Igor Smirnov's "GM's Secrets"

Can someone briefly explain the system Igor Smirnov gives in this?

this course is about how GM thinks about any position given. It delves on both positional and tactical situation and how to train your thought process so you can find the right moves.

So? Is it worth it? http://chess-teacher.com/shop/

There are some free videos on YouTube by GM Smirnov. I'm checking them out now. If nothing else, it's interesting to hear GM's voices when they talk about chess. 

true, it is pricey. but as far as my result is concern, i believed it's worth it.

really? ok.. just find out got his new course, The Grandmaster Opening Laboratory-2: http://goo.gl/gkSLfD

looks like $98. any review yet? 

So… there are many questions about the courses of Mr I.Smirnov and i understand that in regard of the price he ask to download his lessons, and in a certain extent, it‘s also true that the marketing-thing around his products are in my humble opinion… a little too much regarding his target audience J (I’m a marketeer)

A few words about me to set the chess-background of my following comments…  I’m a 1750 fide player, 1700 belgian national ELO, and play now in a club for 7 years.

Going from my first rating of 1300 ELO to my actual one, my biggest leap in rating was due to Mr Heisman’s recommendations that I found in his chess café articles and his book(s). I played and studied for approximately 4 years and went to 1450 ELO. Then I discovered Mr Heisman’s and I worked VERY HARD to follow his recommendations (don’t think just read it is enough) and saw my ELO going constantly up for 18 months before going a little step back and stabilize around the 1660.

I didn’t played a lot last year and began to study again in September this year, playing 10 OTB slow control time games with a progression of around 45 points, breaking in the 1700+ club J

In the same period I bought Mr Smirnov course and began working on it. I didn’t found on the web any objective review of it and I decided to give it a try and judge by myself one of his “cheapest” course The Grandmaster’s secrets.

It’s really hard to tell you if my last progression is mainly due to his course or not, but it certainly helped, and in which extent is also hard to tell, a bit ? a lot ? I personally think that it has to do with a combination on factors. One of the most important being how much time do you have to put in the study of the game and studying the right topic regarding your playing strength.

In his course GM secrets, Mr Smirnov gives 5 videos lessons. For my rating, the lessons about how to prepare against tournament opponent are pointless. Because the main recommendation are to look up his games in a database ( which 1700-2000 are to be found in a good chess database ???) and then to analyse his games to point out his weaknesses and strengths, drawing at the same time his style of play.

Well, sorry, but I’m not able to point out anyone’s weaknesses / strangths at my rating level + I also have a life aside from chess, understand almost enough time to work on my own games ! J

Would be any 2200 + reading this review, then those advices could help you, but I’m sure you already know how to prepare against your next opponent. Right ?

So much for those two lesson’s, the second one being linked with your opponent preparation by giving advices about your opening selection to take benefit of his weaknesses. Proof me wrong when you want but I challenge any 1300 to let’s say 1900 change do all this work for one specific encounter, based on analyses of his opponent’s game… be my guest. I think anyone @ this rating could benefit more about working on other topics, unless they have an unlimited amount of time for studying.

The three other one’s are much more interesting. The first one gives you tips for the selection of your candidates moves, the second one is about technique to calculate tactics efficiently and the third one puts it all together by presenting you a ready to use Think process for your real games. (see more details on his site, I won’t tell you here the content of his course, not because it is worth nothing, but by respect for his work)

To be honest, much part of this all is told by Mr Heisman as well. But here, it’s done in a different way and some new stuffs are told as well. I’m convinced that working on the course would be benefic but I’m a little bit more concern to do it before Heisman for anybody below my rating. I put the lessons learned in practice in my last games, but all mixed up to with things I learned from Heisman.

For example, Mr Smirnov gives advice about your time management but in a less extended way than Heisman do. But, Heisman’s topics about pieces activity are covered in another way by Sminov, and I found that way better.

Along with the theoretical part you’ll find practical task to learn the material given in the lessons. This is a real good point that you won’t find (besides if I missed something) in Heisman’s articles. Sure he will almost always illustrate his article with some examples but then it’s up to you to collect the material to deeper your study. Once again, nothing wrong with it, but it can be time consuming.

In my eyes, this is the only point that justify that mr Smirnov charge for his courses while those from Heisman are free. (but I see recently that you have to pay now for his last artcles). By choosing for mr Smirnov lessons you got an all in one package with the theoretical lessons and the exercises that emphasize your learning of the key ideas.

