Happy New Year!!!

These days are the time to give PRESENTS. So I’ve prepared something nice for you! My presents will certainly relate to chess, but you are free to ask Santa for all other things you want to get next year  
Before we begin, let me remind you that it’s the last chance to get my complete courses with 20% DISCOUNT. 31 December is the LAST day when you still can use the discount coupon: HOLIDAY

<< Get Your Course on a Special Price NOW >>

Give a New Year present to yourself or to your kids!
Notes:

• This 20% discount is applicable for the new “Bonus Pack” as well: LINK
• You can find the instructions on proper usage of a discount coupon here: LINK

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And here comes another present for you!

10 Golden Rules for a Chess Player

There are thousands of different rules related to chess. However, it’s hard to keep them all in mind and to follow them in practice. 
That said, I’ve selected 10 Most Important Rules that will support your effective training and successful play. You can download them here:

Now I will explain “10 Golden Rules”, so that you can understand them thoroughly.

Best 3-rules for PLAYING:

1.     Attack 
If you can make an attacking move – do it. In most cases it’s the best decision. In order to find attacking moves, you should look at your opponent’s half of the board and ask yourself, “How can I move onto my opponent’s territory and attack something there”?

White’s turn

For instance, in this complex position White virtually has only one attacking move on Black’s territory: f4-f5. This move should be played. This way of thinking is simple and effective.

2.     Before playing a move, make an anti-blunder check.

On the level of beginner/intermediate players, and in blitz games,a blunder is the most common cause of a loss. If you can avoid oversights, this can improve your performance dramatically. Here’s how to do that.

When you have already decided which move you are going to play, before making this move on the board, ask yourself:“Which attacking moves can my opponent play on my territory”?

Black’s turn

Let’s say you are playing Black and have decided to play 10…a6 now (to prevent White’s Ndb5 threat).

BEFORE playing this move on the board, you should make “an anti-blunder check”. Ask yourself:“which attacking moves can White play on my territory”? Then you will find White’s powerful reply 11.e5 which attacks Black’s f6-knight and, in addition to that, makes a discovered attack on Black’s b7-bishop.

According to my database, a lot of players fall into this trap. It is so easy to prevent it, if only they would spend a few seconds on “an anti-blunder check”.
3.     Know Your Plan

A plan gives you the right FOCUS. There’s no need for you to think about all moves; you only look for those that support a realization of your plan. That’s how you can find proper moves quickly.

There is good news here for you. Good plans you already know 

Basically there’s only one opening plan. Endgame is “much harder”. There are two plans there. Middlegame stage is vaguer, but nevertheless lots of typical plans are already known. I can’t provide them all here, but I’ve already done so in the courses “The Grandmaster’s Secrets” (LINK) and “Your Winning Plan” (LINK).

 Best 3 rules for TRAINING:

1.     Improve your system of thinking.

Most players study various chess tutorials. This accumulates a vast amount of different information. It’s hard to apply it in a practical game. In reality, it leads to the situation when sometimes you play well, and sometimes not. That’s the wrong way. You can’t achieve any successes with unstable results.

You need to develop your algorithm of thinking. The one you can apply ALL THE TIME. Then you’ll get stable, good results.

What is the right system of thinking? Again, it’s a relatively huge question. All my courses are about that exactly. “The Grandmaster’s Positional Understanding” (LINK) contains very detailed explanations.

2.     Use active learning.

I’ve explained it in one of the recent lessons, “How to Success in Chess”: LINK
3.     “Attack” + “Openings” can give you a one-time leap forward.
Here I’m sharing with you one of my coaching “secrets”. The good thing about these two topics is that ANYONE can learn and implement it FOR SURE.

Let’s say you want to improve your strategic understanding.But it can be a bit of a vague task and the final goal / result is not that clear. On the contrary, “Attack”+ “Openings” will work out for sure. It’s been tested by lots of my students already.

It’s not that hard to keep focus on attacking moves. The “1^st Golden Rule” presented above explains one of the main rules here.

