31 Jan 07
I was just wondering if anyone else has tried this website. I kept seeing ads for it in Chess Life offering a 30 day free trial and since I'm playing a tournament in about 30 days I figured why not give it a shot.
It actually isn't that bad but don't make the same mistake I did. I spent about 20 minutes answering ridiculously simple questions before I noticed that you can click on options and take an advanced placement test.
Anyway, if you want to give it a shot it's www.chessmagnetschool.com
01 Feb 07
Originally posted by chessisvanity... because then you will be unlike chessisvanity
don't be smart.....
The Chess Magnet School is the project of Harlan Lee, if I am not mistaken. He is a long time scholastic chess coach, a FIDE Master, and is a member of the USCF Chess in Education Committee. His teams have repeatedly won state and national championships. He is located in Bellevue (a suburb of Seattle--I'm ducking now because Bellevue natives will attack me for this remark), where the chess community is strong and growing.
The Chess Magnet School allows players everywhere to take advantage of his lessons (I think he has a team of people that create them), and even offers opportunities for chess coaches to enroll entire teams at group rates.
I would expect that the lessons are well designed and would lead to definite improvement. According to the website, they target beginning through intermediate players. In RHP terms that probably means up through 1500 or so, although there are plenty of players above 1500 that could use lessons in some of the fundamentals covered by the Magnet School.