International chess school vs Yusupov books

Hello friends , I'm a 1500 rated player and want to improve my game to a decent level.I'm considering these two options .I'm willing to work hard.So any suggestion will be useful .You can also recommend other resources.Thanks in advance.

Anyone?

Yusupov's first series (Build/Boost/Chess Evolution 1) is designed for players in the 1300-1500 range who want to get to 1800, depending on how you interpret his comment in his intro. However, I have come across many comments from higher rated amateurs around the 1600-1800 level who say his level 1 material is very difficult.

International Chess School is for more advanced players, trying to get to master and beyond.

I think the level of the material is the same. I have checked the contents.While I saw the ICS is more comprehensive it doesn't teach endgames .But it emphasises on thinking process and pawn structures.The yusupov ones have more topics but lacks instructions on the pawn structures and thinking.The ICS lasts 13 months but the yusupov lasts 2-3 years.While the ICS is more complete the Yusupov ones has to be supplemented with other resources.The common thing is they both require hard work.

           

                      So if I want to go through both of them which will be the way to go? Or should I use the ICS course as my main training aid and use the yusupov ones for learning the missing topics in ICS course?

Yusupov's books are in 3 levels. If you are 1500, then his first level books are for your level. His entire series is 9 books plus an additional test/exam book for level 1 that are all supposed to cover every topic needed for a player to get to 2100 without major gaps in their chess knowledge.

If you get the entire set of ICS stuff, you get a bunch of annotated games from world champions, a bunch of annotated games when players are 200 points mismatched (lowest level 1800 v 1600, highest level 2800 v 2600), an opening repertoire, and a number of videos that cover the attack and the endgame.

Yes, ICS is more didactic/teaching oriented, whereas Yusupov is more self-assessment/problem-solving oriented.

In combination, Yusupov plus ICS is very comprehensive, but at your level, according to those resources, you would start with Yusupov level 1 before starting ICS, which at its lowest level, seems to best correspond with Yusupov's level 2 books.

Personally, comparing those materials with chess tempo and chess mentor, I feel that I would get more out of Yusupov if my tactics rating were a few hundred points higher, which would likely put me closer to your level OTB when it would be a more appropriate resource, but they all look good and comprehensive.

You might also like the Chess Steps level 1-6 workbooks and the Chess Tutor discs levels 1-3. Except for level 6, the rest of the Chess Steps and Tutor are in general easier than either Yusupov or ICS.

I like Yusupov.

ChessOK and Chess King have a bunch of courses translated from Russian, and available as windows programs or Android apps for phones.  The most famous course in this series is CT-ART which focuses on tactics.  Yusupov says he took his inspiration from Victor Golenishchev who wrote some of books on which Chess King courses are based.

I have a membership to International Chess School. 

I've been playing, reading chess books, and looking for good resources for 20 years. In all that time, I have never seen anything that explains "how" to improve and work through a chess position as well and as thoroughly as International Chess School. I could not believe how they explained things. I had been looking through chess books (not reading most of them, but looking through a lot, disappointed) and never seen chess explained like this.  I cannot recommend that site enough, and I almost promise you won't be disappointed. It's like Jeremy Silman explaining it to you....only quite a bit better. (Sorry Silman, I like you, but ICS is better for me.) They aren't just annoted games. They have pages of information explaining "how" to do somethine like create a weakness, in words, not just "Here is how a 2800 created a weakness. Now you do it. Good luck." I always hated that. Great, you show us a game where Kasparov used a profoundly brilliant plan to create a weak square then exploited it. Now, "How" the hell did he do it? ICS bridges that gap. How to think. How to plan. How to calculate. How to analyze a position. HOW! 

You get ICS a month at a time, so you can try one or two months and see how you like it. I haven't looked at Yusupov's books that much, although I have a few. They look good too, but ICS looks like its' more thorough in explaining to you, in words we can understand, "how" to do something. I thought of things in chess that I hadn't realized in 15 years of playing, two hours after studying ICS. Now I can't understand how it never occurred to me. 

So I recommend ICS. I was waiting for a thread like this to pop up so I could recommend it. Don't know if I've ever seen a better resource to learn and improve at chess outside of a real GM. Now you ahve to understand, if you're going to get anything out of it, you're going to have to have about 2 hours a day for a while, maybe at least an hour every day, because it's a pain in the ass lots of work. But what in life do we ever succeed at in life without work? 

Now with that said, I will offer an annoying, trite answer. Why not try both? I understand money doesn't grow on trees, but if you got 1 or 2 Yusupov books, and a couple months of ICS, and really worked at them for a month or two, you'd probably get a great idea which one you liked better. And if you liked them both, perhaps you could get both? They might not be free...but they aren't extremely expensive. 

FaceCrusher, do you like ICS for lower-rated players like myself (USCF 1100's, chesstempo tactics rated between 1400-1600 mixed mode, chesstempo endgames rated 1500-1700 theoretical)? My thought was to boost up my tactics first, but if you think it does good for players on the lower end, I may consider it.

