The Old Lessons are gone and so is my 10 year Diamond membership

Many of the old courses had much more material in them than the newer ones. And every educator knows that repetition is a key component in really mastering material. 

Chess Mentor was released in 1995 and had a fair amount of success. Unfortunately, the company that developed it went bankupt in 2000  and the rights to Chess Mentor were acquired along with the domain name Chess.com in a bankruptcy auction back in 2005.  (The total price for everything was $55,000!)  Many of the old lessons date from the 1990's.

You can actually follow the timeline of Chess.com on the Wayback Machine from the 1990's if you want.  The very earliest crawls are mostly empty. A good one is https://web.archive.org/web/20000611102405/http://www.chess.com/

The plan to eventually eliminate "some of the old lessons" was announced in January 2019 by Erik.

What is happening to the old lessons (aka "Chess Mentor")? 

Speaking of "old lessons," yes, that's what we decided to call them.  It was the easiest term. And all of our old lessons will continue to be available (from links on Chess.com Lessons, and at www.Chess.com/mentor). Eventually we will bring over the old lessons into our new "mastery" section, along with a lot more content. 

What is happening to videos? 

Our videos section will continue to be there. A lot of the content will come over to the mastery section of Chess.com Lessons, along with new challenges to accompany the videos. New content will also come to videos, but with less emphasis on learning, as that will happen primarily in Chess.com Lessons. 

Old lessons will exist as they do now until we can bring that content over to Chess.com Lessons. In many cases that will mean adding videos, or updating the content. Some old courses will eventually go away. 

I don't know how many of the old lessons were actually redone. That content is not available to me with only a Platinum membership.

I think the argument that the old lessons were available to all members, albeit at a reduced pace, is an okay one. At one per day, it would take ten years to get through all 3400.

So is the argument that some people prefer to read. I am one of them too but I think we are a dying breed.

I am annoyed that none of the advanced courses are available to Platinum members but I don't think that the lessons were more than 10% of the reason I subscribed. I mainly valued the absence of ads and the advanced stats and analysis. They have added Puzzle Rush in the last two years. That was a big plus. The advanced analysis is great.  The streamed broadcasts are enjoyable. 

I think that people here should calm down and try to engage with the management.

People's reasons for keeping a prime membership very from person to person. For me, the availability of thousands of great lessons was the main reason I maintained a diamond membership. Now that they are gone, I am downgrading to a free membership. And I have informed the management of the reason for my decision. This is a purely personal decision, and I'm not saying everyone should feel the same way I do. We all come here for different reasons. 

Any one else remember when Erik sold his chess book collection?  Eight, maybe 10 years ago?  I guess we should have known then that he wasn't a big fan of reading.  Pretty sure he simply doesn't understand that folks learn best in different ways.  It's my way or the highway and I'm getting ready to boogie.  Yes, when my fancy new blitz speed Square Off arrives this summer I'll probably have a few moments of regret, but Square Off says they're working on deals with other websites.  We'll see.  Still hoping for a change of heart from Erik so I'll stick around for a few more weeks and see what happens.

I'd be ecstatic if Erik has a little side deal with the Old Lessons.  I'd pay something reasonable for a standalone package and no hard feelings.  It just seems a shame to see them disappear.  I'd like to have another go at Silman's Roots of Positional Understanding even though I know in my heart that they are beyond my feeble intellect to comprehend.  I know reading is becoming a lost art, but the Chess Mentor lessons have to have some commercial value.  

Never!  This is chess.com!  please respect our ways. 

 Silman's Roots of Positional Understanding  is now inside mastery lessons. 

Good to know, Pako, thanks.  Apparently the migration continues.  Maybe in a month or so I'll have to take out a month of Diamond and see what's what.  Still not a fan of video though...

wow.

how about if staff engages with us? i know you've been in the frustrated topic. numerous issues presented by members that fall on deaf ears. 

my most recent example is two tickets i sent in and received no response. it is not calming when staff ignores members issues.

so, how are we supposed to engage?

Maybe start with dinner and the movies?

Ha! 

We paid for the Old Lessons. That's why.

Looks like Al took Larry's advice. What we need to know is now what happened after. 

Wow, excellent stuff! 

Dang

Thanks Ron.  I still don't think Erik is bringing back the link to the Old Lessons, though.  That he is migrating more over to the Mastery section of the New Lessons and allowing more access to non diamonds is of course good news.  Some of us still prefer reading to video though and really liked the old format.  Something is better than nothing though...

Thanks for your feedback eric but I wonder if you are understanding why so many of us are upset about losing the Old Lessons? The problem with the New Lessons is that most of us do not have the patience to sit through a video and go through challenges that are not challenging at all. The beauty of the Old Lessons was that the student did most of the work him/herself and got a rating. Adding Old Lessons to the New Lessons format would not work for us. We want the Chess Mentor lessons back the way they were.

Thank you,

Patszer

What Patszer said!

Agreed