No one has wasted more time trying to improve at chess than me. For every hour of productive study, I take a ten hour detour to nowhere town.

You and I are about equal in Live Chess playing strength. I suggest that we play two games at 15 10 or longer (unrated is just fine), each of us with a chance at playing White, followed by self annotations without using chess engines, explaining the reasons behind ALL of our moves. After e-mailing the great chess genius waffllemaster a delighful desert, I'm sure he will be most happy to take a look at our annotations, and fix the thoughts that are beyond dumb.

Example: "I've come to realize that many mistakes for any level stem from having these bad tapes stuck on repeat in our heads... In this game your bad tape was that diagonal for your bishop :)" - waffllemaster

That comment alone will improve my chess performance by 50 points, since I make far too many moves with my brain set to autopilot. After pondering the bad tape comment all day, Waffllemaster opened my eyes to the fact that my play is far too rigid. Light squared bishops are always good on c4, targeting f7, right?

On a serious note: After reading waffllemaster's comments of my self annotated game (Stuck Bishop), I could tell that he understands chess a hundred times more than me. You don't need a National Master to go over your games with you. A much stronger player will be plenty good.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/please-analyze-game-with-stuck-bishop?lc=1#last_comment

Of course Chess Mentor helps.  There is no magical solution to getting better at chess though and CM is no exception.  If you think going through a course once or twice is going to teach you the material, then of course you will be dissapointed.  Yes, I do think CM is more efficient than books at teaching chess, but you still have to do the work.  I'll admit to not being the brightest bulb on the tree, but I've done some of those lessons over 20 times and I'm still actively reviewing.  Like most things in life, what you get out of it depends on the effort that you put into it.

 The one BIG advantage chess mentor has over anything else is that it tells you why EVERY move is good or bad. 

Yup, that's a great feature. The only thing I find mildly annoying is that sometimes the text says that you played a good moove, showing firm positional understanding, just that there's something even better there - and then the counter below is chopping some 30 percent off your score ... 

 You can send me a challenge after six pm central time if you want, but not on Monday.

Musikamole is waaay too pleasant, cheerful, and optimistic for chess. Woodshover has that dark hopelessness of a champion

I will be challenging Woodshover tomorrow, with the idea of having Waffllemaster wrestle the dumb chess thoughts from our brains, for which I feel quite optimistic.

Going along with your theory, should I prepare by watching depressing movies? What is THE most depressing movie of all times? I wonder.

Going along with your theory, should I prepare by watching depressing movies? What is THE most depressing movie of all times? I wonder.

Requiem for a Dream, according to Google.

Requiem for a Dream and The Color Purple are neck and neck if you ask me.

Musikamole is waaay too pleasant, cheerful, and optimistic for chess. Woodshover has that dark hopelessness of a champion

Omigosh the pirates are seriously all over chess.com forums.  What's with the pirates!