Tactic Ninja is ChessMood's large tactics course, listed at 19h 26m and 800-2200, and on paper it makes most sense as part of a ChessMood plan you would use anyway rather than as a $600 standalone purchase. It looks strong at teaching motifs one at a time and thin on mixed practice, with only 20 of its 2,475 puzzles in the Mixed Tactics section. If tactics are your only goal, a free puzzle routine or a cheaper puzzle-set course is the better first spend.
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Test depth: Public information only. Nobody at ChessCourseFinder has taken this course. This page is based on published documentation, pricing and reports, read on 8 November 2026. How we review explains the limits.
This review has no star score. Fit, price and limits are set out instead, and how reviews are made is public.
What the seller says is in it
ChessMood's course page is titled "Tactic Ninja - Sharpen Your Tactical Arsenal with a Grandmaster", with GM Avetik Grigoryan named as the coach. It lists 19h 26m of video, 29 sections, 383 episodes and 2,475 puzzles, at a stated range of 800-2200 with no rating system named.
The seller says the course took six months with five coaches, teaches "20 tactical motifs" section by section, and ends with "a simple technique to notice tactics in a real game". It also opens with a story about an editor rated 1,200 on Chess.com gaining 100 points in two weeks from watching the videos. That is an unverifiable anecdote from the seller, and we give it no weight.
No publication or update date is shown. The oldest dated student review embedded on the page is from 23 October 2021, so the course is at least that old.
Where the 2,475 puzzles are
Almost all of the practice sits inside sections that already tell you which motif to look for. The groupings below are ours; the counts are ChessMood's, and the shares are calculated from them. Introduction and Epilogue (19m 30s, no puzzles) are left out.
| Group | Sections | Puzzles | Share of puzzles | Listed video |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core motifs | Pin, Skewer, Fork, Discovered Attack, Double Attack, Discovered Check, Double Check | 940 | 38.0% | 5h 16m |
| Removing or luring defenders | Annihilation, Deflection, Distraction, Decoy / Attraction, Interference, Blocking, Clearance, Destroying | 845 | 34.1% | 5h 42m |
| In-between moves and rarer ideas | X-Ray, Windmill, Intermediate Moves, Counter-Threats, Throwing a Bomb, Promotion, Underpromotion | 607 | 24.5% | 4h 45m |
| Spotting tactics in a game | Counter-Tactics, How to Notice Tactics, The Three Key Questions, How to Notice Hidden Tactics, Mixed Tactics | 83 | 3.4% | 3h 24m |
The last row is the finding that matters. Those five sections take about 17% of the listed video but only 3.4% of the puzzles, and the Mixed Tactics section itself has 20. A common coaching view is that themed puzzles are easier because the section title gives the idea away, while mixed sets are closer to a real game, where nobody tells you a tactic exists. That is received wisdom rather than a measured result, but if you accept it, plan to add mixed puzzles from somewhere else.
Syllabus check
A tactics course for this range should teach the basic motifs first, cover the common mating patterns, practise recognition in unlabelled positions, and teach you to defend. Here is how the listing compares.
| What the topic needs | What the page lists | Our reading |
|---|---|---|
| Basic motifs before rare ones | Pin, Skewer and Fork come first, with 452 puzzles between them | Well covered, in a sensible order |
| Back-rank and common mates | No section. Lessons include "X-Ray and Back rank mate" (4m 38s), "Interference and back rank" (7m 21s) and "Smothered Mate and Pin" (4m 47s) | Touched within motifs. ChessMood sells mating patterns separately (below) |
| Recognising tactics in games | How to Notice Tactics, The Three Key Questions, How to Notice Hidden Tactics, 1h 52m in total with 48 puzzles | Named and given real video time, but little practice |
| Mixed practice | Mixed Tactics, 12 episodes, 49m 54s, 20 puzzles | Thin for a course this size |
| Defending against tactics | Counter-Threats (109 puzzles), Counter-Tactics (15) | Present, which many puzzle sets lack |
| Calculation | No section is titled for it | Look elsewhere: see calculation courses |
| Repeating missed puzzles | Not described | Unknown; check this in the free section |
On mates: Mating Matador, a separate ChessMood course, lists 37 patterns, 5h 48m, 556 puzzles and $350 alone at a stated 1200-2200, and says to watch Tactic Ninja first. If mating patterns are a known weakness, Tactic Ninja alone will not be the whole answer.
