Hello fellow ICS students!

Only just discovered this site after 8 months of being on the course! The ICS team really should put a link of this forum on their site. Anyway though my names James and I've been playing chess for 2 years now, entirely online and mainly 5-10min blitz chess. 8 months ago I decided to make a commitment to real improvement hence why I signed up for the course. Atm I have no experience of otb chess however I'm intending to join my Universities chess club next year so hopefully will gain some practice and possibly an ECF grading.

Anyway though these are my impressions of the course so far:

The Main Module itself is wonderful imo and I have not found anything anywhere else that comes close in terms of the content covered and its progressive structure, over the last 8 months I have improved from a rating (in 5 min blitz chess on chess.com) of 1500 to 1800. I think what's holding me back from improving further now is opening knowledge which I have not had time to study yet. But I intend to work on this when I get some free time, I do have the openings module as well, however my Uncle who is an Intermational Master has recommended that I buy books for openings instead, however I will be taking a look at the openings module nonetheless.

The highlight of the course so far for me though has been the board visualisation which I worked incredibly hard on, and it's fun beating friends without looking at the board, albeit they're much weaker than myself.

Don't want to natter on too long, just wanted to say "Hi" and I hope you get as much improvement with your chess as I have with this course.

Live long and prosper,
LostTactic

Welcome aboard LostTactic. Sounds like you are about at the same point as BorgQueen, and one month ahead of me in the course.

Live long and prosper indeed :-)

Best of luck with your opening studies... they have been a constant source of frustration for me... I watched a video of an opening (French Defense) and while watching it, I could say that I agree and it makes sense, but when I get to the board, I can NEVER remember the lines I am supposed to take!! Grrrrrrrr!!!

Great to have you aboard! When I started this site they said they were thinking of starting an official forum (I am just a student of the site, not affiliated with it), so maybe they are still thinking they want to do that.

However, it might be good for us to think of a diplomatic way to humbly ask for a link to this forum from their site.

Maybe they should participate in this forum themselves. TBH, I think it's a bit slack that they don't. They promise in the sales system that there would be interaction from the masters...