Questionable Course Discount

As was posted in by other users already, ICS recently announced a course discount of 25 percent for Y2 and 50 percent for Y3 courses (but I believe you need to subscribe full year in Y3!) valid until June 15. I thought the offer was customary for students entering their 3rd month as I saw the advertisement when I opened my 3rd Month lesson last Monday.

The discount is questionable however. I think I have seen the regular monthly price of Y2 and Y3 at $24/month when I enrolled last April in their core course but now it says the $24 price tag (for Y2 at least) is already inclusive of discount.

Was the price really higher than $24 before this promotion? I might just be hallucinating

Yes it was definitely higher priced.

I can almost afford that, but before it was around $35 per month.

Umm. I wish the discount will be re-offered when i'm done paying y1.

I am seriously thinking of getting this 'Systems of Champions' course. However, it seems mostly like an 'openings course'. Part of me thinks I will be wasting my time (Do I play the all these openings...no, very few), but perhaps having a good overview of all of them will be beneficial. Probably so; but right now I feel like I need to concentrate on Aagaards new books. I guess, I can always go thru the ICS info later...I guess it is just a bunch of PDF's and some videos.

A bunch of 40 min videos...has anyone ever seen these? Are they any good? I ask because only 1 or 2 I saw in the first 3 months of the Grandmaster Course were of any benefit to me.

The "Systems of Champions" is refered to as a course on pawn structures and specifically states that it is NOT an openings course.

So... you will not see a severely culled repertoire collection such as the GM series, nor will you get a complete theory collection on the specific openings.

I think what distinguishes the ICS course from the books I have is that the course material annotations are written from instructional point of view whereas the books are annotated as positonal assessments. I do not have any of the Aagaards books to compare, they may be different.

The videos are great, but then I've liked all of the videos.

One of the drawbacks to opening books is they are almost out of date the day you purchase them. I think anyone who has completed the ICS core course can annotate their own games and build their own repertoire. The only issue is how to easily stay up on current opening trends. I used to suscribe to chesspublishing.com and am considering either resubscribing again or to the new in chess yearbooks for my opening study.

It may not be a course on 'openings; but it clearly lists all the openings an indepth study is made of so...in a sense it is...if only of the pawn structures of each.

I have subscribed to Chesspublishing.com several times over the years...I tend to skip 3 or 4 yrs simply because the openings I've played are not particularly theoretical and besides, when you subscribe, you get ALL the old content. I may try it again before long but that's where a lot of the Everyman (at least) opening material comes from and I have access to most all of them I care to...a perk of where I work.

Good suggestion on chesspublishing.com. I have the archives through late last year so delaying makes a lot of sense.

Interesting comment on Everyman. I picked up one of their chessbase compatible offerings "Mastering Opening Strategy", and really like reading in that format - integrated board, annotations, and analysis tools all in one place. But, I guess there's no reason to pick up the specific opening books if I have the annotated games from chesspublishing.