Has everyone quit?

As a potential ICSer, would be interested to know if everyone has given up training due to the program itself, or if this forum died for other reasons.

I'm on Month 2, Sir. Not sure how many we are currently.

One of the big problems with this forum is after a while, it fails to notify me when there are new posts. I suspect it is the same for others.

The program seems fine to me, but this forum is lacking a bit of maintenance.

Hi BorgQueen,
Thanks for visiting this forum. I think you are the only remaining pioneers here.

I wont give up on this forum, but it is definitely lacking activity these days... bit of a shame really.

Hello...I just joined this forum. This forum is an wonderful idea and we should keep going. I would like to see contributors like BorgQueen, BDK, Chess Tiger and others more often.

Hi Weakplayer, are you currently taking in ICS course? How was it?

I would also like to see this forum thriving :-)

Yes, I have joined ICS two months ago and currently on month 2 doing kings's safety exercises. I am loving the course. Did anybody request them to add an end game course?

Probably, but it's not something I'd pay for. There's plenty of resources to learn endgames from, without having to pay significant amounts of money.

If this forum was more active you could create a topic and ask what everyone has used to learn endgames and what they think of that resource... could be a nice list.

I have a couple of books atm, but haven't managed to get onto them yet, I keep letting little things get in the way :-/

Well said...

Silman's "Complete Endgame Manual" is a great place to start imo. I've read about half of it and keep re-starting it! lol

Glad you mention Silman's Course. What I have as supplementary readings are 2 Silman's as well: How to reassess 4th ed and Amateur's Mind. They are fantastic redundancies for the main course. Will insert endgame knowledge once my mid game thinking solidifies.

Thanks a bunch for the info. I will keep a note of it. Once I cover the middle game course from ICS I have to get to this end game thing.

I have Silman's HTRYC 4th edition as well,... another one I am about half way through. Typical me.

You're a voracious reader compared to me. Me, I think, is just a book hoarder. My HTRYC is still in the package. I promised to open it up once I'm done with Amateur's Mind. Have lots of books too that I promised to read once I'm ready, then ICS came.

I think many chess players are like this... they have many chess books... all gathering dust on a shelf somewhere!

ICS is different somehow, but I don't know how!

I would have to agree. ICS somehow engages me more.

I don't come here very often because I thought everyone had left.

Has anybody considered starting a new ICS forum? I'd certainly join and take part.

hi, david!
so are u done with the course or currently on it as well?

Hi ernestosim01.

I am just finishing month 2. In fact I have spent a lot longer on this lesson than a month. I went through all the games about the centre on a real board but didn't feel I learned very much so I am doing it again on a computer this time. I really didn't want to use a computer because ICS advise not to but I have learned more this time around. I have almost finished now and will be able to start month 3 in a day or two.

How about you?

I am on month 2 as well so that makes all 3 of us at the same level in terms of the curriculum. I am doing the King's safety exercises and some mistakes in the diagram are driving me nuts! One problem shows a different position than the browser version of it!! Good Lord! I figured the right continuation but could not proceed because it does not work with the pdf version! Anyway, I will get onto the center structures soon. Is it OK if we all share our knowledge about King's Safety? I mean what we have learnt from the theory, annotated games and exercises.

Good idea WeakPlayer. But actually, I'm just starting off a few page on the introductory games of Month 2. I just feel I need to go back to Month 1. I think it's the ghosts of unanswered exercises that's haunting me now. Did you guys completed the exercises on Month 1?

Ernestosim01 - I completed the exercises on month 1. For some of them I was correct and for some I was way off! Here is my take on the course and this has nothing to do with the way you are studying so please don't misunderstand me!

1. Some of the exercises in month 1 asked to find the consequence of a move and write down all the variations. If I could do that from a game played by two grandmasters I would not have registered myself to this course and would rather fancied upon my chances at candidates! That doesn't mean I won't try to solve a problem, I will try but not kill myself. I simply don't have the positional understanding to come up with all acceptable moves.
2. I would like to read the theory very very well and retain the information gathered but don't want to spend too much time on any particular month. This can lead to boredom and I may lose focus and motivation. I am always prepared to go back and check a thing or two.
4. Kings's Safety exercises - I did a decent job so far but I don't think I have enough board visualization to find a 10 moves combination! That's not going to happen in month 2. What I understood is I need to remember the pattern and assess king's safety. As for example if white has a pawn on e5, knight can go to g5, bishop can hit f7, queen can go h5 with in between threats at same time black does not have knight at f6 and it's dark bishop is absent from protecting g5, it's a pattern and I should consider a sacrifice at f7. Of course I should check the sanity of the moves. In one occasion they said nobody can calculate all possible moves but grandmasters go by their intuition and positional evaluation and pattern recognition.

I hope I did not offend anybody. If you have any suggestions for me so that I can improve pls feel free to pass on.

@ernestosim01
I did the exercises, yes.

@Weakplayer
I had forgotten but yes there are mistakes. If I remember correctly one of the solutions even had a knight or something starting in a different place to the question. I like your idea about sharing knowledge but I'm not hanging around here any longer. As the admin does has not been here for some time we can't deal with spam, have private messages or change anything. If anyone sets up something else I'll join in. If others would join but don't want to set it up I don't mind looking into it.