of chess.

Hello! I'm Sanjay, I'm 12 and I have a fide rating of 1500. I have a lichess 2200 and chess.com 2000 rating. I used to be 2300 on lichess but I am slowly dropping my rating there. I hope to use ChessMood to help me become a better chess player and strengthen my conceptual understanding so that I can raise my rating, both online and OTB. I hope to also have fun while doing so. Thank you!

Hello all, I finally found the improvement site that I dreamed of finding many years ago. Being 50 years old it is time to get a solid 2000+ rating online aswell OTB. With ChessMood and yours all help I am sure I can reach this goal and maybe even get beyond. See you all at the 2000+ rating side!

Hello, my name is Christian, and I am a young guy from Denmark, looking forward to breaking my plateau with the help of chessmood.

Hi, I'm Omkar Deshpande. My fide rating is 1468. My chess.com rating is 2000+ . lichess is 2200+. This year target is before december my rating have to have reached 2600+ on chess.com and lichess. So,I can win big delhi below1900 and 1600 rating tournaments easily. and eventually increase fide rating as well . If there is someone who need playing partner please send friend request or give your ID . My ID is Omi_chessmood

Hi, I'm Csaba from Slovakia. I have no fide rating or deep knowledge about chess. I started last December as an absolute beginner to distract myself from my coding work. I cannot do this full-time, just like an hour/per day, and I am not young anymore, at least what my date of birth says, so my memory is not as good as it was My target is 1200 on chess.com, but I'm far from it (for 300 games: bullet 250; blitz (I like 5|0) 117, rapid 165, puzzle 610). Somebody mentioned on a stream ChessMood last week, so I subscribed, but all I see are advanced players around here, so I don't know if I am on the right path/page, but at least I am slowly going through the courses by the plan, which I like. Excellent work, guys. If anybody wants me as a playing partner, or rather coach me with my elo, please send me a friend request or contact me via chat my ID is: kobuki_rs

Hi friends. I am Veera from India. My age is 26. My FIDE rating is 1654 (Peak rating: 1765). I started playing Chess at the age of 15. I was not able to continue playing due to some personal reasons. So, I stopped playing Chess after a few years. I am working as a Chess Coach since the age of 17. But my love for this Art didn't reduce. This time I am not going to Quit. I am going to give my best to reach better heights. My goal is to become IM in the next 2 or 3 years. Very happy to join the ChessMood family. Looking forward to working with you friends. All the Best to Everyone🙂

Hello ChessMood family! My name's Ken, and I'm an adult improver. Perhaps one of the oldest I've seen here, a short couple of years away from 60! I've loved chess all my life, and have gone through many phases of obsession and study, only to hit a wall realizing chess is really hard, get frustrated, and then to step away from the game for some number of years. But I can't remain away for very long and always come back, regretting the time spent away. My classical rating's around 1400 on chess.com and 1700 on lichess. Once I had the goal to reach master level, but being realistic, my sights are set currently on expert (2000 USCF). I know with effortful study and dedication I can reach this goal. I have the good fortune to have a lot of free time to work on study and playing chess these days. The challenge is to partition this time in the most effective way to build my playing strength as efficiently as possible. But rating really is not important to me. What I *really* want is to be a strong player, comfortable in every phase of the game, able to play with confidence to the best of my ability under all circumstances. I know my main challenge is that I prefer to add knowledge as opposed to work on building skill. I have a large library of chess books, most unread. It's easy and enjoyable to add knowledge, but building skill takes sweat and effort and change, it takes real grit. On this latest return to study and play I really feel that I am completely dedicated to reaching my goal and that I am willing to do what it takes to build skill as my #1 task. My skill deficiencies are many (as my rating shows!), but the really big ones are: 1) unforced blunders (forgetting that I have an opponent who is also trying to win and can make moves!); and 2) time management (I play wayyyy toooo sloooowly, afraid to make tactical mistakes, and end up losing winning positions because I'm usually playing only on increment by the endgame). I enjoy blitz but it just reinforces my bad habit of not considering opponent replies, so for the moment I'm taking a break from it to concentrate of building the habit of considering strong opponent replies on every move of the game. I've joined the lichess 4545 league and am playing in ches.com Dan Heisman Learning Center club slow tournaments. These groups have strong players, and I'm already struggling. They prepare for their opponent's openings. I'm on a 5-game losing streak so far, and it's challenging to maintain the mood in that context. While I don't enjoy losses, they don't phase me all that much, I see them as lessons. However, if I played below my potential and lose because of something I already know (safety check all candidate moves, move in the required amount of time), as opposed to being outplayed, *that* really bothers me. I tend to lose the mood in games after a blunder, and find it hard to put up the most challenging defense afterwards. I enjoy studying Tibetan Buddhism, especially dream yoga, and my reading in this area has taught me the key importance of mind/mood/thoughts, and how this effects our life and our performance. I am a firm believer in "right mood - right moves!" But underlying that is the foundation of strong opening, tactical, strategic, and endgame pattern recognition, and I have a long, long way to go to build up these areas. My current focus is a "woodpecker" approach on a pool of simple, basic tactics, to instantly recognize them in games. I'm looking forwards to the tactics ninja and mating matador courses here, but am concerned about the lack of built-in spaced repetition ability on the site. How have others here managed to most effectively use those courses without that feature? My openings story is highly schizophrenic. I'm having trouble deciding on repertoires. I've decided on 1.e4 and 1. e4 e5 for now, with emphasis on aggressive gambit play (Evans, Scotch gambit). I struggle against 1.d4. I'm looking forwards to incorporating the Chess Mood openings, and perhaps trying out the French Attack approach, but I prefer the open games, so am not so sure about that one. And finally I'm very interested in joining a community of serious but friendly chess enthusiasts, working with them and learning from them, and it looks like ChessMood is that place! On a different note, I'm a very experienced, life-long career software developer, so if ChessMood wants assistance in adding features to the site (like spaced repetition practice for courses?!), feel free to contact me about those opportunities!

