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Has Anyone Finished All the Chess Mentor Lessons?

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gsi07924

I have just completed all the lessons in the Chess Mentor.  My final rating was 1987, with a high of 2196 and a low of 1235.  Has anyone else finished all the lessons in the Chess Mentor?  If so, what was your total training time?  My timer got stuck at 83.54 hours several months ago, but I believe I spent about twice this amount of time doing the lessons.

I thought that the best Chess Mentor course was Silman's Roots of Positional Understanding.  Grefe's A Kaledioscope of Openings was a good introduction to many different openings for someone such as me who never studies openings.  Silman's Rook and Other Endgames was the best endgames course in Chess Mentor.

If anyone else has completed all the lessons, what was your total training time and ending rating and which courses did you find the best?

baddogno

I've only done 70% and my timer is stuck at 300 hours.  Congratulations! That's quite an accomplishment.  I doubt I'll ever finish the whole thing because I found to my consternation that I need to review many times each course that I take in order for it to sink in.  I don't think the timer (back when it was working) recorded review sessions so you must have been flying through the courses.  It sucks to get old and slow, sigh, but it probably beats the alternative...

Silman's Roots course was about the hardest course I've found (I'm about 90% through it and in no mood to tackle it again), but I'm not sure I'd call it the best.  I like the little 10 or 20 lesson courses that you can run through in a session or two. GM Shankland's first course on Punishing Opening Mistakes was a gem (the second was over my head and the third I gave up on after 1 lesson) and I liked both of FM Joel Banawa's courses very much also although I can't remember their exact titles.  I'll probably be doing CM forever...

Oh, my current rating is 1949 and my high was 24something, but that was before the great rating readjustment of several years ago.

stephenalacad

I am not close to finishing all of them, but I hope to do so eventually. It's making me a much better player! I really appreciate the interactive lesson format, and Silman's are also my favorites... they're really good!!

As for time, I believe they're retiring the timer but haven't actually removed it yet. I'm stuck at 0 hours since I just signed up. I think it's better without the timer, encourages you to think deeply.

stephenalacad

@GeorgeBlackChess123, very impressive! Something to aspire to...

Knightberry

I lost interest at about 15-20% (can't remember which) because there were too many replays of oldschool games with multiple sacrifices to obtain minor positional advantage or a piece advantage. I didn't find much educational value in these, in fact it was quite irritating. 

You could even find multiple alternative correct answers, and it would simply not admit them, you had to know the book solution or else you lost points.

 

Though about 90% of the other lessons are excellent and justify buying diamond membership on their own merit. 

stephenalacad

Knightberry, I see your point. Although I've found it helpful to learn the rules well first, so that I can break them effectively. That's a quote by the Dalai Llama I believe :).

Hunter5117

I really like the Chess Mentor lessons and so far it has been the most valuable thing I have done to improve my game. I have only completed about 150 lessons so far and need to back and review more of the ones where I was weak. I got my rating up to 1832 with a high of 1900 and have been occilating back and forth in that range, hopefully will break out soon. After almost 40 years not playing chess hardly at all it has been a great re-introduction and a wonderful way for me to learn things that honestly I had never heard of before.

DarkVoidll

Well im in 2018 so there are newer lessons just added today

so you have more to do

district_IV

I am confused. I have completed at least 10 or 12 lessons but it only records 2 of them and not current ones... Maybe I am not in the same thing you all are...it says Lessons but doesn't say Chess Mentor...yet it gives me a rating of 800.  and these were not timed... 

 

Muisuitglijder

There are two versions of the lessons. The new ones, and the old ones. That might explain why some don't see their previous accomplishments. The old lessons were also rated. But that could be easily manipulated. That is why the top 5 learners have ratings of over 3000 with 100% scores. So those ratings are really nothing to be impressed by. I'm more impressed with ratings gained by trial and error. So hats off to you for finishing all lessons with a rating of 1987 trophies.png