chessmasterschool.com

And people compare one product to an other all the time to show people what makes them different or better just as u did when u compared human coaches to this program so don't be so sanctimonious with me thank you.

Yes trial lessons would be good and a 30day refund if your not happy with your purchase would also be great. If it's as good as this person promotes this suggestion could only get better results.

Found this though.

Free samples

Below you can access some samples of the theoretical lessons we teach in the first month of the course:

• Think like a strong player
• Making decisions in chess
• Chess Tactics - the first lesson

I will continue to look into ok.

 That's a LOL ... as you didn't get anything but just continue to lose your precious time.

So: I didn't want to make publicity. Then, it came S... and told his oppinion about the presentation of our course. He didn't see our course itself, but he offered from his time with great generosity in order to help. Gooood....

When I saw that comment, I thought it's just a bad intention from 1 guy. I thought beeing helpful to give the feedback of one of our clients who really followed the course. Because I gave that feedback I was accused about making publicity (even fake!?) and many others.

When will you stop or tell something to the point?

I will do it again...LOL!

Seriously, in Shiv's fist post, he brought up some good concerns and your reply was NOT to offer a rebuttal BUT to attack the person who made the criticizm.  And the only real defence to the concerns Shiv brought up was, "read our testimonials".  There are no empty attacks, just justifiable questions that have been dodged.

Case in point, Ian_Sinclair asked you a legitimate question, " In your opinion what makes your programed lesson different to chess.com's, chess mentor" and in your next post, you made NO attempt to answer.  You just brushed it aside and said you are not here to compare.

Ian,

In regards to their "Money Back Guarantee", since "cm" won't answer, I will.  If you pay for 12 months of the program and you don't make any progress you can ask for your money back.

BUT

The "money back guarantee" only covers the PREVIOUS month!!!!! LOL LOL.  So kiss those other 11 months goodbye. Below is from their webpage:

"If, for any reason, you are not satisfied with the quality of our materials, you can ask your money back without any explanation asked. We will just send your last payment back to your credit/debit card.

As you pay monthly as you go along with our program, you only need to ask your money back before our card payment processor charges you for the next month."

Thank you at last a straight answer! Shame the original poster couldn't be more to the point and answer the questions.

I would think you should know your improving after 3 mths,not 11mths, which would mean you only lost 2mths of money if not happy on it.

IF i wasn't seeing improvement by then i would have to say the advertisment was misleading.

Here is a forum for actual users of the program

http://icsdiscussion.forumotion.net/forum.htm

The forum is interesting thank you for posting it.

Brad you mentioned about the human coaches and saying what this is, is about right. So the cost is normal price for a weaker coach? or for the better ones?

I dont have much experience with human coaches, but i do have some with chess mentor on here so much easier for me to ask the comparision on that. Nothing in my questions had anything to do with attacking anyone. I have the right to ask these questions to someone who is promoting a system, because there are plenty out there who all claim great things. So what makes this one different or better?

 Judging by your rating, It would probably make more sense to try the features on this site first, and see how they work out. It seems to be geared toward higher rated players, like 2000 or so.

Hhhmmm ok thanks for sharing that Brad, i appeciate it. As for this course i think i need to improve further here before thinking on there. It seems to be directed to more solid level players then i believe i am at right now. Just based on the forum survey they had there.

I'm interested here, too........BorgQueen, did you decide to join?  If so what's your impression?

I am interesed in buying this pack of lessons, it is still working?

I tried to buy but it give me an error like this:

Our supplier cannot currently offer these products to you based on your current location of ( Romania ).

What should I do why Romania is not accepted?

So, after 3 months or so, what do you say about the program now BorgQueen? 

Is it true that you have access to all of the info the first month? I thought I read that on one of their pages. If so, I would get it for one month and go on a download frenzie. I could justify $40 once, but not 12 times.

I would consider a subsciption only if I could do a solid three months of putting actual study time in, that way I know I would be in the habit of studying. Materials, well made as they may be, will do no good without effort of the student. From what I saw of the samples and of actual student forum responses, the quality of the material seems to hold up to the promises.

I see that ICS has come under a bit of a hammering in this thread, and as a very satisfied customer I would like to say a couple things.

First of all, I believe the course is very instructive. I have enjoyed working through it and have showed substantial improvements since studying with them. When I started I did not have a chess grade. My first grade was 122 ECF. Last year it rose only to 124 but this was due to having to face much higher opposition for almost the entire year due to playing in a higher division at my local club and a higher board in the local chess leages, as well as moving from Minor to Intermediate's in local congresses.

So far this season I am set to rise to 140 ECF, which i think is a decent grade after just over two years of competitive play.

Back to the ICS course, their charges, conditions and level of interactivity with their students is all very good in my humble opinion.

If you sign up you can view the first month's materials and cancel before the second month's charge is due and get a full refund, so essentially there is a 30 day free trial. They also have sample lessons on the site to download.

If you get are unable to work to the 1 year pace you can postpone the course and halt payments until you are ready to start up again. Of course this will mean the locked months stay locked until you resume but it's a good way to make sure you can keep up with the course and stop paying if you don't have time to devote to it. I took advantage of this myself last year and halted for a few months then resumed.

I have also found the staff very helpful. In the opening reportoire they provide I had some questions relating to move orders not covered in the reportoire and they immediately emailed me back with some advice on what to play should they occur.

They are also responsive to customer feedback and in Year two due to requests have started to include videos each month to supplement the material.

The best recommendation I can give them is that having paid for the first year in it's entirety I immediately signed up to Year 2 as soon as they offered it even though I haven't finished with the first year yet. 

For a beginner player like me the goal of completing the course in 1 year is ambitious, it will more likely take me three, but I am very happy with this.

I think it's a great course and can recommend it, albiet with a couple of caveats.

Firstly, the teachers are Romanian based and therefore English is not their first language. The material although perfectly comprehensible to me lacks the polish of say a John Watson or Mihail Marin book. However I would say I have learnt even more from ICS than their works, great though I think they both are.

Secondly, a lot of the ICS material is hard, especially the set tests and questions. There is a lot of analysis involved and progress will be proportional to the amount of work you put in.

In short if you have a lot of time and can dedicate yourself to several hours of chess study a week then the course is well worth considering and is enjoyable also.

If you are someone who likes to buy books and put them on the shelf rather than actually get out the board and pore over them then this would not be for you.

I do feel that the level of criticism against them on this thread has been very harsh however, considering none of you have even looked at the course.

I certainly don't feel like I was sold snake oil!

Thanks, KJ and BQ.