Yep, it sounds like a very well structured course, and I guess structure is exactly what my chess self-study has always lacked....

M., would you recommend this site for a beginner, or is it for higher level players?

I'm glad you're enjoying it. I'll stay with my books

That, ultimately, is probably it's main strength, yes. That is the greatest appeal to me, and why I like it so well. I'm not sure really how to describe it except that it is different from books in that, now that I realize it, books very often don't really teach you chess. They just explain a principle, and then give several game fragments to try to illustrate it. This site really seems to teach a real understanding.

Like I said, my whole chess life, I've pretty much just studied fragments of books arbitrarily. Who knows how many holes I've left in my game that I'm not even aware of. With this proper structure, I find things much more encouraging.

I can’t say I would be confident giving the course to a complete beginner. I would say a couple books, and perhaps a few tournament games of experiences would prepare them to get the most out of it. If they only learned the moves a couple months ago, I wouldn’t recommend the site. If they’re 1000-1200 or so, I think they can start to get quite a bit out of it. 1500, sure. The best way I can equate it, is if the player is to the level where he is ready to seriously study a Jeremy Silman book, then he ought to be ready for this site. If you wouldn’t give him Jeremy Silman yet, probably I would wait.

Regardless if I had Kasparov himself teaching me daily, I would not give up my books. Books are Indispensable. I still keep them heavily in my curriculum. I consider this online site an added bonus, although, a very strong one.

I read the samples that they have published. They seem fairly informative but the thing that really, really bothers me is the English seems very broken. For $25/month, they could have had it proofread, don't you think???

They're romanian, what'aya gonna do?

You're right. Their English is a little broken. I have found that I can understand every single thing I have read of their's so far effortlessly. To this point, the slightly broken English has had 0% adverse effect on understanding. Nothing to worry about.

I actually registered on their site... for the 190$ package... i didn't get any login info and the money was drawn from my cc... i registered again for the 36$ package and got the login info... only till now no response about the other 190$.. i tried to contact them many times seems no one is available since more than 10 days now.. i don't think its a wise decision to register for that site .

Unfortunate. I didn't have any problems, although I signed up for the $25 a month package, and recieved my login and first month the next day. The monthly things seems to work, but I can't speak about the $190 package.

If push comes to shove, you'll need to contact your CC company and have them get the money back.

I found the post about the $190 package ("Special Class") here and I think our reply to Mr. Maen (DefconZer0) clarifies the situation.

"Dear Maen A. Ftouni,

The entries to our Special Class are conditioned not only by the participants’ value, time and objectives, but also by our time.

The bill we emitted to you for the Special Class dates from the 14th of Aug 2007. At that moment we did have space and also available time for you. The payment was executed on the 30th of Dec 2007, much later, without us being previously asked or informed. Right now there is no more space left in our Special Class and our time does not allow any more clients.

We invite you to choose between refunding your money and waiting until the 1st of May 2008, when new entries for this class are organized."
(this message was given by email immediately after our short vacation -> see his payment's date)

Web administrator at ICS

Thanks for the clarification, I have also recieved the refund .