Hello ChessMood family , I m from Quebec , Canada . French being my first language , it s possible i sound weird in English sometimes.. 😅 I m 56 yrs , currently 1702 FIDE , 1771 CFC and 1704 FQE ( a had a peek at 1873 , 12 yrs ago ) In chesscom , bullet is around 1500 , blitz 1600 and rapid 1840 . On lichess , i m over 2000 blitz and rapid . I played as a kid without knowing anything but with good logic , I was able to do some tactics . If I played others like me , I usually won but the few times I met anyone who has been in a chess club or had study with a book , I was losing . At 35 yrs old , I was playing on Yahoo and was around 1200 in rapid . I got a book on chess from a friend and for the first time , was interested by it ( there was many pictures and side story ) and picked some knowledge after which i saw improvement on Yahoo ! After that I bought chessmaster on pc and did most of the lessons with it . I bought more books , joined a club ( which was 2 hrs drive from home ) and started competition . I took me 2 yrs to get to 1700 in classic , another 2 .5 yrs to get my peak at 1873 and then came back around 1800 . I was strong in tactics and endgames . Very often worse after the opening stage , always looking for tactics to get back in the game and almost no other plan than that, despite having read nimsovich , max euwe and silman .. My ultimate goal was to get to 2000 . During that period , I was without players in my region , no more club . I started studying openings (which I neglected before as I had only a small 1970 book as reference for everything I played so far ..) bought chessbase 2007 with big database which I didnt use properly . Bought many opening books , study for over 2 yrs without playing much apart 4-5 tournaments a year . I did play online , mainly correspondance games where I was checking the openings but It was not efficient at all.. my rating decreased gradually under 1700 in classic .. I had 2 young kids so I stopped tournaments which were mostly 750 to 960 km away from home and got bored studying openings especially as I felt turning in circles . I kept playing online correspondence regularly but was less serious about it as time passed. Eventually , my daughters left for college so having more free time , I started studying on chesscom with videos and play online for couple of months . Then the pandemic occurred and I was not able to play my first come back tournament. I stopped studying chess again but kept playing online . When the restrictions slacked , I restarted studying , and participated in the first tournament available and shared first place ! It was a surprise as I did not play with pieces and clock for 11 yrs .. I was the highest rated player of the section but it seem the others( mostly 200 pts lesser than me )were even more rusty than me .. after another tournament against stronger players ( 150 pts ) than me where I did ok but lost the pts gained of the first one . I went for my third one and hit a wall..😵 playing against weaker players by an average 200 pts like in the first tournament , I scored 1.5/5 and lost 73 rating pts ..ouch I decided I needed help and hired a coach for the first time . He was busy being in college so I waited 3 months before working with him and we only did six 1 hr /session, but he made me realise i had to play more actively and having a minimum repertoire was necessary. During last summer , he went on fantastic streak , winning everything in Canada from junior , blitz , zonal and national open and score a perfect 9/9 in a norm tournament in the us. ( he got a review of his 9 wins on Gotham Chess) . He concluded his journey with the u 18 world title in Romania ! I have no credits .. he was my coach , not the opposite.. 😆 I had to get a new coach as he was very busy . With my new mentor , and ChessMood , I m confident I will improve for good .

