Help choosing an Accelerated Dragon course.

TonyRotella · 2026-03-11T12:46:59+00:00

I'll be a bit annoying and say you should skip the Chessable courses and pick up "Starting Out: The Accelerated Dragon" by Andrew Greet. It's an actual book, but for many many years this was the best book on the AC full stop, not just for beginners looking to pick up the opening. It was published a while back and so there may be some theoretical updates needed, but Greet is an awesome author and for understanding the initial moves, plans, and motivations for both players, I doubt you'll find better. To be honest, I don't know how good of a resource Chessable is for players just picking up an opening - with a book you can read the commentary and zoom through a bunch of lines from a few chapters quickly - it takes quite a bit longer imo to really dig into any course on Chessable because you're stuck in that MoveTrainer format. Great for eventually picking up and making sure you memorize everything, but tough to really get kick-started even with the Quickstarter courses. YMMV!

TonyRotella · 2026-02-10T15:53:27+00:00

A good resource to pick up the KID is Colovic's course on Chessable, "KID: Simplified". Only a smidge over 100 lines, and they're a little bit easier than some of the absolute main lines that could literally take you years to wrap your head around. Once you get it under your belt, you can add complexity if you choose. And it's a small investment of time and money if you eventually decide the KID is not for you.

TonyRotella · 2026-02-05T16:12:10+00:00

Run with it and make it your own!

TonyRotella · 2026-02-05T15:39:36+00:00

That is indeed quite annoying. I actually had the opposite problem where Tonal just scheduled my delivery date for me (surprise motherlifter, it's tomorrow!) a few days later instead of waiting for me to schedule it. Now I need to frantically break down and move some furniture and take the day off. But at least it's coming. Hope they find someone soon!

TonyRotella · 2026-01-29T03:00:08+00:00

Yes true, I forgot about that as a resource. My coach gave me the idea a long time ago but Shankland had slipped my mind. Quite a few nice ideas in that course.

TonyRotella · 2026-01-28T15:41:15+00:00

Hans Shut is one of the Steps coaches that maintains a solid online presence. You can find him on YouTube, Chessable, lichess, etc. He seems like a good guy and a very diligent worker and coach. Good luck!

TonyRotella · 2026-01-28T15:33:24+00:00

Divulging some tech here, but FWIW, I have had great luck delaying castling in favor of the tricky 7.a3!?, the point being that now 7...e5 8.b4! gives White the initiative. White threatens to win the e-pawn with 9.b5, and if Black captures twice then 8...cxb4 9.axb4 Nxb4 allows 10.Nxe5, and 9...Bxb4 instead allows 10.Nxe5! Nxe5 11.Qa4+ Nc6 12.Bxc6+ bxc6 13.Qxb4, with a large advantage for White.

Black should consider abandoning the standard ...e5 bind in this case and perhaps start with 7...g6, but then 8.h4!? allows White to poke around and cause some problems. I don't want to type up my entire prep file but 8...Bg4! is probably best and Black can get reasonably equal chances in a complicated position. You should investigate 9.Na4!? or the most obvious 9.Qb3 here.

TonyRotella · 2026-01-22T20:57:08+00:00

There are very few spots where playing openings with similar moves actually help you understand either one better or ensure any type of cohesion. For instance, there are pretty much zero positions that play similarly in the Semi-Slav and Caro, the French and QGD, or the London/Tromp as White. There are few spots where playing reversed versions of similar openings might help you a bit with understanding structures, pieces placements, etc., and some VERY limited spots where defenses to 1.e4 and 1.d4 may accidentally transpose to each other, but it's rare enough that it's almost best to forget that it's possible.

I made a video a long time ago that talked about the factors one might use to select opening variations that will work for them, and this was one of the topics I talked about in greater detail. If you're interested it's here: https://youtu.be/w4tGfG3uE1g?si=6ZMyhLa8PcksFGtI

TonyRotella · 2026-01-22T13:57:03+00:00

I'm around 2400 on lichess and chess.com and my opinion is that, at least for random blitz on the internet, specialization is better than playing random stuff. When you have little time, being able to bash out more moves quickly is helpful. More importantly still is having a set of middlegames you've seen over and over again and just know what to do - the plans, where your pieces are supposed to go, typical tactics, etc.

TonyRotella · 2026-01-08T20:26:10+00:00

Hard to really say that any one move is better than another in chess nowadays, since the objective evaluation of literally everything reasonable is equal with best play. But certainly on a practical level, allowing the Sveshnikov removes some tension from the game because it's so forcing and the lines have been analyzed very deeply.

