Errors in Chess Mentor aplenty

Podzerov-Kunstowicz, 1970 under Power of the Capture-Check series.....

Watch out for Jeremy Silman's courses in Chess Mentor. They often have errors, because apparently this guy will deduct points even for alternative moves that lead to the same result. There is another one where it involves a windmill mate and ANY rook move on the g file leads to mate but this the solution only accepts one move. STUPID!!!

Staunton-Hartrison, 1840 lesson under The Power of the Capture-Check series is the one I am referring to. Mate is mate....only accepting one answer is totally idiotic.

Already lost so many CM points for nothing, and for solving each one right, I get only 1 miserable point...!

Hearing that makes me kind of happy. I'm not paying a single dime. :)

In "Silman Teaches Tactics (1)", lesson "Mirano-Castelliano", Silman expects you to prefer a mate in four to either of two different moves giving mate in three (7.f3+ instead of either Be2+ or Qg3+). Both shorter mates aren't even alternative moves but considered plain wrong...

And in lesson "Hug-Fegebank" one of the possible mates in two is considered wrong as well (3.Bc4+ gets a: "Not a bad check but after 3...Bd5 White will still have to find the crusher." Hmm, let's see: 4.Bxd5 and no matter what Black does 5.Qg7#...)

In fact, chess mentor is one of the things I would pay for. I am still thinking about it, but hearing all these complains makes me wonder if it is really worth it...

I don't think the authors of the original module got paid a whole lot, and I don't think there was much supervision either.  Believe me, the CM is totally worth the $100 I spend on diamond.  The newer modules that were added after Erik purchased it are generally of higher quality but most of the original courses are fine as well.  Out of the 2800 lessons I've done, there have been maybe a dozen or so where things got a little kinky.  Even the vast majority of Silman's content is well worth exploring, as long as you don't mind being insulted now and then.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-mentor/what-is-your-favorite-im-silman-putdown

There is a program called chess mentor deluxe which costs approximately 197 $ http://www.chessmentor.com/order_deluxe.html

Suposedly, chess.com bought this product and that is what they are offering, am I right? I guess in addition they have created more courses. Or are all the courses in chess.com really new?

Nope, that's the original program that Erik bought.  The interface is a little clunky compared to the new one but it's useable.  They used to offer it in 3 grades of increasing cost and number of lessons, but the one with 2150 lessons is the top of the line.  Good value for your money, but the web version is much more pleasant to use because of the interface. And of course there are now almost 4k lessons.  My personal opinion is that most of the new lessons are of superior quality and take better advantage of the format.  Many of the authors now seem to bend over backwards to anticipate every possible wrong answer and give a rational explanation of why what you chose is wrong.  A lot of the original authors tended to reward a wrong answer with the simple reply "No, that's not right.  Try again."  Hardly what I'd call mentoring.  Still, the original module includes a boatload of tactics courses that remain useful and of course, Silman.