Dear Avetic and team, dear champions, first of all, thank you for all the content, thoughts, blog posts and so much more - and for your passion. A few short sentences about me: Last weekend I played an OTB tournament again after many years and did quite well. I used to have a rating between 2000-2100 in my late twenties, then I took a long break from chess. Now I'm 50 years young, male, hosted in Germany and I'm experiencing something like my second chess spring. :) I discovered all the new training opportunities on the internet and I've been training intensively for about 10 weeks, mainly with chessmood. My focus is on calculating variations, openings and analyzing classic games - and the new study plan. :) It's what I can do on my own. But I think I need someone to analyze my games with me and work specifically on my weaknesses. A concrete example: I played the following game with black last weekend. https://lichess.org/study/HxTmvXIa/DauP2kHY After 24.Kd4 I wasn't sure how to use my strategic advantage. I decided to open a line, swap rooks, and then win the endgame with the better minor piece on the black squares. And that's the point: for me the analysis isn't primarily about whether, for example, a sacrifice is correct after 10 moves (I can do that well with an engine), but rather about increasing and improving my understanding of chess in order to to better assess positions. If an analysis might reveal that I have problems in the treatment of positions with, for example, space disadvantage or IQP, then I could work on closing these gaps. Maybe also with chess literature or other sources. What is the best way? Who can help? I want to get an FM title in the next few years, that's my goal and I want to work disciplined and hard on that. But my actual goal was formulated by Buddha: There is no way to happiness, happiness is thw way. Thanks for all! Matt P.S. My opponent gave up after Kg5.

Hi, my name is Balazs. I'm 35 years old and live in Hungary with my wife and my 3 year old son. I played chess as a kid without much success and quit at around 12. Fast forward 18 years and on an especially mind numbing office day, I had the thought: I wonder if chess is still a thing in the 21st century? As it turns out, it is. So I started learning online, joined a club, started playing OTB again. I've been between 1400-1500 FIDE ever since, although I stopped for 1.5 years when covid hit. I was changing careers that time and also my son was born. Before I stopped, I started having decent results. Beat a couple 1700-1800 players in the team championship and won an U1500 section at a tournament. As it turns out I messed up my restart of this beautiful game by adopting incorrect openings for my level and for my goals. Namely, system openings for white (London and Colle/Colle-Zukertort) and the Caro-Kann and QGD for black (those are fine to be honest, just a bit passive). My first goal is to actually get an opening repertoire that allows me not to plateau too early. My ultimate dream goal would be the FM title, or the CM title.

My name is Paulo, I am an enthusiastic chess player with tons of self-discipline,passion for the game,learning and competition. I am currently the second best chess player in my country in the “expert” category (rated under 2200) I am ambitious, perseverant and will never give up on the game. 

Is there any way to train in chess audibly without watching?

Hello, ChessMood family.
I have a lot of time during work where I can listen to anything through headphones, but I can't watch. Can I utilize this time to improve my chess skills?

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There are not many (if any) audiobooks related to chess, apart from chess story, etc.

But, you could however start to improve visualization skills. That is, you could imagine, visualize the board and be able to follow a game just by listening the moves (1 e4, e5, etc). Of course, this is an advanced skill. It needs lot of practice and time. But it's a valuable one. And I think it's the only way to practice chess by listening to it.

There are many podcasts on chess visualization were you can follow or try to follow the games in your mind while listening to the moves, look for chess visualization podcasts on spotify and you'll find many…😀😀

Anti-sicilian, part 1, 5... e6

Hello dear coaches and pro members: what to play after black move 5… e6, in the grand prix attack?