Thanks everyone.Sending a trophy

To be honest ICS can be a load of work - and possibly even advanced for someone like me.

However if you are willing to commit 10+ hours a week of focused study and are already >1400, it is probably better to choose ICS.

Both of them are likely to help, and more people would probably vouch for Yusopov.

ICS claims their program requires roughly 5-7 hours a week, and is primarily aimed for higher players, but also says lower level players will benefit by learning the correct way of chess thinking with better chess habits and better info from their detailed explanations. They have a testimonial from a 55 year old who went from 1250 to 1700, the rest are from players 1600+... hope chess, hope testimonial?!

 

That's a hard one. Logozar is right, it's a lot of work (Which is fine), and there are parts of it that are advanced for him, and he's a 2181 Blitz on here, and he's right. There is stuff on ICS that will take me years to understand. (If I ever do!) It has some gnarly stuff on there. I think a 1100 USCF could get something out of it. But...with that said, I think you were on the right track when you said your thought was to boost up your tactics first. Maybe think about ICS in a year. In the meantime, go nuts on Tactics. Drill drill drill, board vision videos, Calculation Videos, Danny's videos on here, and in between do more tactic training and drills. You will feel yourself become sharper over the board. At least I did. ICS is Amazing! But, if you're thinking of that crazy advanced stuff, but hang a night to a tactic, it won't matter. Also, look at this insane link: 

https://www.chess.com/article/view/study-plan-directory

That's probably as much right there as Yusapov's books or ICS. You'd have to be Diamond to get all the videos, BUT....there are hundreds of them. That's enough for years right there! And easier to understand than ICS. At least for me. 1800-2000 or above would probably rather have ICS. But for most people, those videos right there, and the Organization they put them in, are Amazing! 

Thanks FaceCrusher,

I will check those items out since I am a Diamond. I tend to be biased in favor of a comprehensive curriculum like Chess Steps or ICS. I don't like jumping from one author's book covering a portion of a subject to another author's on another subject, except for certain books that seem to be universally recommended (for instance, Pawn Power by Kmoch, Pachman's 3 volumes on strategy, Vukovic's Art of Attack, Bronstein's Zurich 1953, etc, when I am at an appropriate level for these titles), so I may also consider a multiple-DVD course such as the Power Play series by Danny King or Danny Kopec's on fundamentals that attempts to give one strong player's "comprehensive curriculum" on chess.

 

I agree with you there Danny. I love chess books and I love different resources, but my favorite is a single, dense, comprehensive, entire curriculum designed and built to function together as a whole. 138 different books by 64 different authors and 888 videos by 444 different people, yeah it's fun, and you pick things up, but you feel like you're filling in fragments here and there and you're not sure what you're missing and you don't even know what you don't know is missing and...... 

Entire curriculums are nice because you know you're getting pretty much everything, and what you are weak in afterward, you at least know what to go work on. 

Yeah check out that Study Plan Directory on here. It is kind of a comprehensive entire course since it's all Chess.com IMs and GMs and I think it built to go pretty much together, but I can't say I know if they designed it that way. I just looked up the Power Play series, and it looks damn good too. I hadn't heard of Chess Steps until you mentioned it. I just now looked it up and man it looks good. I will go check it out now and maybe even get one of the last ones. That might be a better place for you to start than ICS for a couple years, because ICS man, it ain't no joke. It's some sick stuff. I think Carlsen and Naka looked at it and said "I can't understand this it's too hard." No, that didn't happen, but you definitely want heavy tactics and strategy first. 

Yeah, check out Chess Steps.  I tried reading Grooten's Chess Strategy for Club Players (beyond my level), but I decided to buy the Steps method when he made reference to it as a successful way chess is taught to children in the Netherlands in some passage in his book. 

"Grooten's Chess Strategy for Club Players" Sick, sickly awesome book. So good. And yeah if you're not ready for that, bookmark International Chess School, and plan on signing up for it a few years later. That might seem like a long time but I promise it'll go fast. The Chess Steps I'm looking at the advanced ones tonight. Looking through it, I really think you won't be disappointed and that you'll get a lot out of it. Also look into Dan Heisman's books and lessons. Most of it is for around 800-1500 or so, but I guarantee even some advanced players can sharpen up with it.  

Dan Heisman, Chess Steps, and The Intermediate Lesson Plan here on Chess.com, tactics trainer, and you'll be set for two years. 

Danny king dvds are just awesome.I only watched them.played online.Looked at some games with the same openings I play and BAM!!+250 elo.An important thing is grooten's is a great book as an additional material to ICS.So think about that faecrusher

I think I'm going with grooten with some other textbooks and use the first 2 yusupov series as workbooks.Next comes ICS and the green yusupov ones.What's your view on this?

 Will also redo the powerplaty ones.Lots of classic games