Now, don’t be fooled here. You get two types of exercises, strategic ones and tactical ones. I won’t give my opinion about the strategic ones because I feel of myself that I m not sufficient good to judge them. Let’s just say that they illustrates the theoretical part of the course. But for the tactical ones, don’t expect them to be easy. So, If you are not familiar with the simplest tactical patterns Heisman recommend to know by hart first before going deeper, pass your way. But maybe not, because here you we’ll practice your way of thinking when tactical situations arises on the board, to make your way through tactical complications.

To short it a bit, let’s say both are complementary. By following Heisman advices about doing simple tactical patterns over and over again, I trained my pattern recognition. By solving way much harder tactical puzzles, you maybe won’t find the solutions, but you we’ll work on your thought process in those situations and also important, on your visualization skills working your way through the overwhelming branches of the solution. (I saw one 15 moves deep, 30 ply! Good luck to solve that one J )

I made a parallel between Heisman and Smirnov because when it come to chess self-improvement, I didn’t find anyone coming close to those 2 teachers. I don’t claim one is better than another, both has their ways and styles of teaching to the large audience. What I well want to say is that for any player between 1100 to 1700 Heisman is a sure way to go, it won’t hurt your game or your wallet to follow his advices. For people who thinks that they came at a level where they need something else than going through (WITH ALL MY RESPECT for them) games of 1500 players to improve now, then Mr Smirnov lessons are worth a try, and then judge by yourself if you can afford one of his cheapest course.

I would also like to say that I sent a few questions to the support desk of the site from Mr Smirnov. He nether answered personally, but the people working for him answered very fast. I disagreed with the answer given about a specific comment from me (lack of feedback in one particular task of the course) but by no means, all this marketing-thing around his products are synonym of swindle or intellectual fraud from their side. I don’t feel like a fool buying his product for the moment.  That’s what refrained me the most of buying any of his course, plus the fact that you find many “made” comments on the net, at least in my eyes, I don’t buy that kind of sh*t like “hey, buy his course, my rating went up 300 points in 1 month”, yeah, for sure man, and your wife left home J

Getting better ask time… and others factors are involved. I study much less now than I did when I began to play. But I still make progress because I study the right material for my level and to address my (chess) problems.

Let me say it this way : Time + efficient way of learning + best available material = progress guaranteed.

I read many, many, many things written by Heisman. Not everything, plus he also have huge interesting videos on ICC… but I think I can say I have a clear idea of the content of his lessons. Smirnov is at this point only familiar to me for one course, I think I ll buy The Grandmaster Positional understanding soon, and let you know about it.

-        If you think Hesiman gives you this formula actually, stick with it.

-        If you think Heisman as given you this formula but you are actually stuck, maybe it’s time for a change in your habits or training material. I don’t say you should try Mr Smirnov here, maybe getting a coach if you find one decent will do, or anything else, or maybe not J

-        If you are looking to fulfill this formula and haven’t tried Heisman yet, give it a try or choose Smirnov. By choosing Smirnov you have to pay, but you also get the practical tasks you’ll have to collect the other way…

-        if you began with Smirnov to follow this formula and still make progress, keep on the good job. If you’re stuck, depending your level, try Heisman.

But always remember too that everybody has different problem to address, depending on many different things. I made this leap by fixing mostly my thought process and my time management. Maybe you need something else you won’t find in Heisman or Smirnov…

I hope this comment will help… any questions are welcome J I tried to give insight at a higher level than saying “blab la bla, he is the best” “blabla bla, no, he is the best” and so on… I was looking for this type of comments before buying Smirnov course, what I didn’t found then.

Well it isn't "do tactics until you drop" snake oil.  People usually tell customers what they want to hear, and if you're told you only need to do the fun part of chess training (tactics that you're told are there to begin with and find it instead of assess, analyze, and find the tactic yourself, which may or may not even be there) then you'll eat that up.  Tactics are fun and can be decisive, but nearly every position isn't going to have a winning shot. 

     Hey WeRallPawns;  Thank you for that run down; good explanations. I agree with a lot of what you said, but I also had some concerns about wheather he was a snake oil salesman. He may be a very good player, and a lousy teacher, and vice versa. When I get some $$$, I'll try some of his courses; In the mean time I'll stay with Coach DH. He's a good player, a good teacher, a good person, and he's free!

