Month two discussion

Month two. Discuss.

In case anybody is going through month 2, I'm curious on how they are keeping up with the material and general thoughts.

fanat wrote:In case anybody is going through month 2, I'm curious on how they are keeping up with the material and general thoughts.

Sorry I'm about a month behind you unfortunately

I'm curious about whether it is a similar organization. That is, theory, annotated games, and exercises?

The material is organized in a similar fashion. Second month's theme is king safety. There is a lot of great material and 8 annotated games on attacking the king. This is all like a crash course in "Art of Attack" by Vuckovich!

Also, there are games that illustrate different centers that I haven't digested yet.

You say you are a month behind. My question is, did you actually start later or fall behind a bit?

The reason I'm asking is that initially, I thought the amount of material for one month was nothing but then I realized that it's actually a lot.

fanat wrote:You say you are a month behind. My question is, did you actually start later or fall behind a bit?

I just signed up last Friday. So far I'm on schedule with my reading and stuff, but have fallen behind a bit with playing slow games.

I'm still working on the first month but I had a look at month 2. Man this looks daunting, there's hundreds of games to look over in the center pawn study!!!

I'm expecting to take two months maybe more on this second month alone.

I'm not going to try and rush to get through in a month, I really believe that properly digested Month 2 probably contains enough chess knowledge potential to boost me up a couple hundred elo ratings at least!

I don't really know anything about central pawn structures at present yet they are a pivotal part of every game. Along with the king safety section I think this could turn me into a much stronger player.

Just need to finish Month 1 and I can start!

Bilbo wrote:I'm still working on the first month but I had a look at month 2. Man this looks daunting, there's hundreds of games to look over in the center pawn study!!!

I'm expecting to take two months maybe more on this second month alone.

I'm not going to try and rush to get through in a month, I really believe that properly digested Month 2 probably contains enough chess knowledge potential to boost me up a couple hundred elo ratings at least!

I don't really know anything about central pawn structures at present yet they are a pivotal part of every game. Along with the king safety section I think this could turn me into a much stronger player.

Just need to finish Month 1 and I can start!

I think the games for the types of centers or "central pawn structures" as you called it are meant to be studies fast. I mean you can go over all of them fast and get like common themes. Still, it's too much work. Month 2 is almost over for me and I haven't gotten to all of them.

I thought Month 2 was a lot of fun. The visualization exercises were very satisfying, starting simple but then pushing limits by the end. I don't think I'll be able to keep up every month though. As you probably noticed, there are plenty of supplementary materials out there. Some people already mentioned Vukovic. I've been looking at Nigel Davies Power Chess program which meshes pretty well with this course. And I'm sure there's countless others.

Part of this course's appeal was that it set out a schedule. But as you can see, that quickly becomes overwhelmed, it seems. Not much you can do, except speed it up!!

I wouldnt worry about the schedule, just make it a two year course!

I'm really pleased with the amount of content they provide, at least in the main module. I really feel that by the end I will be a damn good player if I keep this up

Has anyone worked through the month two annotated games?
I just finished game 6. What a great lesson on the use of rooks. Who came up with 18.Ra3!! I know I missed it. I was looking at Bxe4.

Game 7 had a great finish with a queen sac this was from a 10 year old! I can only dream.

For me, month 2 was a mixed bag - some good stuff and some disappointing material.

The king safety material was pretty good, but most of the information I already knew.

The board visualization was my favorite part as I have always had a problem with this during my games.

I have to say though, I was very disappointed with the "Center" material. All we get is a bunch of non-annotated games to look through. For the cost of the program, I expected more than this.

mrhollywood95 wrote:
I have to say though, I was very disappointed with the "Center" material. All we get is a bunch of non-annotated games to look through. For the cost of the program, I expected more than this.

I was kind of taken back by the light annotations with the games as well. In retrospect, I think I got more out of working through the games on my own with the course notes and with the help of the computer than from a lot of the books out there. I think the intent was to get us comfortable working through unannotated games on our own.

Too many of the books on the market seem to be written by authors that just want to "hear" themselves talk.

Also, I am seeing quite a bit of reinforcement of the principles in month two show up in later lessons - I'm currently working my way though month six.

I don't really see why notes were needed though. The purpose wasn't for you to study every game but merely to see how the central clarifications get played out. They provided an introduction to each central type and the strategies employed for each side, and then provided a database of games for each type so you could see the ideas in action.

It's just to get a feel for handling the centre, it's not intended to be an annotated games section.

PawnCustodian wrote:

mrhollywood95 wrote:
I have to say though, I was very disappointed with the "Center" material. All we get is a bunch of non-annotated games to look through. For the cost of the program, I expected more than this.

Also, I am seeing quite a bit of reinforcement of the principles in month two show up in later lessons - I'm currently working my way though month six.

Good to know. Are you seeing any serious improvement in your game yet?

Bilbo wrote:I don't really see why notes were needed though. The purpose wasn't for you to study every game but merely to see how the central clarifications get played out. They provided an introduction to each central type and the strategies employed for each side, and then provided a database of games for each type so you could see the ideas in action.

It's just to get a feel for handling the centre, it's not intended to be an annotated games section.

I understand what you are saying. But I would have really liked to see at least more instruction about each type of center. Or even better, some notes during the given games when the winning manuever takes place. Like I wrote above, I was expecting more.

That being said - I am still pretty satisfied overall with the program so far. Just got month 3 material today and it looks like some very good stuff.

mrhollywood95 wrote:
Good to know. Are you seeing any serious improvement in your game yet?

Some. I'm still getting back into chess. I seem to have cured my time problems which crushed me in my initial comeback in August last year, and have made steady improvement since. The center material from month two actually contributed greatly to my wins in the final two games of my last tournament in early December. As of this month I finally have the complete ICS repertoire and that seems to be helping as well.

Hopefully I'll be taking down you 1900 players in the next couple of months...

Thanks for the update PC, keep us posted. I just lost my final game and it cost me the tournament last week..on time, with a winning position. (It was G60, small tourney only 9 players 4 rounds) I think that as I assimilate more of the thinking process and get quicker/more proficient with it I will make improvements.

Such a shame... losing on time with a winning position... but it sounds like you did well, so that's a good thing :-)