ChessMood Review: Is ChessMood Worth It?

ChessMood is a video course website started by GM Avetik Grigoryan. Their main aim is to provide high-quality chess courses. In this article, we will see a detailed ChessMood review and also whether it is worth or not to purchase a membership.

Disclaimer: This article is not sponsored by ChessMood or any other company. All views stated in this article are personal and fact-checked, and some are opinion based. I also used a pro membership and tried all the features before writing this article. I may get an affiliate commission if you purchase any plan from this article. This is necessary to run the costs and provide you highest quality original fact-checked content.

This is a detailed article with updated pricing plans and with all other recent information.

ChessMood runs on a subscription model. You have to pay a monthly fee to access all content. They offer 2 types of memberships, i.e., Essential plan and pro plan.

The essential plan starts at $59 per month, and the pro plan starts at $89 per month.

Recently, they also got decent funding, and we can expect more and more high-quality content from them. They recently announced the courses by Various chess grandmasters. They also published a course by GM Boris Avrukh, who revealed some grandmaster secrets by doing an in-depth analysis of his 10 best games.

In my opinion, purchasing a ChessMood Pro membership is defiantly worth way too more than purchasing an essential plan.

Their opening courses are in-depth and also tried and tested by Grandmasters. You will also get PGN files to download. They call their opening courses chessmood openings.

Founders of ChessMood

ChessMood is founded by GM Avetik Grigoryan. The main aim of Chessmood is to provide high-quality content created by Grandmasters.

GM Avetik is very passionate about chessmood. Also, he started chessmood by starting a very small community via Facebook groups.

Currently, the chessmood team has more than 10 members, including supporters, creators, editors, etc. GM Gabuzyan Hovhannes also joined chessmood to create courses and conduct webinars, seminars, etc.

On the chessmood website, they have mentioned these Grandmasters in their meet your coaches section – GM Samvel Ter Sahakyan, GM Avetik Grigoryan, GM Gabuzyan Hovhannes, GM Hrant Melkumyan, GM Robert Hovhannisyan, GM Johan Hellsten.

Pricing Plans

ChessMood offers two types of Pricing Plans, Essential and Pro. The essential Plan starts at $59 per month, and the Pro plan starts at $89 per month. You will get a flat 20% off if you sign up from my links.

All the prices are included taxes. There will be no extra amount you need to pay.

Let’s see each plan individually.

Essential Plan

Essential Plan costs $59 per month or $588 per year if you choose a yearly plan. If you sign up through my link, it will cost you $47 per month or $471 per year after a 20% discount.

In this plan, you will get access to all Video Courses, Downloadable PGN, and access to all Quizzes.

Before purchasing the essential plan, I will highly recommend you try at least a 1-month Pro plan. The pro plan is much better than the essential one by paying $30 extra.

The essential plan is all about chess courses and files. Chessmood recommends an essential plan for those who don’t have much time to attend all the streams.

Pro Plan

Pro membership starts at $89 per month or $948 per year. Signing up through my link will cost you $71 per month or $758 per year after a 20% discount.

This membership offers all essential benefits plus access to all streams, webinars, and forums. 

If you purchase a yearly plan, you will get free 1-1 sessions by Grandmasters and a personalized study plan. For 1-1 calls, chessmood assigns a perfect chess coach according to your need.

They also have community features exclusively for pro members, known as the ChessMood forum.

Chessmood pricing seems like an expensive deal on the first site. But let’s see a detailed analysis of it.

Is Chessmood Expensive?

Let’s start with how much a normal chess coach charges for one hour of chess coaching. These figures are average of what we see globally and mostly tend to US pricing.

• 2000-rated chess coach – $20 per hour
• 2200-rated chess coach – $30 per hour
• 2400-rated chess coach – $50 per hour
• 2600-rated chess coach – $100+ per hour

To get better at chess, you need to have at least one session a week or, say, 50 sessions per year. You also need to buy a few courses from websites and chess books. Let’s see the chess coach’s pricing if you take 50 sessions a year.

• 2000-rated chess coach – $1000 per year
• 2200-rated chess coach – $1500 per year
• 2400-rated chess coach – $2500 per year
• 2600-rated chess coach – $5000+ per year

Let’s also add chess books and course costs, assuming that you purchase 2-3 books a year and 2 chess courses to sharpen your opening. It will cost you around $200 extra.

What do we see in this pattern? If you hire a GM-level player and purchase some material, you will spend $3500-7500 per year.

I am not saying that chessmood can replace a private chess trainer. But it’s very close to it. Chessmood will save at least $700-3000 per year, which can be used to play more and more tournaments.