Hi Ronald, yes sorry for the long text but tkx for reading it ;)

I thing you sum it the right way, if you can spend some bucks to try it out and judge by yourself... Give it a go ;) But bIg Dan is just amazing for the average club player and free. Also, jumping from one to another is à fast track to nowhere...

I bought yesterday GM positional understanding with a nice discount. Still have to work on GM Secrets but when i ll start with it i ll leave à review for sure ! I ll also will give feedback on my rating progression.

        I didn't mean any disrespect, after all, he is a legitimate grand master, its just his marketing; "SECRETS" to top play.  The only secret to anything is long hard work. Your long text was excellent. I hope more people read it, and take the time to decide for themselves. I get too distracted by trolls here, so when I saw your disertation I said, finally, someone who know's what he's talking about.

Ronald i dont know if i know what i m talking about, my dissertation came for a great part fom people who knows what they are talking about. Who will listen to a 1700 ? ;) I also recommand Waitzkin's book "the art of learning". Very interesting for any serious chess player in love with the game like he was before... One common factor to all this stuff Time + hard work ! Wow i just gavé à GM secret for free ;))

    Well I'm listening to you, and I'm 1200-1300. There's a lot of people who could be better players but it takes time that they don't have. Ya know, paying the bills, raising the kids,etc. I'd love to buy a lot of chess books at Barnes & Noble, but I'm on disability in Massachusetts, so I do a little chess, and when I get bored, I make a few Revell models. I read a lot of Bruce Pandolfini from ChessCafe.com   I think my brain works better in reverse, or out of the box, because I never played 960 till I came here. I played 4 games, won them all, and my rating is 1450. I'll pass your dissertation on to anyone who wants to buy a free GM secret. Time + Hard Work = a good rating!  Who Knew!  Have a happy holiday.

Thanks, WeRallPawns for your review of GM Secrets.

I would like to add that I have used Smirnov's "Opening Laboratory 1" and it was great.  Instead of telling players to memorize a bunch of lines or to use very general platitudes like "Castle early" or "Knights before Bishops," he encourages players to read through grandmaster games, preferably annotated ones, in lines that the players are interested in and to make a summary of the key features of those lines - e.g. where pieces are generally positioned, what each side's common plans are, whether there are tricky or notable tactics that a side should watch out for, and how pleasant the endgames generally are for the two sides.

It is hard work, but it does help you develop a much better understanding of your chosen opening(s).  Because you know the general plans, you will not be daunted when your opponent makes a slight deviation from the main line.  Also, the summary gives you something to look at to refresh your memory on a particular opening.

He also gave other advice, but I think even the theoretical summaries alone were a great tool to understand openings.

Also, Smirnov's advertising seems a bit funny, but the material itself is legit. 

Well, I'm saving for GM Smirnov's courses. I found hime to be spot on and able to cut out a lot of noise. A select few ideas when followed properly alone should yield great results. Be that executing a plan or keeping the tension or "to take is a mistake". 

He is definitely a great chess coach and as a > 2,500 rated GM he's also a formidable player.

As far as snake oil salesman, we all have to make a living. 

I don't know if any of you are these people, or how many there are, BUT what I have heard about Smirnov is that he pays ordinary third party people - i.e. posters on chess.com forums - to give others positive feedback about his courses so that he can sell more courses. It is a brilliant and effective (albeit slightly expensive) method of advertising, but I wouldn't believe every bit of hype you hear.

I personally can't attest to the quality of the material, as I haven't found myself with the desire nor the money to buy these courses. However, I would think that the amount of money Smirnov charges is obscenely large, considering a complete-training-course type of book such as The Amateur's Mind covers nearly every topic in Smirnov's library of $100-a-piece video lessons.

He has not played Fide Rated games since April 2009.

                Well said Twinchicky. I wasn't aware of that but, like you, I just don't have that kind of expendible money at this time. WeRallPawns gives an excellent overview of him.

Well, I certainly wasn't paid and the free lessons on Youtube are worth a closer look. Just like with art or music, different strokes for different folks. 

I think Smirnov is interesting, pedagogically, and might buy some training from him. 

He might be an advertisinggenius too. More visible than higher rated teachers.