Thanks and good day

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Hi Marius,

Can you write all the previous moves to know the exact position that you are referring to?

Thanks 

Pawn moves

Hi everyone, I'm 1300 rapid on chess.com, and I was wondering, at what rating should I start to study pawn plays and to which level? (Like from x to x rating study this, from y to y study that ecc.) Thank you

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Hello, I do not understand what you mean. Can you please clarify?

congrats on reaching 1300! When it comes to pawn moves, they can be related to tactics, openings, middle game, and endgame stuff. It's kind A broad term , Check out ChessMood's plan for 1000-1500 – they've got some good tips. And hey, reaching 1500 is doable by playing, solving puzzles, and enjoying the game Here's the link : https://chessmood.com/chess-study-plans/for-intermediate-players

You should know basic pawn endings around that level. The chess endings for U2000 course has everything you need.

Which is easier?

Which is easier?
Play for real with wooden tools or play on the computer
For me, it's easier in reality when you see your opponent and you can tell if he's in trouble
Because I am ranked much lower on chess.com than in reality
what do you think?

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For me it's easier to play on the computer because I don't have the pressure to win. That's why I play better online.

They have their pros and cons. I have played both and I can tell you that they are very different experiences. Playing Online is cool and easy, i can play anytime and anywhere, and i found opponents of any level and style. I use Lichess, it has many tools to help you get better , like engines, databases , and puzzles. I play on my phone when i take the train that I'm not at home . I like doing rush puzzles, they are addictive, but also so frustrating when you mess up a good streak. 
Online chess can be bad too... the internet is crap sometimes , and you lose your game or your time because of it .some people cheat online (mainly why i switched from Chess.Com to lichess.org ) , they use engines to play for them...  It's lonely and boring sometimes. You don't see or talk to your opponent, you just see a name and a number, and maybe some messages that contain cheater or NOOB most of the time. 
it's more real when you play over the board . You can see your opponent in the eye, and you can use your body language. My favorite thing is bluffing when i play a negative elo move and that he doesn't find it 😂.  feel the vibe of the the tournament. Playing in real life is more fun and rewarding, because you can make friends , You can learn from them, by watching or asking. Or when you finish you talk about ideas that you missed and You remember it better. 
I would say that the main cons are that you have to go and pay to play in clubs or tournaments, which can be hard and expensive. And you may play against people who are too good or too bad, You have to know the rules and chess notations. 
I like offline chess more, because I think it's more fun. Luckily i can play chess against my friends In a place at my university , we are a small group so we know each other. playing against someone  with people watching you is intense. Especially when you play a final in a tournament . I also think that offline chess is more fair and honest, there is no cheating or manipulation, and you can respect your opponent more. I still play online chess a lot , but I don't care too much, mainly to try new openings like the closed Sicilian recently. (thanks to chessmood course)

Analysing games

Hi, I want to study chess with a study plan, and I've decided that I'll play both 5+3 and 15+10. However I'm wondering: should I keep fixing mistakes separately? For example, if I blunder 1 piece per game on average with fast time control but 0 on slow time control, should I avoid fixing the less relevant mistake I make in slow game and just focusing on bigger ones I make on fast time, keeping track of “2 separate progresses”?

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Fixing mistakes based on time control is smart. Focus on what goes wrong often. But, if your openings differ, that matters too. Consider both for better improvement. Good luck mate 👍

Would Capablanca be crushed by an 8 year-old with engine prep?

I have heard people say that most decent (advanced) players with proper engine opening prep would crush Capablanca if they could play him (assuming that we don't give Capa any time to prep with an engine) This sounds ridiculous to me, but I would like to know how true it actually is.

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Hello,

Well I've never searched this, but this sounds totally ridiculous to me also. I don't think that any decent but amateur chess player would stand a chance against Capablanca at his prime, who is arguably one of the best chess players who ever lived (unless of course if he made a big blunder, wich I think is almost impossible for so good players). There is no way that they could predict the whole game, and whenever their prep ended the game would have been over. There is no way an amateur (wich means a 2100-2200 MAX rated player for me) could beat Capablanca on a fair game (without engine prep), as his elo is estimated to be 2725 when he was at his peak. And as I said there is no way they could predict the whole game, some time he would eventually get out of prep and believe me, I don't think Cabablanca would have lost to Stocfish in the first 20 or 25 moves when I (rated 1600 rapid on chess.com) can last for 25 moves while playing in bullet mode (I just did it to confirm it and I got mated on move 25 while playing terribly and super fast 😀, I even hang my queen for absolutely no reason).