Learning good openings takes some time but it’s a pretty straightforward task. It can be accomplished for sure. If you want to simplify your task, you may study the courses “The Grandmaster’s Openings Laboratory” (LINK) and “The Grandmaster’s Openings Laboratory – 2″ (LINK). They’re all that you need.

Once you implement “Attack” + “Good openings” in your games, it can bring around a +300 rating rise. That’s big!
The only negative thing here is that this trick works only  one time.

Best 3 rules for your CHAMPION PSYCHOLOGY:

1.     Always play for a win. Fight until the end.
It doesn’t matter if your opponent is lower or higher rated. It doesn’t matter if you play well or badly in a tournament. ALWAYS play for a WIN!

It doesn’t matter if the current position is equal – DO NOT agree on a draw, play on! If it’s really equal, you’ll get a draw later on anyway. However, there’s a chance that your opponent will crack under pressure and make a mistake.

Carlsen became a World Champion by winning equal positions You should strive for the same.

2.     Ignore your nervousness. Instead, focus on your goals and dreams.

All players feel nervous. That’s normal. The difference is how people handle it. Some use it to boost their performance, while others start making silly mistakes.
How can you neutralize your nervousness? There’s no way to. However, you can drive your emotions in another way.
Imagine a boxer who is going to have a fight.

Is he nervous about that? Of course he is! He’s going to fight with a strong man. Potentially he can get serious damage to his health.
How is the boxer handling this pressure? Is he saying to himself,“I don’t feel nervous, I don’t feel afraid”? Of course not! It would only raise his nervousness.
Instead, he says to himself,“I want to be a Champion!”, “I am the greatest!”, etc. That’s how he FOCUSES on what he wants. Then his emotions even start helping him.
You can adopt the same approach for your chess battles.
3.     While playing, your only goal is to do your best and play the correct moves.
Players worry about losing a game. However, you can’t guarantee a certain result in a game. Only God can do that
Your job is to play correct moves. That’s it.

Single-best rule to SPEED UP your PROGRESS:

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use successful techniques of strong players.

Thomas Edison made 6,000 attempts before he discovered a modern electric light bulb. Now we can use his discovery. If you need a light bulb, you can go to the shop and buy it.
Alternatively, you may try to create it by yourself. Then you’ll have to suffer your own 6,000 tries and failures. It’s not the most rational method, right?

Getting back to chess: based on my own experience, and the experience of thousands of the students of our Remote Chess Academy, we’ve already discovered what works well in chess and what doesn’t. That took me years, but now you can get it instantly.

If that’s what you want, I’ll be glad to help. You can get the courses here: LINK
Till 31 December you will even get a 20% holiday discount. I make discounts only seldom. Don’t miss this chance.
P.S. You can download “10 Golden Rules” here: LINK
If you don’t have software to open *.pdf files, please download and install this one: LINK

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

There are thousands of standard greeting cards, but I thought it would be nice to have one especially for chess players.

P.S. If you have chess-playing friends, you may download this greeting card here – LINK – and send it to your friends.

Let me thank everyone who has sent me their holiday greetings! It’s a pleasure for me to have such great students!

Here’s one of the greeting cards you sent to me:

Even if it’s not the most professional design we’ve ever seen, I appreciate your creativity and desire to pass your greetings to me. Thank you!

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I have other good news for you as well!
Over the last two months I’ve been preparing the answers to students’ questions about the openings. Those who studied the courses “The Grandmaster’s Openings Laboratory 1 & 2″ sent me messages with their questions and opening troubles.
I’m glad to let you know that all your opening questions have been answered! The “BONUS Pack” with my answers is now available for everyone.

<< Get The Bonus Pack Now >>

This “Bonus Pack” will clarify your opening questions and will help you get the GREATEST benefit from the opening courses.
Since there are Holiday Discounts in operation now, until 31 December you can get this “Bonus Pack” with 20% discount.
Please indicate your discount coupon code HOLIDAY while placing the order and it will cut 20% off the price.
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Note: You should NOT buy the Bonus Pack if you have not studied the main opening courses yet.
At the same time, if that’s the case with you, you can purchase the main opening courses and the bonus pack. You’ll get 20% discount on every purchase, which will give you a HUGE discount in total.

