Naturally it sounds great that a course is by someone with a GM title - but does it really mean it is useful? I don't think so. I have seen many excellent and valued scientists whose teaching skills were poor, sometimes even abysmal. And many who were not nearly as great in the science itself but their ability to pick the key principles and explain them to students made them great teachers anyway.
If you are already a GM and want to move further on or an IM who wants to reach the GM title, you probably would want a GM to coach you (but then you would IMHO seek rather individual training sessions than a course). But for someone at, say, 1300-1600 FIDE ELO level, I doubt the added value of course author having a GM title does really make a lot of difference.
it depends on your motivation and your financial means
Thanks so much guys, this is a really supportive community. I will consider buying a chess book and read it, as well as being patient as I play for a longer period of time.
@sebatorres_08 said in #13:
> Thanks so much guys, this is a really supportive community. I will consider buying a chess book and read it, as well as being patient as I play for a longer period of time.
Nice! Good Luck !
Check out the various youtubers- specifically their 'speed runs'
find a bunch of their vids in your elo range- and up to 500 elo more. Then watch those vids.
Daniel Naroditsky and Eric Rosen have just done a bunch of these runs- and both do a good job of explaining why they, and their opponents, make those moves at those levels.
Best thing -is it's free.
Also- both are polite, reasonable players, and to me, that goes a long way.
Grandmaster courses only have one purpose and that is to make money for the one releasing the courses they are a waste of money you do not need them to get better at chess just look at the engine after the game and see what you did right or wrong and try to understand. I would not use GM courses and I will not use them all the information they have in those courses you can find them online if you look hard enough everyone can reach a rating like mine if they put in the time and effort. It is like teachers in the classroom in my opinion they are WAY overpaid there is nothing I learnt in the class room I could not of googled up and found myself.
there are lots of free lessons on youtube, lots of books that are affordable. but I think the most important thing to learn is how to learn.
there's an old adage about a lumberjack running late for work, so to save time he skips sharpening his axe. then he spends hours swinging away at a tree and getting nowhere, now he's really behind and doesn't want to stop swinging away, trying to catch up. if he just stopped to sharpen his axe, he would make better progress.
also, practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent. learn the right things and the right way to practice.
if you're not having fun studying chess, just play for fun and forget about your rating. or maybe limit your study to a small amount of time and mainly play for fun. spend your energy on getting good marks, that's going to be more helpful in the long run than a 2000 point chess rating.
I started winning blitz arenas after Avetik's course Tactic Ninja.
Might I have done it anyway? Maybe but having him break everything down into a series of short videos that were concise and easily understandable sure helped.
I'm tired and tilted right now but I got a few of those virtual gold trophies shortly after I finished up the 'Annihilation' section.
The problem with courses in chess is the same as courses in school: you get nothing from listening to someone talk. You may think you understand but 15 minutes later it is gone from short term memory.
To learn you have to involve yourself intensely [i.e. suffer according to the Greeks].
One way is to include daily games with blitz and listen to some youtube explanations of the opening and sample games you are playing in one. Then do your own analysis based on it. After the game it is time to study middlegames and endings related to what you played. (I find studying endgame types after misplaying one very useful.)
At some point you'll decide what defenses and opening systems you'll be playing all the time. After that a GM course on it can help. ( But I find it impossible to follow a GM going through his/her opening analysis and find the included chessbase files undecipherable by humans. I like & retain much better GM courses explaining the ideas of an opening.)
just my opinion- Bill
