Now you are being more reasonable. Before you said without this course, which had material you couldn't get anywhere else or from a coach, you won't reach master level. That was what I was disagreeing with.

Now you are saying something correct: it is the subject matter of the course, which you can find in other places, that is important. Clearly, you can find this stuff in the chess literature or from a good coach, etc.. What is nice about the course is that they have collected the material in a useful way. That's exactly what I said.

I just signed up a couple days ago and am working through the first month's materials. So far I'm very impressed with the quality of instruction. I can tell it's really going to stretch me and I'll post some updates on my progress for anyone else who might be interested in ICS.

Susan Polgar recently started offering online instruction. See Polgar Chess University: Welcome for free samples and more data

I have tried videos, but much prefer books or printed material where I can pore over it, am more likely to set up a board, and can write in the margins my own thoughts and have a permanent record.

So far the ICS has been fantastic, incidentally.

Just out of curiosity, anyone have any updates on their progress with this course. Some of you should be well over half way through by now. Are you able to keep up with the workload? Has your game improved?

I know last year I said I was going to do this, but I didn't get around to it. I am still interested in signing up possibly this January.

The thing that scares me about all of this is that the person that brought this website up has 31 posts. And then all these people claim that they started the course & none of them have above 50 posts. And when they discuss this course, it sounds like an infomerical. It sounds to me like someone is advertising their own website. Maybe I'm wrong but I tend to listen more to the people that have a history in this forum. Just my opinion though.

ketchuplover is an example of someone I would listen to.

You listen to Ketchuplover? You really haven't been here long, have you?

*duck*

--Fromper

Well, given that I've been referred to, I want to make absolutely clear that I do not have any relation whatsoever with ICC. And if you read my previous posts on this thread you'll see that I do not claim that their course works miracles: for sure I have not achieved a 2300 ELO since enrolling (as they claim you'de be able to do thanks to their course; I'd be happy to know if somebody did!).
So I don't think you can claim I am doing marketing for them.

Quite the contrary in fact: I have certainly improved in the last couple of years and am now close to 2000 ELO (FIDE), while I was hovering around 1600-1700-1800 (at best) before the course. This improvement, however, is not mainly related to the stuff I learnt through ICC. Obviously that was useful too but the major merit of the course (for me) was that it forced me to work systematically at my chess almost day in and day out (although my enthusiasm waned towards the end and in fact I did not finish all the exercises of the last couple of months).

What really made me turn the page was enlisting the help of a professional coach: I submitted to him a few (7 in all if I remember correctly) of my slow games (which he thoroughly annotated for me) and we discussed them once during a 2-hour online class.During the class and in the annotated games he gave me direction re: areas of improvement and he also drew up a detailed improvement plan which I then followed (on my own, without any further contact with the coach).
This was the thing that really made me improve: I then knew what my weak points really were and what to do to try to correct them.

So my advice to people who want to improve would be.... get a professional chess coach to have a look at a few of your games and pinpoint the weak spots in your chess. Only then you will have a sound basis for improvement...
Have I had known this before enrolling on the ICC course, most likely I would not have done it (so much for my advertising ICC...).

Hope this helps,

C.

Cavalchesuda, if you don't mind, which coach was it? And how much did you pay?

Thanks!

Igor Khmelnitsky

Prices are listed on his website (Igor Khmelnitsky International Chess Master & Coach), I do not recall exactly as I had an online "one-to-one" with him (on the Internet Chess Club) over a year ago (November 2008). Maybe something around 60 dollar to have 3 games annotated (I'm just guessing, check out his website and you'll find all the info you need, I believe he also has "volume discounts").

C.