• “The Grandmaster’s Openings Laboratory”: LINK
• “The Grandmaster’s Openings Laboratory – 2″: LINK
• Bonus Pack: LINK

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Let me wish,once again,a very happy Holiday Season to you and yours! May victory be your gift at Christmas and your blessing all year round!

P.S. If you plan to obtain my chess courses, please do not miss the deadline. The Special Offers will expire in several days, on 31 December.

You can read the details here: LINK

Smirnov’s Holiday Offer

Season’s Greetings to You!

Let me wish you a wonderful Holiday Season!

The end of a year is a pleasant time, when we can pass our best greetings to relatives and friends. I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all the best to you and your family!

 
Have wonderful, happy, healthy days in these last weeks of December and during all the period ahead!
Dream BIG, be PERSISTENT and have FUN along the way Then everything will be great for sure!

CHRISTMAS & the NEW YEAR period is a common time for “PRESENTS” and “SPECIAL OFFERS”. So here we go!

During this Holiday Season, till December 31^st, you can get any chess course with a
20% DISCOUNT

<< Get Your Course on a Special Price NOW! >> 

Just indicate your discount coupon code HOLIDAY while placing the order and it will cut 20% off the price.
Note: you may see the instructions on a proper usage of a discount coupon here: LINK

These courses are really powerful and that’s why I rarely give discounts. If you miss this special offer, you might have to wait for one more year…
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Some of those students who purchased the courses earlier might feel disappointment for missing out on this special offer. However, let me present an extremely wise quote:

“Life is like a chess game, where you play against time. If you hesitate and refrain from making a move – time will remove your pieces from the board. You are playing against an opponent that does not tolerate indecision”.

Those who act NOW always win, both in chess and in life. Although you paid a bit more, you have speed-ed up your progress and you’ll be the winner in the end.
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I’m happy that modern technologies help us unite great people all around the globe. It’s always a pleasure to communicate with you and to see your successes.
Some time ago I stopped publishing info. about students’ successes because it became pretty routine
Nevertheless, today I’ll provide a few such messages to support our positive mood
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Dear Mr. Smirnov,
I hope you are well.
Your courses have provided me with pretty good results, boosting my rating by 500 points to almost 2000 in just a few tournaments in a bit more than one year (when I had played chess for only a short while).
Sincerely and thanks, Alex
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Dear Igor,
Just after studying your new opening course, I am able to play Internet games VERY FAST coz I know now I am doing the right opening moves! Gone is the everpresent doubt! I also scored some quick wins even with Black pieces.
Further, I now understand the Grandmasters’ games without any commentary and even find fault with some of their moves!! The game is more enjoyable for me now!
Ferdinand
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Dear GM Smirnov,
I am Claudio Oliveri and a few months ago I purchased your course “The Secrets of GM” and the Opening Course.
First of all, my rating on chess.com rose from an average of 1450 to an average of 1550 stable with a peak of 1620, and will not be much but the important thing being that I’m improving.
Then I won a tournament – under 145 Rapid ECF in London – with a performance of1900 ELO.
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I hope to receive the next “success story” from you!

Let me send you my best greetings once again and to wish you joy and success in everything that you do!

How to Succeed in Chess?

 

Recently, I reviewed the questions that students sent me over the last few months. There’s one question asked by a lot of people……

I’ll provide one of such messages, as it came to me:

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Hi Igor,

I wonder how many people became so young a title player and U also , and why for many people its still so  hard. I winning a lot of nice games playing better by study your  courses . get more  rating points. But I have still no luck with  my biggest chess  dream in my life   to became a title player  I keep fail , maybe U can make  a blog article  or sometime  about it.?

Really thank u so much!

Dennis.

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To sum up, the questions are:

“How to get stronger in chess?”

and

“Why some players make huge progress while others don’t?”

Although you may have heard various explanations, in reality the answer is very straightforward. There are three main factors that determine your fast/slow chess progress.

 FACTOR #1: Your desire

 

Strong aspiration for improvement matters a lot. Even the best tutorials and coaches will not help without your readiness for diligent study.