Also, a strategy of heading quiqly into an endgame wich the amateur player had studied with an engine might work, but, honestly, the chances of Capablanca going straight into this particular endgame are very fiew(we must also not forget that, if I remember well, he is considered to be one of the greatest endgame players of all time).

So my answer would be no, there is no way that an amateur would beat Capablanca with engine prep, as he couldn't possibly be so well prepared that A) there will be no need to think during the whole game or B) He will beat one of the greatest players of all time in 30 moves max. The only way I can see this happening is Capablanca blundering something really big (or if luck is on the player's side).

Question Pirc Defense

I am currently watching the “Starter Course WhiteMood openings” course, and I have a question about the Pirc defense. 

After 1. e4 d6 2. Nc3, black plays e5, we play Bc4 and go for a Grand prix attack structure with d3, f4, Nf3, not allowing black to play the Black Lion system.

Recently I faced the following variation:

After 1. e4 d6 2. Nc3 Nf6 3.f4, black plays e5. 

Now we can't play 4. Bc4 because black can take the f4 pawn,

and if we play 4.Nf3, we transpose to a Vienna gambit that is not covered in the courses.

What should I play after 1. e4 d6 2. Nc3 Nf6 3.f4 e5?

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You can play Nf3 here as you are developing a piece and you are going to recapture that pawn by the following moves:
4. Nf3 exf4 5. d4 Nh5 6. Nd5 and that pawn is yours. Bc4 can be a inaccuracy here because Nxe4 Nxe4 then d5 puts a pin on your pieces and you have a bad position. Or if they just take the f pawn with Bc4 being played then d5 again and if your opponent stops with g5 then play h4, if they take the pawn on h4 then take Bxf4 and Rxh4.

Hi Donkey,

I haven't made it down to the openings section yet - still looking at Ninja Tactics and BlunderProof - so take that and my lack of experience into account!

I would still play Nf3.  This helps to continue our piece development and puts pressure on black's e5 pawn.  Also, although black could take our f4 pawn, would he?  Isn't he more likely to keep it in the centre and leave the tension applied?  And if he does take on f4, where is he going with it afterwards (it's isolated, undefended, and not attacking anything)?

Perhaps its just the level that I play at but, after we play Nf3, I'd be expecting either Bg4 (pinning our knight to the queen but fairly easily challenged with h3) or Nc6 developing black's pieces.

I'd also still consider Bc4 as a good move for similar reasons.

Hi Donkey,
Chessmood addresses how to play against 3.f4, e5?! in the following 3 minute video: https://chessmood.com/course/11-crushing-the-pirc/episode/976

This is not part of the Whitemood lines, but part of the regular repertoire videos for 1.e4 (“Attacking the Pirc”). It is Section 1, 6.Super Version of King’s Gambit, and here GM Avetik recommends indeed to continue with 4.Nf3 and after 4…Nbd7 either 5.d4 right away or 5.Bc4/d3/O-O, and in case of 4…exf4?!, 5.d4 (planning 6.Bxf4)

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coach loved it. I will make a new account on lichess so i will play only training games like this and for the main account I keep my ratings. I am a player who wanna keep both ratings and game. so I will use new account for training 5 min + 3 sec increment time control and old account is just for rating and rare games. Another point is that I can't play freely when i play with my normal account. I feel worried about rating and losing so for that Dummy Account is best and useful for my chess skills.

thanks for the lesson. 

I prefer 15+10

yes, i like g5/3 as you recommended in the article much better than g3.

Can we change chessmood Sunday tournaments from g3 to g5/3? 

Before reading this article, I had no idea which time control suited to me. I used to play mostly blitz and rapid 3 to 15 minutes but without increment. Now I will switch to 3+2, 5+3, and 15+10. 

Thanks for sharing excellent article !!.I learned a lot.  

Very helpful article, thank you coach. The most important part was Dr. Grigoryan's advice, "concentrate on becoming a better chess player, and your rating will follow". It sets the focus on the right thing.

(As for me, I play 15+10, but even that's fast for me.)