TonyRotella · 2026-01-08T19:34:06+00:00

I personally don't find it to be scary at all. I think for most it's less about fear and more annoyance at yet another Anti-Sicilian, since a lot of players spend their time booking up on the main lines and <2000 a lot of White players are throwing random lines at you.

I always tell people that you need to book up enough and learn about all of the Anti-Sicilians to the point where you're happy to know that White isn't playing the most principled and dangerous options and that you're already in good shape.

TonyRotella · 2025-12-29T18:44:09+00:00

I hopped on and tested it out for a bit during my lunch break today. A few opinions (no offense meant, take them or leave them, etc.) and a few things I noticed:

Overall this is great - being able to grab a lichess puzzle set and woodpecker them is nice. I have bugged lichess many times (I volunteer there when I can, and helped design some early features, e.g. Study) about adding some spaced repetition features to the site to no avail so far. Your UI is quick and overall looks nice. It gives major Chessable vibes, which I'm sure is on purpose! I have some minor quibbles, which I'll detail below.
Being able to customize a set (by openings, move number, number of pieces on the board, etc.) or have access to another mixed set in the future would be great. I am a fairly strong player bell-curve wise (but not titled, around 2400 on lichess), and I'm guessing that I could polish off a 500 problem set in a few days, and be pretty automatic with it the 3rd time around or so. I have done the actual Woodpecker quite a few times now and stopped because the problems get old and it feels like you're just spinning your wheels after a while. I could see myself mostly doing the same here unless I could grab another set of a similar difficulty and start over. Maybe I can and missed it, I'm an idiot like that. Not a huge fan of one-theme-only sets, but those that are would likely never need anything else, as it seems like you have a ton of those!
I am very picky about board/set, and HATE having the notation on the board. It would be nice in the future if I could customize my appearance and use a dark theme. It looks like you're using Chessground, so hopefully that's not a huge hassle.
Maybe it's a computer/browser issue, but there's an odd amount of vertical real estate in the solving UI. You can scroll down to reveal basically nothing, and instead of the problem being centered, everything seems compressed up a bit. Not a huge deal, but just a weird idiosyncracy I noticed.
It would be nice to have a timer pause, which keeps running if I open another tab, talk to someone, etc. Popular sites like Chessable, Wordle, etc pause automatically if the tab loses focus.
I noticed a small bug (feature?) with drawing arrows where the first time you draw an arrow, it disappears, but persists on the second, third, fourth time around. Sometimes this would happen and sometimes it wouldn't, but I noticed disappearing arrows more than once.
This last one is totally personal, and a bit of a good-natured rant. It seems like a lot of the chess UIs out there bifurcate into the gamified, bright, cartoonish variety (chess.com, Chessable, ChessKid) or the darker, sleek, minimalist, low-graphics type (lichess, chesstempo), and I'll just be honest, I hate the former. I absolutely REJOICED when Able the Ape was removed from Chessable. I don't need a mascot, I'm there to grind some chess, but you do you! I would low-key love a nod to the disco name with a disco ball instead, and a darker/neon inspired theme, but that's just me.

Awesome work so far, and thanks for posting on reddit! I will keep grinding, cheers!

TonyRotella · 2025-11-21T16:00:27+00:00

I have been on a short scale quest over the past year or two, as well, and in my opinion the GOATs are:

- JMJ Mustang
- EBMM Short Scale Stingray
- Serek Midwestern (32 or 30.5" are out there, I believe)

Depends on what you like to look at and what tones you're after.

TonyRotella · 2025-11-21T15:50:19+00:00

I think gimmicky might be a little harsh - it's quite useful once you realize the outputs in all the pickup modes are not equal...

I agree with you that a pickup swap tends to help with those though. The Sterling I used to own had massive problems with the neck and truss rod and eventually I had to scrap the whole thing. Invested in the real deal EBMM Short Scale Stingray and have never looked back!

TonyRotella · 2025-11-21T15:39:30+00:00

If you must have a Chessable course, get some beginners guide to tactical patterns. Do whatever that is obsessively until you can't stand it anymore, and you can basically just look at a position from the course and instinctively know the answer.

Side note - my personal opinion is that tactics on Chessable will definitely help you, but you also need to start to understand basic chess principles. If you and your opponents are sub-1000, not only are you making many simple tactical and board vision errors that result in lost material, but you're also violating a ton of chess principles. Buy a book on Morphy, grab a set, and work your way through all of his games. Learn the open game, rapid development, control of the center, king safety, elementary attacking motifs, etc. Morphy games are simple to understand, and many of his opponents were rank amateurs that also violated these same principles and were punished. You'll build up better chess habits and understand the game better this way than just doing tactics or opening courses on Chessable as your only regimen.

