2 x 1. Introduction (1.00 avg depth)
4 x 2. Indices (1.00 avg depth)
35 x 3. Basic Test (28.57 avg depth)
10 x 4. Anastasia’s mate (24.70 avg depth)
20 x 5. Greco’s mate (22.00 avg depth)
10 x 6. Arabian mate (32.70 avg depth)
10 x 7. Hook mate (34.20 avg depth)
10 x 8. Vuković’s mate (46.00 avg depth)
10 x 9. Smothered mate (17.20 avg depth)
16 x 10. Suffocation mate (19.38 avg depth)
5 x 11. Corner mate (25.60 avg depth)
8 x 12. Morphy’s mate (29.63 avg depth)
8 x 13. Pillsbury’s mate (19.25 avg depth)
16 x 14. Opera mate / Mayet’s mate (16.81 avg depth)
10 x 15. Lolli’s mate (26.50 avg depth)
10 x 16. Damiano’s mate (25.60 avg depth)
8 x 17. Max Lange’s mate (26.50 avg depth)
24 x 18. Damiano’s bishop mate (27.38 avg depth)
17 x 19. Dovetail mate / Cozio’s mate (29.53 avg depth)
12 x 20. Swallow’s tail mate / Guéridon mate (34.75 avg depth)
24 x 21. David & Goliath mate / Pawn mate (25.63 avg depth)
10 x 22. Boden’s mate (16.10 avg depth)
8 x 23. Balestra mate (44.00 avg depth)
10 x 24. Double knights mate (22.60 avg depth)
12 x 25. Double bishops mate (23.00 avg depth)
7 x 26. Blackburne’s mate (16.43 avg depth)
5 x 27. Blind swine mate (rooks on the 7th rank) (28.60 avg depth)
8 x 28. Epaulette mate (29.88 avg depth)
18 x 29. Back rank mate (25.67 avg depth)
20 x 30. Lawnmower mate (30.70 avg depth)
10 x 31. Triangle mate (31.50 avg depth)
10 x 32. Kill box mate (33.40 avg depth)
20 x 33. Mate in the opening (6.15 avg depth)
211 x 34. Puzzles: Warm-up (30.17 avg depth)
282 x 35. Puzzles: Exercises (35.01 avg depth)
100 x 36. Final Test (33.84 avg depth)
I was a beta tester who had the pleasure to go through many parts of this course. I got intrigued by the simplicity and the completeness of the course that I went on to study more than 70% (72% to be exact) of the course!😉😋
This course is a real GEM on Checkmates!😍
Just look at the Variation Details sidebar and quiz yourself with the Checkmates you know of? I, an FM, didn’t know around 10 of them! (I learned 10 new checkmates!😍😁💪🙌👍)
My favourite Checkmate is the ‘David & Goliath Checkmate’! It is like a pawn checkmate – pawn (underdog) checkmates the King (King!!) 😍
The course has an ‘Indice’ in which all the Mating Patterns/Puzzles have been neatly linked! Even the players’ names mentioned in the course (from A-Z) have been linked to the corresponding puzzle! 😍😎👌
There is also a timeline which says ‘Till what year was the player active?’ – For example ; if it is Blackburne’s Mate, the course says the following :
1841-1924 : Joseph Henry Blackburne – Blackburne’s mate
This is done for all the players who contributed to the naming of that specific mate! 😍👏
All right, let’s get down to CHECKMATES!
Before the beginning of puzzles in each chapter, there is an Informational which talks about the Mating Pattern and the corresponding position shows the Mate! This is done for all Mates/Chapters! Most of the times when there are different versions of the same mate, Raf clearly talks about this nuance in a different informational in the respective chapter hence the naming of the informational lines in the most of the chapters as, for example, Boden’s Mate 1, Boden’s Mate 2, etc. and the corresponding trainables present this type of mate mentioned.😊👌👏🙌
Above all of this, the course comes with 2 new badges!! 😍😍
All this for only 10$, available only on Chessable! 😊😃
After Raf finished creating all the puzzles, he could’ve just pushed that Publish button but he wanted the course to be top-top-notch so he went on to create ‘Indices!’ and stuff and he even proof-read the course multiple times👏. This shows his dedication as an author and how much respect he has for his students! Great job Raf!! 😃💪👍😍😊👏👏👌
Add this book to your Chessable Library and let us all Checkmate (our opponents) together with Raf!💪
I am something around 2000 Fide player who has not played a competitive game in over 4 years and picked up chess again during the lockdown.I love this course. I was reluctant to buy it, as I felt like checkmate patterns are not something I would be struggling with. However, I decided to give it a shot, expecting it to return it after I try it and see how good at checkmates I am. Little did I know…
After scoring full marks from the basic test, everything was going according to my plans. Then I started looking at the theory behind all those checkmates and I found quite a few exercises I got wrong (some of them multiple times), even though I knew what kind of pattern I should be looking for.
Therefore, I can say I will definitely be keeping this course. And I would advise everyone bellow 2k to give it a shot. You might as well return it within 30 days. But I find it more likely that you will learn a thing or two about your checkmating abilities that you might not be too happy to admit 🙂
PROS: – a lot of material covered – exercises for all levels – my new favorite chess “fast-food” – using chessable format well
CONS: -not really a course problem, but a bit of a chessable “problem” (which I don’t think can be fixed easily). When cycling through the theoretical exercises while reviewing, you get all the same patterns grouped together, making it a bit less challenging. Would be nice to be able to randomize the order.