In order to move forward, you need to learn and train yourself in unknown (difficult) topics. It may be hard from the beginning. It requires some discipline to do what you SHOULD do instead of performing familiar/easy tasks.

I’ll provide a few typical examples:

Passive learning vs Active learning 

     It’s easy to watch chess video lessons (“passive learning”). It’s harder to train your skills: solve strategic & tactical puzzles, analyse games, etc. (“active learning”). While both methods are useful, active learning should have a higher priority. However, a lot of players choose the easier way instead.

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You should focus on all the aspects

     Some players keep learning attacking games and keep playing gambits. They are familiar with this topic and it’s easy for them to work on it. At the same time, they ignore other topics that seem more complex to them.

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You should be universal in studying openings

     A lot of people tend to play openings they are familiar with, even if they can’t progress with this opening repertoire. Learning new openings will certainly require some time and effort; however, it may be essential.

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The list can go on and on, but I hope that you have got the idea. Serious results are impossible without serious study. If you like the game of chess and have a desire for improvement – this will fuel you on your way forward.

FACTOR #2: Investment in time, effort and money

      As is the same with all other facets of life (education, health, career, etc.), in chess your outcome depends on your investment. When you look at modern 13-year-old IMs and GMs, you may think that such great achievement is determined by their talent.

    It seems they simply didn’t have enough time to learn a lot about chess. Nevertheless, let’s have a closer look at this situation.
Personally, I know quite a few such “young talents” (Karjakin, Radjabov, Ponomariov, etc.). They all spent A LOT of time on chess daily during their childhood.
A simple calculation proves that the two players below invested the same time in chess:

Player-1: learnt chess 2 hours daily over 8 years.

Player-2: learnt chess 8 hours daily over 2 years.

That’s the “secret” of strong young players

– as you can see, there’s no magic here – everything is very straightforward. Outcome result depends on investment of time.

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    Investment of money is also obligatory for achieving serious results in chess. I hate to say it, but it’s a reality and we have to face it.

     You can reach a certain chess level by using free resources available to everyone. However, those who invest money in their chess development get access to the BEST tools: strong tournaments, best coaches and tutorial materials. The best weapons will bring victories in competitions.

FACTOR #3: Proper training methods

I know some players who invest a lot of time, money and effort into chess, but their progress is still not that great.
Why does that happen? Let’s say you are now at point “A” and your goal is to reach point “B”.

     Obviously, if you choose the way presented on the left image, you’ll reach your goal much faster. Hence it’s not enough just to go, you need to go in the right direction.

     Unfortunately, a lot of players have used ineffective training methods for years and can’t develop any real progress. They end up concluding, “I don’t have enough talent for chess”, while in reality they simply need to change their training methods.

I’ve provided a few examples while describing “FACTOR #1”.
What are the proper ways of learning chess that will bring you good progress?
Well, it’s a vast question. You can find a lot of lessons on this website and in my complete training courses: LINK

CONCLUSION

There are three factors that determine your chess progress:

1. Your desire
2. Investment in time, effort and money
3. Proper training methods

I hope this clarifies the question “Why some players make fast progress, while others don’t?” Now it’s your turn!
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To end this lesson, I’ve selected a few cool positions from the recent World Team Championship.

Wang – Kryvoruchko

White’s turn

 Petrosian – L’ami

White’s turn

     After you come up with a solution in both positions, please download the entire games and check yourself: LINK
P.S. Please write your opinion about the lesson in comments below.

Review the chess course How to Beat Titled Players

Contains the video lessons:

Lesson 1: “The Key to Victory”

In this lesson, I will tell you in general how it is possible to beat titled players. You will understand clearly:

The general concept about how to win against titled players.
Why most players can get only a draw (as the best result) against a stronger opponent.
How to beat a player whose rating is 100-200 points higher than yours.

How to break the well-known chess “rules” to get great results.
How to use the weaknesses of your opponent’s psychology to gain a victory.
The secret of strong players, which they use to beat titled players.

How to make your opponent feel nervous.
Boris Spassky’s secret regarding beating strong opponents.
What is the most effective style of playing?