Also, if you have pro membership and you desperately need a few sessions, they have a team of chess coaches who will provide discounts exclusively for chessmood Pro members.

Here is what chessmood can provide, but chess trainers cannot.

• Live classes with 2600+ Grandmasters (8-10 in a month)
• Pro members forum where you can find a playing partner or practice partners.
• Best chess openings suitable for any player between 800-2600

Features of ChessMood

Following are the features of the ChessMood website, which include premium as well as free features. 

Call with Grandmaster (For yearly subscribers)

After purchasing yearly pro chessmood membership. You will get a 1-time call with Grandmaster. It is also a great way to discuss your journey with them, and also they can assist you better in deciding your study plan. 

Usually, if you hire a chess Grandmaster of around 2600, it will cost you anywhere between $125-$300 per hour. Plus, you rarely find any grandmasters who are free for chess coaching.

Video Courses and chessmood openings

This is the most prominent feature ChessMood has. They created a lot of Video Courses for all levels of players. Especially their opening video series is excellent. 

All video courses are suitable for the rating range of 800-260 players. Team ChessMood also plays the same opening lines in their online chess games. 

They also conduct live streams about opening doubt sessions and analysis of games that chessmood members played.

They have also recorded three courses with the name 100 Classical Masterpieces, 100 classical Endgames, and 100 classical attacking games. You will get a ton of practical knowledge if you finish all three courses in a year.

Chessmood also updates courses on a regular basis. Recently, they said that they will add more courses by various well-known grandmasters and authors.

They provide courses in the following categories.

• Rating booster – For those who are looking to improve their rating up to 2000
• Simplified chessmood openings – Suitable for players between 600-1800
• step by step chessmood opening repertoire for white and black – Entire in-depth repertoire for chess players who want to learn concrete opening lines.
• Refutation of Abracadabra openings – Every Gambit variation covered, such as Latvian Gambit, Elephant Gambit, Stafford Gambit, and Colorado Gambit.
• ChessMood Openings in practice – Livestream recording where Grandmasters played ChessMood openings with live commentary.
• Must know classical games – Best suitable chess course series for every chess player from beginner to grandmasters
• Middlegame mastery – Middlegame courses collection targeted to 1000-2400
• Endgame mastery – Middlegame courses collection targeted to 1000-2400
• Inside the Grandmaster’s Mind – A new series where you will find courses by different grandmasters explaining their games and more. Currently, they have published a few courses by top chess grandmasters, including GM Boris Avrukh and GM Noel Studer.

Live streams and webinars

ChessMood also runs live streams and webinars on various topics. 

The topic I most liked was playing against Grandmaster and asking a GM anything. ChessMood organizes this stream and webinar 8-10 times a month.

I have attended live streams and webinars. When I was attending, there were around 16-18 participants in the Zoom call. Most of them are on mute.

The excellent fact about this webinar and seminars is direct contact with Grandmasters. When I was attending, GM Gabuzyan was teaching us and answering all the questions.

Downloadable PGN

This is also a great feature. You can get access to all files which can be opened in any tool. You can quickly build your opening repertoire once you get initial data. 

Community Access – ChessMood Forum

This feature is free for everyone, but there is a separate forum where only pro members can participate. The ChessMood community is very active. Even GM Avetik also replies to some posts. 

Community is a great feature for players who wants to find a playing or practice partner. Also, it becomes very easy to get answers.

ChessMood Blog

Many grandmasters have written high-quality blog posts on the ChessMood blogs section. The best part is it’s free for everyone to read. I highly recommend you read there every blog post. You will learn many things from it.

Success stories of ChessMood

• Dr. Shahinur Haque increased 400 points by only using ChessMood
• Vishnu Warrier, an adult chess improver, won a chess tournament
• Kevin Hall increased 300 rating points in 6 months with a full-time job
• Avinash Ramesh becomes International Master and 2400 from 1933 rating.

How to watch ChessMood videos for Free?

ChessMood has there own youtube channel where you will find many high-quality videos. They are perfect for players between 1000-2000. As mentioned above, they have their own blog, which is free, and you read and take a lot of knowledge from it.

If you want to watch their main content for free, it’s not available anywhere. You have to buy their essential plan or pro plan.

Conclusion – Final ChessMood Review

Long story short, Chessmood is not just a course site. It’s an all-in-one solution for chess players between 800-2400 rated players to improve, learn and enjoy chess.

In last 6 months, I have recommended ChessMood to my students, and they are getting amazing results.

You can consider ChessMood as a youtube content library where you will not distract by any other content.

Chessmood also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.