Any reviews of the 'International Chess School'?

I just joined the web site 'International Chess School.' Has anyone tried it, and wish to share a review or their experience? So far my attitude is the material is good, though could use some serious editing as it is rough around the edges.

About eight of us are now working through all the modules and discussing it at a forum that you can find here.

No, I haven't tried it

Hey BDK! Nice to see you over here.  

I was about to warn you not to sign up for their special class before I noticed your user-id. Sir Nemo only gained 33 points during his year there, but he had many other things on his plate so I'm not sure he committed to the program as much as I suspect you would.

I considered them before but had concerns. How does the basic course improve on a set of books, which costs less? How does the special class improve upon four hours of one-on-one instruction, which costs the same? I will be eager to hear more about your experience. I will also point out the Chess Mentor courses here.

Likes: those are good questions (though I'm not concerned about Nemo's work on that. He mentioned it once at his blog and then never again).

It's about the cost of a book a month. I'm doing it instead of using books because
1)It is balanced, and includes things I would have to find in many different books but don't want to take the effort to do that.

2) It is structured in a logical way, taking me from point A to point B using a single framework that I find appealing so far. A quilt of books won't do that, and I don't necessarily trust myself to do that (though Lev Albert's course may be an exception to this!).

3) I like that it first builds a common vocabulary for strategy, and then in the final months blasts you with calculation training, Rowsonalysis!

4) For some reason I find this much more motivating than a book. Not sure why, but there it is. Probably the cost.

5) Something about learning from a course put together by a bunch of crazy Romanians is cool.

We'll see what happens.

The key is to make a sane plan and stick with it. That is a guaranteed way to improve at chess.

I have to say, though, that I was horrified that in their first tactical worksheet they discuss memorizing the board and square colors. I've always maintained that good board visualization comes with chess skills, not vice-versa. However, I'm putting my trust in them for the next year so I'll do whatever they say. Within reason.

So far the material is great, better than what I've gotten in books.

Note I'm not affiliated with the school in any way. Indeed, they seemed a bit underwhelmed by my efforts to start a forum.

I think the cost for the main module is $24 per month which is similar to buying a new book.

ttt

Hey BlueDevilKnight, I'm on your forum as Bilbo (wouldn't let me use that name here).

For those interested I can recommend the material as being of very high quality in terms of improving chess understanding, and I believe to be great value.

However I'm not sure it will be for everyone. I imagine some might scoff at the stilted broken English, the fact that the information comes via pdf and needs to be printed out etc.

But look beyond that and I think its a stunning program. I've just started playing online again after a few months absence and in my last 10 games I have won 9 and drawn 1.

I'm also undefeated in offline tournament play since studying month 1 although I should stress I am only a beginning player currently unrated with about 9 months playing experience and typically am only playing opponents rated between 60 and 100 ECF.

But I'm playing to 100 ECF level now and feel that in the last month my chess understanding has doubled as I'm now being taught how to think at the board. It's hard to explain but previously I would kind of just stare at the board until a move popped into my head and then play it, but now I'm analysing the position and paying attention to the qualitive value of my pieces, my king safety, central control etc which I just had no real understanding of before even though I had read the first three of Yasser Sarawein's Winning Chess series and knew the concepts.

I think those books really helped me understand the basic concepts of chess strategy and this new course is showing me via proper instruction of how to think at the board, how to practically apply what I have learnt.

I've literally had several Eureaka! type moments when things just start to fall into place.

It's definitely not a one year course though imo, unless you can devote yourself to it fulltime.

I think two years for main module is a more realistic time limit if you are a busy person and really want to absorb the material.

Does it have a free membership or do we need to pay something?

Hey nightmare, no its a study course that lasts 13 months and you pay a monthly fee.

The material is excellent and goes into more depth than books but it is only worth signing up if you are willing or have the time to seriously study it.

I think if you were willing to spend at least 6 hours, and ideally say 10 hours a week studying the material over the next 1 to 2 years you would grow tremendously as a player and have superb middlegame and positional understanding.

Without that level of commitment though its not worth signing up as you'd just be throwing away your money.

They do have some sample lectures from the first month on their website so you can see if you like their style and if they could help you.

They do also offer a full refund on any month if you cancel so you could sign up for the first month and then cancel and get a refund if you cancelled before a month was up.

I'm not really sure I'd recommend their opening course though, its a bit haphazrd the way they have structured it although I havn't really tried to get into yet as there is so more work just dealing with the main module.

Is there any updated info on the International Chess School?  I've been looking at this program and would be interested if anyone has any new information.  BlueDevilKnight has not posted since April 09 and would like to hear what his thoughts are now that he has used the program for 6 months.

Thanks

Same here - I was considering their course, and I would love to hear some feedback from people who have been using it for a while!

Bluedevilknight, how is it going?  Do you find the training program useful?

Don't hold your breath on a response, you just asked a question to a member who hasn't logged in for 14 months.

I have enrolled in this course too, it has only been a month for me. I have found this a good material, though it is a bit vast and elaborative.

I am thirteen years old an I joined the ICS a little more than a month ago. Here is my take on it so far. The first month module was mostly an introduction stage. They give you some important general theory, and tell you "how to think", and then as the course continues, they teach you how to think this way. One of their main goals is to increase your positional understanding and thought process during the game. So basically in month one, they kind of show you a little bit of everything, and then in the rest of the course, they teach it to you. This is not the only thing they do but it's a big sum of it. The information is very good but very vast, so I can tell already it will probably take me more than a month for each monthly course, but this is no problem since you can do it at your own pace. I am also doing the openings module, which I have found to be very good as well, since not only does it give you variations, and a lot of them, it also emphasizes the ideas in the opening, and how to play it. I recently did a comment on the Dutch Defense: Raphael Variation which is how they recommend the Dutch Defense to be handled. It is not their complete work on it, just a small bit, but it is a good example so take a look. All in all I think the ICS is great and will really improve my performance, rating (which on chesscube.com tends to waver in the high 1600's as of knowing how to play for about 2 months), and understanding of the game. If you really want to get a good look at it, but your not to sure about committing, you can always join and stay for the first month or so and if you don't like it, you can simply cancel the membership. I don't know to much about the chess.com course "chess mentor", but I have a feeling that when I finish the ICS, doing "chess mentor" as another course would help me again even more, since two strong chess schools are better than one.

By the way, if anyone reading this does join, you may find it hard to memorize just exactly what they teach you. I found a good solution that at least works for me. I bring up the lesson and also open up a Microsoft Word document. I read through the whole lesson once, and then go back to the beginning. From there, I essentially just take the key information in the lesson and summarize it on the document in my own words and in theirs. So it becomes the same thing but with less to read and you can understand it better because you wrote it. I had all the theory lessons from month one memorized with ease by doing this, so it may work for you as well. 

Ben, thanks for sharing.

Only thing I can say is that, for being just 13, you are extremely mature - congratulations! I am positive you will see huge benefits soon enough!

With kind regards,

Andrea

AndreaCoda, 13 is a good enough age for chess. In our country a 12 year old boy is the state open FIDE champion. He beat persons of all categories including people of 55 years age.

Of course it is a good enough age for chess.

I just said (as a compliment), that from the way he is writing, he seems to be a very mature person.