Lesson-2: “The First Weapon”

Starting from the second lesson, I will be telling you the concrete weapons, which will allow you to beat stronger players. You will study what and how exactly you should do to use these weapons practically.
After the study of the second lesson, you will know:

How it is possible to create an attack against a strong opponent.
Why most attacking attempts fail.
How to detect the opponent’s mistakes and use them.

The exact system of thinking, which will allow you to find the most powerful attacking ideas.
What you should do in case your attack doesn’t work.
How to easily detect whether your attack will be successful or not.

How to break the defense of a titled opponent.
What, when, and how exactly you should attack to gain a victory.
The one extra secret, which will help you to make your attack much more effective.

Lesson-3: “The Second Weapon”

This lesson provides information about:

How to get the extra skills, which most chess players (even pretty strong players) don’t have.
How to use the common stereotypes to make unpleasant surprises for your strong opponents.
How to find the unexpected moves regularly.

How to play when your strong opponent is pressuring you.
How to find the good moves even in very dangerous situations.
The secret of strong Grandmasters, which allows them to play successfully in a very risky style.

Why the strong players are able to stay calm when they are under an attack.
How to find the moves missed by your opponent.
The exact rules of thinking, which will allow you to make very unpleasant moves for your strong opponents.

Lesson-4: “The Third Weapon”

This lesson is pretty important not only to win against titled players, but also to be able to beat a weaker opponent, who plays for a draw. Here we will discuss:

Why it is necessary to create problems for your opponent always.
One great advantage over most chess players, which you can get easily.
How to complicate a position to get more winning chances.

Why do the strong players always make complications.
You will understand better how to choose the right openings.
How to win the game when your strong opponent is playing for a draw.

How to play safely in a risky style.
Why some strong players lose some positions easily and quickly.
How to find the right moves in unbalanced positions.

Lesson-5: “The Fourth Weapon”

Everyone knows this weapon, but most players can’t use it effectively. Here I will tell you how exactly you can get the most benefit from this weapon. Also you will study:

You will study how the strongest players evaluate a position.
How to find positional sacrifice ideas regularly.
How to beat titled players in the opening.

You will be able to choose the best direction in the complex positions.
The positional sacrifice, which works great nearly always.
How to find the powerful ideas, which seem impossible.

You will avoid one great mistake which stops most players from beating stronger opponents.
One secret of the former Soviet chess school, which makes your game much more powerful and allows you to play much faster.
How to find the best places for your pieces.

How to make an effective positional sacrifice in an opening.
The powerful positional sacrifice idea, which most players don’t know (and there is no information about it in chess books).

Lesson-6: “The Fifth Weapon”

This weapon is one of my favorite ones. It is quite simple (when you understand it) and extremely effective at the same time. I am sure that you will use it with great results.

How you can confuse your opponent and force him to make mistakes.
One great delusion of most chess players.
How to break the plans of a titled player.
How to think during a chess game to have a 100% guarantee of a good result.

Why A. Karpov lead by a score 5:0 against G. Kasparov in their first World Championship match.
The great idea, which helps to find good moves in any positions.
How to use a prophylaxis to win the games.

Contains the practical part:

After a study of the video lessons, you will know how exactly you can beat stronger opponents. The practical part of the program will help you to train these ideas and to get such practical skills.

It allows you to use these weapons in your chess games right after the study of this course.
Thus, the practical part of the course contains:

100 special tasks and games for your training

These special tasks are intended for training your practical skills. We will start from quite easy situations and then go to examples on the top Grandmasters’ level!

The detailed instructions about what and how exactly you should train

It will help you to train yourself properly and to get the best effect from the program.

The concrete examples with commentaries about how exactly you should apply 5 winning weapons in different situations

It is very important to know how exactly you should apply the received knowledge in practice. With my commentaries, I will show you how exactly you should think to use the course’s ideas in your practical games.

If you...

• want to have some unique skills to beat an experienced opponent.
• want to have special knowledge which is not presented in chess books.
• want to know the secrets of strong players, which they will never tell them to you.

then click on the picture below and you can get this knowledge from the course "How to Beat Titled Players"