ICS New Course Plans: Two more years of material added

chesstiger, you may be right. Annotated games are definitely a good thing and by the sound of it the annotated games sound well written an quite complete. I'd still prefer a structured endgame study though!

One thing is for sure, I won't be signing up for the next year of content until I know it is complete!

Bilbo wrote:

Here's a sample from Game 8, which ends with a bishop of opposition colour endgame.



I want to draw your attention to some important rules connected with the opposite color
bishops endgames.
When you defend this kind of endgame where there are pawns on one flank and the
strong side has a passed pawn on the other flank, in order to defend accurately use the
following rules to guide your action.
1. The passed pawn has to be guarded with the king.
2. The other pawns have to be placed on the same color with your bishop, in a
chain, with a base that can be easily defended.
3. The bishop has to attack the strong side pawn’s base (not allowing the
formation of a passed pawn).
4. The strong side has to arrange his pawns on the same color with his enemy
bishop in order to restrict his activity.
With all of this in mind, let’s see how we can defend this endgame, and where the danger
lies.

This approach is unique from anything that I've seen in any other chess publication. It is an outstanding example of what is called "Schematic Thinking" or in more general terms inductive reasoning; and represents the next step once analysis is mastered. Virtually all of the books out there are deductive analyitical exercises more concerned with move analysis and only occasionally do you see comment such as "in this sort of a position you must....". I can great value in this type of instruction.

I also like the idea of getting more exposure to the openings and in the context of whole game analysis. The repertoire at this stage for me (month 2) is broad, but not deep, clearly designed to avoid trouble with deeply analyzed lines that eventually must be mastered.

Of course all this is a long way off for me at month two - I still have about 85 games to work through this month......

The second year is here!! It's taken me 1.5yrs NOT to finish the first year!

Years 2 and 3

In this 2 year program of our Chess School, we will study ALL strong systems, like for example Sicilians, Spanish, Caro-Kann, Nimzo-Indian, King's Indian, Slavs, Grunfeld, and so on.
From every reliable opening, you have a great deal to learn. We study not the opening theory but the main ideas and structures of these openings with their typical developments, middlegame plans and complex endgames. Almost the entire theory of chess gravities around the pawn structures, characteristic to opening systems. Together we will go through static, solid, dynamic, intricate, double edged structures and typical plans of play.

The wealth of ideas you will learn from all these systems will be combined with the study of World Chess Champions.
Every month we analyze 12 highly instructive games structured after the opening systems and played by the greatest players of all times, Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov and also others.
From the great players of the past, you will learn clear and brilliant ideas while more recent champions will demonstrate their supremacy in complicate struggles against other modern grandmasters.
The selection of the games is also very important so to be instructive in all stages of the game, including/especially the endgame.

Studying the strong systems AND the world champions, your benefit is double.

But the essence of a good training stands in quality. Our annotations are clear, concrete and constructive. We endeavor to give explanations that you can really use and improve your game.
In many moments of the games, we stop in order to offer a complete analysis of the position/situation and explaining how to really find the solution, how to think and how to take decisions in practical games. Beside the complete analysis of the game, we also show and explain different other moves/ideas that might be strategic unsound but are common mistakes for 'mortal' players.

Hoping that you enjoyed the first year of our course, we want to assure you that we keep up the good work. In the same time, we offer this product to you with a DISCOUNT of 30%
Instead of paying our 'normal' price of 39USD, you can subscribe now for only 27USD, the price for 'old' clients.

@ Bilbo

I find them great since they are very well annotated so that a patzer like me can follow it and can see some sort of plan (train of thought) a player is following which is, in my eyes, a hugh achievment.

Yes, Nf3 instead of Nc3 would give another game but same is also true for any other move if you changed it by another move. It would be always another game. But i guess that is where that to do list and consequences comes into play that you have learned in year one, month one.

@chesstiger

I'm looking forward to studying them. The reason I mention 3.Nc3 is they say they are studying the Nimzo for two months. Well obviously anything other than 3.Nc3 is not the Nimzo

So I just have no idea what they doing next month, whether it's going to be tests, questions etc on the Nimzo, or whether we will get 12 annotated games in the QID and Bogo.

I do hope they put a syllabus up soon, I like to see what is coming up.

I doubt you will ever see a silly bus.

With the immediate 3.Nc3 they should still be able to catch transpositions into the Nimzo in their games selections and avoid discussion about the Bogo or Queen's Indian for the time being.

Just got Month 2 today. It's Queen's Indian and Bogo Indian games. This is fairly pleasing to me as I play these lines as White, or rather allow them. I always play 3.Nf3 to avoid the Nimzo and so this section will be more immediately useful to me.

They sais they are spending two months on the Najdorf next, so I imagine, by that they will likely mean one month on Najdorf, and another on other Sicillian lines.

I'm perfectly happy with that.

This means that we should get to see more openings, and hopefully things like the Scotch, Italian, Petroff etc.

Any comments on the videos would be appreciated.