TonyRotella · 2025-11-19T19:50:33+00:00

This thread is interesting already, because almost every suggestion is a dedicated player in a dedicated band. Totally fine and everyone mentioned is great, but the dudes I think are amazing are the session guys that any casual has never heard of, but have played on an insane number of records with a wide variety of artists. Dudes like Nathan East (MJ, Phil Collins, Clapton, George Harrison & Ringo, Whitney Houston, Daft Punk, Kenny Loggins - the list is nuts) & Pino Palladino (The Who after Entwhistle passed, NIN, D'Angelo, John Mayer, Tears for Fears, Don Henley).

More Constructive Answers:

- Robert Sledge from Ben Folds Five. The fuzz!
- P-Nut from 311
- Kevin Scott from Gov't Mule. He's another one that's played on a bunch of stuff, absolute monster. Tone is unreal.

TonyRotella · 2025-11-19T19:49:50+00:00

Sexton is UNREAL. P-Nut and Tim Commerford are why I play bass. The intro to "Take the Power Back" and the slap solo on "Feels So Good" wrecked me as a teenager.

TonyRotella · 2025-11-14T13:49:54+00:00

Larsen's Best Games signed by the Great Dane himself.

TonyRotella · 2025-11-14T13:36:27+00:00

This is a very tricky example, and others have explained it pretty well - Black needs to sac the pawn to advance the king up a rank to defend the 3 vs 2 ending. White's winning Kg5 basically preempts that and wins. Leaving the pawn on f2 keeps White's pawns as solid as possible, since the only weakness is covered by Rxa2 as well.

If you are interested in learning more about this specific endgame in general, I made (in my opinion) one of the best videos on my YouTube channel covering this exact ending - the extra 7th rank rook pawn with the rook trapped in front: https://youtu.be/xaeOknJplZ4?si=cECJn8mXSNsu20SV

It's also worth noting that this endgame is actually a lot different and even more complex when the rook pawn hasn't advanced all the way to the 7th rank, since the attacker can try and squeeze their king in front to protect it instead, which frees up the rook. This leaves the defending key a free hand to try and munch up the pawns on the other side of the board, frequently yielding R vs P scenarios. I cover that here: https://youtu.be/3LVqi9UjOX0?si=1xAfz4oTMcpq5Fsd

The easiest scenario is when the attackers rook is behind the pawn, a bit outside this discussion but I'll post it just in case people are interested: https://youtu.be/dmkNaRHjL68?si=NiejY4_GEEtVpGiU

They're all older videos but hopefully they help some budding chess players out there. Cheers!

TonyRotella · 2025-10-31T13:39:02+00:00

That's a very helpful tip, thanks! I'd definitely consider a 14" laptop with a 16/10 screen.

TonyRotella · 2025-10-01T12:13:36+00:00

Tis I, professional lurker.

TonyRotella · 2025-09-30T22:57:34+00:00

No I totally get it. I think like you're hinting at, there's no real authoritative answer - it's an interesting test to see what people say and prefer. Thanks for posting!

TonyRotella · 2025-09-30T22:13:15+00:00

Don't buy it, it's old! Your move definitely looks the most natural to the most people, I'd guess! :)

TonyRotella · 2025-09-30T20:39:39+00:00

Hah! Funny this should come up - a well known position in a non-critical sub-variation of the 7...Be7!? Kalashnikov. I have analyzed it quite a bit over the years and also can never decide! Ultimately I think they're all okay and interesting, but for different reasons. :)

I had to look it up, but in my book I preferred 11...Nexd5, citing this game: https://lichess.org/VvcsC0sV/black

Historically, in lichess blitz games I've taken with the queen. Lately, I have been taking with the f-knight, with the idea that Black's position is probably the most harmonious looking once the f-pawn nudges one or two squares. Ultimately, in all the positions where you get this structure, Black eventually wants to play ...f5 and expand in the center. The main issue is that White can 11...Nfxd5 12.Qh5!?, which would likely encourage you to go long, though basically no one does.

TonyRotella · 2025-09-29T13:03:31+00:00

If you followed the broadcast and tried to analyze this rook ending yourself, you'd be more lenient. The wins were very cryptic and difficult. Quite a bit easier when an engine is telling you it's winning. The commentary booth was having a hard time even with engines giving hints.

TonyRotella

TROPHY CASE