It would be nice if Silman's ROE course was cleaned : there are many duplicate lessons, which is a bit annoying 
Topic Suggestions
Sort:
Something on closed positions which aren't necessarily blocked. I'm thinking of 'main-line' (i.e. dxe4) caro-kanns, slavs where dxc4 gets played, philidors, scotches, king's indians, and maroczy binds with exd4, frenches with dxe4, Alekhine's and Scandanavians, maybe some hedgehogs, etc. This class of position is not something that I see get covered a lot - sometimes you see 'oh white has a space advantage, with a small plus, but black is solid'. Fine, but how do you come up with PLANS for both sides? And this kind of position arises or CAN arise out of almost every opening.
yeah. if you are thinking of dc and de type positions those are usually classified as "semi-open" positions. those are really important positions, especially the ones where black is solid. if black has a bad bishop on c8, then they can be less interesting as white's advantage is more significant :-)
Stonewall and/or Torre openings.
new courses!?!?!?!?
I would love to see some excellent courses related to the sicilian najdorf as well as complex endings for 1800+ players
thx for the suggestion.
Has Chess Mentor improved for lower rateds since I've been away?
They have some new courses by Alexander King which are for beginners (even the ones labelled intermediate really).
Scottrf wrote:
They have some new courses by Alexander King which are for beginners (even the ones labelled intermediate really).
By beginners, do you mean how the pieces move? I'm slightly beyond that. I can't say I'm a beginner any more. I'm obviously not an intermediate. Just a crappy player.
Not that easy, just simple tactics etc.
Oh. Since I do them already, I guess I won't upgrade then. Thanks for the info. :)
are you able to see this page, C_P:
http://www.chess.com/chessmentor/courses
it shows you the recently published courses, and the average rating of the lessons in those courses.
dpruess wrote:
are you able to see this page, C_P:
http://www.chess.com/chessmentor/courses
it shows you the recently published courses, and the average rating of the lessons in those courses.
Appreciate it. :)
thank you for this really fun learning tool. i think it could do with more of a balance between attack strategies, defensive strategies (under threat of mate), and draw and stalemate strategies.
The Art of Cat and mouse! (A very nice endgame technique)
Jamalov i agree in general defense is not taught enough (much at all!). we are aware and going to try to balance that out a bit more over time.
I personally believe that openings can easily be studied out of chess mentor- however the thought process is easier to learn through that. Simple openings do not need much explaining, but complex openings like the dragon could use a few courses- I would love to see one regarding the Bc4 yugoslav attack, the classical yugoslav, the levenfish, and the yugoslav modern 0-0-0. Other than that, some high level endgame courses would be well appreciated I am sure.
One lesson that might be good for a lot of players is how openings relate to one another. That studying for instance the scotch can make a player better at the siclian due to similar themes. I recall a game played maybe 6 or 7 years ago by Kortchnoi in a tournament where a 1d4 opening transposed into essentially a ruy lopez structure. I said Black was lost around move 18 or so and was laughed at by some amateurs. Black did lose because blacks normal counterplay was totally lacking and white was essentially 3 tempi up on typical attacking ideas.