They seem ok. I've subscribed to the course but so far haven't started studying it. I'm still working through course one.

The videos are carried out by Fide Master Nad Petra who I believe also writes a lot of the ICS material, certainly some of his games are used as examples.

The video layout looks similar to chesslecture.com or Foxy openings, a brown and white 2D chess board. The resolution is poor and the video quite grainy like many old VHS chess videos, but that probably keeps the file size down and I hardly need my chess viewing to be in high definition.

I quite like Nad's style. He has that kind of comedy English that you would expect, similar sounding to guys like Valery Lilov and Rustam Kasimdzhanov.
His delivery is a little broken at times, a few pauses etc but he's certainly easy to understand. Basically he sounds exactly like how you would expect an ICS writer to sound, with an articulate but slightly stilted use of English.

The videos generally seem to be roughly 20 mins / 30 mins in length.

I guess in conclusion I would say they are very much like the chess course itself. The delivery and presentation is not perfect, but the level of instruction is there and I think when you come to work through them you will enjoy them.

From what I've seen of them they cover different games from the 12 given each month in the main module, and will probably best be viewed after studying the module annotated games in order to reinforce what you have learned and see how the ideas are applied in different games.

Overall a nice addition to the main module material.

Thank you for the description!

Any updates on the subsequent year?

Videos definitely extremely dry that I have seen so far....have only watched a few minutes of first two though, so don't take that as a final verdict!

In case anyone wants an update I'm halfway through paying for this so can tell you the first 6 openings studied.

I've not actually started working through the material yet though so can't tell you if it's any good!

But the first 6 months are as follows:

1) Nimzo Indian Defence
2) Queen's Indian/Bogo
3) Najdorf Sicilian
4) Queen's Gambit Declined
5) Spanish Opening
6) Gruenfeld Opening.

I would imagine that the Slav, French, Kings Indian, Caro Kann would all be certainties to follow. The remaining two imo would probably be alternative sicilian setups to the Najdorf and the open game alternatives to the Lopez.

All this is a guess on my part though, but I'd imagine those would be the main systems to include.

That would mean no Benoni/Benko, Queens Gambit Accepted, Tarrasch, English Opening and countless other openings so possibly this setup continues into Year 3 as well?

Maybe 4 will be endgames?

I don't have enough years left in my life to study all the different openings.

You could study openings for 10 years and still barely scratch the surface of the possibilities you might encounter. 10 years of study and you still might get hit with 1.g4 and you're left still scratchin' your head!

The thing that disturbs me is that this ICS course claimed to be "complete" and if it goes into more years of study, then it is obviously far from complete. When will it end?

Hmm, I thought this was suppose to be a 1 year course? It seems that they might keep adding new years as long as people keep paying for it. Does anyone know if they offer discounts for the 2nd year? I don't mind if new years do keep coming out but it would be nice if they created another one of those content pdf's, so we know what will be covered in years 2, 3 and whatever.

Yes they do LostTactic. The first year with opening module is $39, the second year is $27.

For the $27 you get 12 games analysed in pdf and a further 8 games analysed in video format.

The second year still feels very much unfinished, normally each month you only get half an update, say 6 games, then the other 6 appear a couple weeks later, and the videos a week after that, they are literally writing the course as we speak.

There are also no chessbase files or internet viewing options for the second year yet.

I guess they are (correctly) banking on the fact that nobody has worked through year 1 yet and so isn't bothered by the fact that year 2 is still a work in progress

It's dismissive to think of the second year as an openings course though. Each month you get 20 complete games grouped around a particular opening complex. Each game focuses on middle game and endgame themes so you are in effect learning a lot about pawn structures, typical piece placement plans and endgames associate with various opening systems. The games are nearly always played by world champions as well, and are listed in date order so you get not only a historical overview of each opening's development, but also become acquainted with studying master games from the great champions, which is one of the best (and most fun) ways to improve.

I think for openings that you play it will prove invaluable.

It's probably useful even to study openings that you don't play, to understand different pawn structures and ideas rather than opening moves. Very often my games transpose into something completely different from what it started as and so a well rounded chess education will have universal benefits.

Thanks for the update Bilbo. One thing I find extremely helpful is that they use the same verbiage when explaining these ideas so that I can relate it to my studies of the course work. Its good to hear that they continue to do so...plus they seem to keep improving things as I come along since I am a year or so behind you guys.

That's actually illegal in Australia. You are not allowed to sell something that is not finished. You have to finish it first and sell it after.

LOL

hi, i'm another student, and im currently coursing the first year, i'm at the 6th month and i heard about a 2nd and thisrd year, and since i liked this one alot, i would like to know where can i find the 2nd and third?
thank you

I think it populates in your account as you get to it, like the first year does from month to month.

Chesskang is right. So far I think they have four months done in year two...

So if you don't cancel, you get year 2 automatically??

@BDK, I've got 6 months in year two so far. I joined the day I got offered it so guessing that is as far as they have got with it yet.