Chess stuff arrives
Cool. I tore into Chess Mentor today. Spent about 45 minutes on it. Here's my score so far.
Challenges Completed: 85
Average of all initial scores: 98
I also bought a used copy of "Chess for Kids" for my girlfriend's cousin. Lots of nice pictures using a wodden board and wodden (Staunton?) pieces. I've noticed that children's chess books are quite expensive. I guess because there are a lot of nice, high quality, color pictures for them to look at. If he really gets into it I can start lending him books from my collection.
Finally, did 1 hour and 30 minutes of tactics from the Idiot's Guide.
7 Comments:
Those first challenges are pretty easy, but they're good as a refresher. They'll get much harder before long!
Do you think Chess Mentor is good for Seven Circles? Which module are you working through?
bdk, you don't need to work circles with Chess Mentor, because it remembers the problems that you miss as you work through the problem set. Then, periodically, it interjects these old, missed problems. So, it has repetition worked into its programming.
Yep, CD is right. The program is pretty smart. Although, you can still run through the problems sequentially so theoretically you could use it for doing the circles, but I'm using the Solving Cycle mode to let the program "mentor" me.
It also lets you do the problems by topic (openings, endgames, etc). It's a really good program for someone at my level (approx 1380 ICC) with a lot of explanations on why a certain move is good or bad.
I bought the Comprehensive Course which is a little pricey, but CD swears by it, and from what I've seen so far it's worth the money.
PS
So CD and PS, you are working through Chess Mentor in addition to Seven Circles? If so, hat's off.
Oh no no no. CD is already past the beginner's stage. He has a FICS rating of 1750, but he still says he uses the program as a warm up for tournaments.
As for me, CT Art is too advanced for me still. My ICC rating is 1380. I figure I'll use Chess Mentor and my beginner's tactics books till around 1600 or 1700 then move on to CT Art.
PS
I see. I think I will end up using the TASC CHess Tutor for my circles, or Chess Tactics for Beginners, put out by the same company as CT-Art. However, my ICC rating is around 900, so I can get away with the more basic stuff...
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