Question about Chessable

I have never owned anything from Chessable and have a question.

I am looking at possibly getting a course on the QGA.  It says you can pay $39.99 and get a 1 hour video with it, or pay something like $150 and get a 12-hour video.

Has anybody purchased the audio to any books on that site?  Do you get something substantially better with it?  Or are they basically just reading the book to you and you are paying just to hear them talk, and could easily pick up the same knowledge if you put the time and effort in yourself?

If you work for Chessable, ignore this question.  I do not want a biased sales pitch looking for more money and saying I should buy the audio because it fills your pockets.  I want an honest, unbiased opinion from a customer that has bought books from that site (does not specifically need to be on the QGA - any books from there).

I like the video but I would wait until a sale price becomes available on the QGA.  Which it surely will.

May I offer a third option?  The whole Chessable experience is a bit controversial.  Some folks love the format; others can barely restrain themselves from picking up their monitor and throwing it across the room.  I found a free course on the QGA that will let you get your feet wet and decide if the format is right for you.  I admit to pretty much ignoring the videos included with the courses I'm taking over there even when they're free since the text is usually more than adequate.  Anyway....

https://www.chessable.com/short-sweet-queens-gambit-accepted/course/51081/

 

Thanks for the response.  I'll have to look at this one (I see it advertises the "explosive exchange sacrifice", and so I assume it's probably the same line as the other one (3.e4 b5 4.a4 c6 5.axb5 cxb5 6.Nc3 a6 7.Nxb5 axb5 8.Rxa8 Bb7).  

 

I'll take a look at this free one and if I like the format, maybe I'll go ahead and buy the text portion, not the extra $110 to $120 for the video, of the other one.

 

I see what you mean.  This whole let me show you a move and now you play it.  Now let me show you the next move and now you play it.

 

It almost feels like having a piano student who has played for 8 years doing "C - D - E - F - G - F - E - D - C - CEG-Chord"

Yep, that's it exactly.  And then sometimes you'll run through the variations a bit too quickly and find yourself in review hell where the variations are starting to run together and you keep making the same error.  If the course gets too frustrating, you can always start over again, but then you're back to playing single notes and 1, 3, 5, chords.  Have fun...

 

It is not $40 for an hour.  You get all the written material.  Many chess books are 30 to 40 dollars in and of themselves.

I've been using Chessable for a few years now and have found it to be a very useful tool indeed but, like most tools, you get out what you put in. Also not all books are of the same quality or caliber so you have to find ones that best suit your needs and style.

For example, Christof Sielecki's Keep It Simple: 1. d4 is perfect for me because I like the opening principles and his videos are so clear and expansive that, for me, it is real value for the money. 

One of the areas where Chessable has also shone is in endgame learning. I have the 100 Endgames You Must Know and Mastering Pawn Endgames books and have vastly improved my endgame understanding and ability. Unlike openings, endgame motifs and ideas are more concrete and bite sized which I think works particularly well in the Chessable format.

[I'm guessing books on tactics would also be well suited but I find chess.com's puzzles are perfect for me and one of the main reasons I pay for membership here.]

The video usually adds a few more ideas, anecdotes, and reasons why they chose that move over others. They also chose a few alternatives to explain. 

I found that the few video courses that I foolishly purchased did not add hardly anything to the written material. For me, the videos work best when I am trapped somewhere and cannot do anything else, such as doing monotonous moderate cardio on an elliptical, stairclimber, recumbent bike, or treadmill, or stuck in a waiting room. But no, I didn’t find it was a new synergistic multimedia way of hammering home the material in a different way that stimulates more of my aging neurons and makes me go Eureka!, I understand this material... mostly just repeating the lines in the written part, though my sample size of Chessable videos is quite low. Now that GM Avetnik ... I do enjoy his videos more than any ridiculously overpriced videos I have purchased on Chessable.

It really depends on what course and author you buy.

I have only bought one course with a video (by Andras Toth, Chess Priciples Reloaded - Center). And the video contains lot of good information which are not in the text materiel.

Read reviews.

Definitely.