Before reading this article I preferred 10+0 time control. Now I am going to try 5+3. I am more concerned about improving my game than I am about just having fun 

I like 5+3 too! 

Can we have this time on our Sunday tournaments?

Okay, it seems many want 5+3 control on Sunday tournaments. 
Let us think about it :) 

Hi Maestro, great article. I've been playing some 5+3 games as you recommend, and I will keep doing that, especially for practicing the chessmood openings. That said, I also quite like 10+0, which I've always believed might help me in OTB rapid tournaments, of which there used to be a lot in my region (i.e. before the coronavirus), usually 30+0, so no increment, meaning that time management becomes more important. What do you think of online 10+0 games? OK or too slow?

Following GM Avetik advice, I have stopped playing 10+0 and 30+0 games. Now I play 5+3 for blitz games and 15+10 for rapid games. I am happy with the change as it allows me to train and improve in winning "winning position" as he recommends

Sir, if our purpose is both improving your game and practicing the new opening reportoire, is it good to play 60+0. 

Is there just one suitable one time control?

I can't play faster than 5 0 and I lose a number of games with 0 inc, so 5 3 is about as slow as I like to play. If people didn't play nonsense at 1 0 I'd play that just to get through a lot of opening lines. Blitz I'm generally looking to practice openings rather than anything too serious and fills odd moments. I will blunder quite a bit at this speed as I'm relying on instant judgements and not always aware of lurking problems. I think Chessmood puts far too much emphasis on blitz.

15 0 is a good speed to practice a bit of thinking, but the game itself doesn't last too long so it can be played once a day (when time allows).

30 0 I don't play online, but is good over the board for a tournament that lasts one day.

45 15, 60 15 are good online time controls for long play

My preference for over the board chess though is 40 moves in 2 hrs, 1 hr finish. I think league speed of 35 moves in 1 hr 15, 15 minutes finish, or 60 10 means players become weak in their endgames.

Hi! 5+3 is not one of the default time controls available on chess.com, so should I switch to 3+2? Or maybe 5+5?

Hi there! Here's my preferred time controls Online play - chess_com or lichess If have 1-1.5 hour for playing session, then I usually go for one 15+10 game to warm up and train my calculation and then the rest 3+2 for opening improvement and just for fun. I analyse after each game what I did wrong in the opening and mostly run built in analysis of chess_com for blunder check. I don't like bullet (completely agree that it harms improvement) and games without increment as it's really annoying to lose on time in completely winning positions (I'm not a fast player :)) and also when low on time it turns into premove scramble which I dont like as well For live OTB play I like both classical 1h30mins+30s with or without added 30mins after 40moves and also rapid play (12+5, 10+5). Though I prefer classical for improvement purpose.

Is 3+0 a good substitute to 5+3 if I don't have much time to spare?It is because I would usually play 10+0 when I have time.

As always, very helpful article. Thank you, Avetik!

Thanks to this article, I learned new things and saw some of my own ideas confirmed. I have been using Classical tempo and I think I will continue this way for a long time from now on. Maybe when I get a little stronger I'll switch to Rapid, but I think it's too early.

I love playing classical, with the time to think and make calculations (and, of course, I still lose! ) But the suggestion of playing lots of blitz/rapid games with the aim of e.g. practising new openings, not worrying about the end result or ratings, is a very good idea. I'll try it!

I don't even know what 5+3 or 3+2 means. Is it 3 minutes for the whole game, plus 2 minutes per move , or what?

And why do the recommended time controls seem to be so fast? I'm used to 40 moves per 2 hours myself.

I want to improve my middlegame, tactics, and stop blundering. I still don''t know what the best time control to play is.

dream position

🤔

if i get dream position does my opponent have any advantage

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How to memorize opening ?

I found in Lichess an interactive lesson to practice my opening, but it only shows the main line. How can I practice sidelines? Is there an article about that?

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Chesstempo helps you to practise your openings. It simulates your opponent and check that you answer with the right moves. You have to enter your own repertoire, but you can practise as often as you want after. The engine will check that you memorize correctly the moves.

Hi, there are 2 blog posts on this topic, written by Avetik. Here are the links to them. Hope it helps.

https://chessmood.com/blog/how-to-memorize-chess-openings-variations

https://chessmood.com/blog/how-grandmasters-memorize-opening-variations