I would also like to add my own experiences with ICS as a 21 year old trying to improve at Chess. I decided to order both the Main module + Opening module because it was only an extra $5 per month. I'm currently on Month 3 of the course and I really can't give high enough praise to the ICS team; they really have spent a lot of work in creating this course. The lessons are very structured and each thing builds on from the next in a logical manner. My only slight criticisms thus far is I have noticed a few spelling mistakes here and there and in 1 of the annotated games I noticed a notation mistake. But apart from that I would gladly recommend this course to anyone who really wants to improve at chess. They do actually recommend to read the following books on a seperate site they own: http://www.chessarea.com/chess-instructions/ I am not sure why they haven't linked this to the main ICS site. But on this site they recommend only the best books you should buy and also give advice and tips on becoming a FIDE master. My goal now is to become a FIDE master within 3 years and I'm sure if I do this course will have been the catalyst for it!

I suppose I will throw in my 2 cents worth.

I enrolled in this course but ended up cancelling during the first month. I found the material to be very thought provoking, I liked how the course seemed very focused and structured. I ultimately cancelled for 2 reasons:

1) (The main reason) I ended up getting very busy and realized that there was very little posibility at the time that I was going to succeed with this course at the time I started it (I likely could finish it now just fine. The workload involved is not particularly overwhelming, I just had other things going on)

2) I had a really hard time justifying paying $35 each month for about 20 pages worth of PDF files, a PDF test (with answer key), and really no formal interaction with anyone. As I said, the material seems perfectly fine but exactly what is the advantage here over a good set of books?

Ideas? I sometimes think about starting the course up again, but then start thinking about how many books I could get with the money I would be paying for the course (Plus coffee). For the price of the course, I could literally buy a chess book off of amazon.com and get one game annotated by a Fide master each month.

Assuming I have a limited budget and need to choose, is there a distinct advantage to going with the ICS here?

Even if I do not have a limited budget, will I benefit much by enrolling in the course if I study a good book and get games annotated each month?

Calling out Blue Devil Knight.  Your orginal post was  April 2009 and while looking for more information about this site I found your name connected to it over and over again.  Including a post from sept 2010 saying you have completed the course.  http://icsdiscussion.forumotion.net/ics-month-thirteen-f22/final-test-t159.htm

Your starting to look like shill and my main reason to stay away from this course provider.  

I am mystified why you feel the urge to do this via the forums.

I have found this individual "selling" this course on multiple chess sites but he never plays.. In fact his only posts are about how great the school is.  I find this type of promotion dishonest and upsetting.  The school maybe great but.. the only people I can find that have great things to say about it over and over again are people that post in chess forums and never return.

I think chess.com should do something about competitors using their forums for advertising for free.

If he is a shill I think we should know before investing hundreds of dollars on a course.

Guys, i have also enrolled for this course. The amazing thing is it is a great one, but it needs some patience to go through their PDFs. 

Infact, they have taken a lot of pain in preparing their rich course materials with thousands of annotated games and examples.

But yes, keep in mind that you gotta have a huge patience before you enroll it, and yes if you don't have you should not be playing chess itself because chess is a game of skills and patience ofcourse.

kingsmasher1 thanks for your review.  Could you also let us know how long you have been a student there and how you feel they have helped you improve. 

Thanks

@ForzaJuve: I am in my 4th month, they give a lot of good exercises, with explanations and annotated games. If you want you can download some free PDFs from the ICS site and read them.

Also there is an extra openings module, suited to either for d4 or e4 player. This is an extra material for which you need to pay separately.

But beware, you need a lot of patience to go through it, and it is meant for really serious players. For light players (not serious), i suggest not to go for that as you will get bored reading the PDFs. For them you can choose some audio-visual courses like "Polgar Chess University" but not ICS.

 It isn't irony. I wasn't attacking your credibility, just questioning the taste in necroing this thread with the purprose of attacking someone you obviously know little about.

You can see BlueDevilKnight's chronicles of chess improvement here:

http://chessconfessions.blogspot.com/

You'll find that he's tried many methods of chess improvement, with the ICS being just one of them. I don't think you'll think of him as a shill once you look a little deeper.

Also, he hasn't logged in to this site in over a year, so it doesn't do much to "call him out" on these forums.

As far as my knowledge, BlueDevilKnight is the moderator of the ICS discussion forum, and he holds a GM rank.

I think he has also subscribed to the ICS course, as the forum topics suggest, and it's not true that he hasn't logged in for a year, i can see his recent post as new as Oct 2010, however it's strange that although he has an chess.com account, he hasn't played any games over here.

I am really interested in this post and in this service.  so no I was buming up this thread just to attack someone. 

Kingsmaher your have been great and on topic as has loomis.  

You guys are right that he has not been here at chess.com in long time and does not play.  I was hoping that he would have an email alert when someone post on one of his threads.

thanks for the links and please keep the information comming.

thanks i am seriously considering this course.

Private posts, will be beneficial to you, but tomorrow another person may have the same type of query 

Before enrolling, just to inform you, they don't support any one-to-one doubts clearing on their courses  Any doubts they expect to be cleared via the forum. Also don't forget to go through the free demo PDFs on their site. May be it will change your opinion before investing this huge amount every month, and no chance to blame us in future (if in case )

BlueDevilKnight has not logged in to chess.com in over a year. So calling him out on these forums doesn't make much sense. If he's logging in to the ICS forums, talk to him there.

I scratched my head a bit about what you could possibly mean that he holds the GM rank. Is this some kind of ICS forum level?

No, it means he has been awarded the title of GM from the FIDE...lol. 

BlueDevilKnight's Blog is very interesting i recommend checking out

from shill to hero in 1 day.. very nice.

He may still be a shill..... But he does have a good interesting blog! Have you checked it ... used this service ?  Your rating states that you should have some construtive information to share.  Have you checked out the trail information on the schools website?  What are your thoughts?