How long it really takes
Plan on roughly three to five months at five hours a week, not a few weeks. Video is the smaller part of the work. These are our assumptions applied to listed figures:
- Video: 19h 26m, or 19.43 hours.
- Puzzles: 2,475 at one minute each is 41.25 hours; at two minutes each it is 82.5 hours.
- Total: about 61 to 102 hours.
- At five hours a week: about 12 to 20 weeks.
Either way, it means a trial period will not get you through it. ChessMood's refund policy gives 30 days from the first payment on a first subscription. At five hours a week, 30 days is about 21 hours, or roughly 21% to 35% of the estimate above. Use that window to judge the teaching and the puzzle interface, not to finish the course.
Price and sale pattern
The course page shows $600 to buy the course alone, as of 8 November 2026. The page shows a "$" sign without naming a currency. We saw no sale price and have no price history, so we cannot say whether discounts recur. Membership prices and refund terms are on our ChessMood pricing page, which we do not repeat here.
Calculated from listed figures: $600 over 19.43 hours is about $31 per listed video hour, and $600 over 2,475 puzzles is about $0.24 per puzzle. Listed hours are not study time, as the section above shows. $600 is the highest single-course price of the ChessMood course pages we read that day.
Who it suits
It suits a player in or near the seller's stated range who wants one grandmaster's structured sequence through the motifs, who likes video explanations before solving, and who already plans to use a ChessMood subscription. Our ChessMood review covers the wider library.
The top of the range is less clear. The free introduction includes a lesson titled "Introduction for 2000-2500 players", even though the page says 800-2200. And one student review from May 2025, by someone giving their over-the-board rating as about 1800, says they found it "a bit easy" and asked whether to carry on. That is one comment, but if you are above roughly 1800, try the free section before assuming it stretches you.
Who should skip it
- You want to pay once for tactics only. $600 is a lot to pay for a course that is not organised around mixed solving.
- You mostly need volume and repetition. The Woodpecker Method on Chessable is built on repeating one set, with 1,128 puzzles. As of 8 November 2026 its Chessable page showed the base course at $29.99 (struck-through list price $39.99), or about 2.7 cents a puzzle at the sale price and 3.5 cents at list (calculated). The base course excludes most of the video; the version with video showed $99.98 (list $199.98). Be aware that it is demanding. The Next Level Chess blog recommends the book for players of 1800 FIDE or more, though that is one author's opinion, and the same post discloses an affiliate link to ChessMood.
- Your losses come from rushed decisions more than missed patterns. See the BlunderProof review.
The free resource that covers similar ground
Lichess is free and covers both the motif drilling and the mixed practice. Its puzzle trainer offers themed and mixed sets (we could not re-open the themes page to check current counts). Lichess Practice has short interactive lessons on the pin, skewer, fork, discovered attacks, double check, deflection, attraction, interference and clearance. Our guide to Lichess studies and practice explains where to start.
A simple way to find out whether you need the course: solve 50 mixed puzzles and write down why you missed each one you got wrong. If you had not met the motif, a course that teaches motifs will help. If you knew it but did not look for it, more explanation is unlikely to be the fix. That is our suggestion, not a tested method. What you give up by staying free is a sequenced, explained course taught by a named grandmaster.
The better-documented alternative
For puzzle volume per dollar, the Woodpecker page lists its counts and price openly. For other options by price and level, see the best chess tactics courses and the Chessable vs ChessMood comparison.
What the seller's pages do not tell you
- The free preview shows one motif only. The page unlocks 16 lessons and 138 puzzles: the four Introduction episodes and the whole Pin section. Calculated, 138 of 2,475 puzzles is about 5.6%. Use the "Instructions" lesson and the Pin section to check how puzzles are marked and repeated.
- How missed puzzles are handled. The text does not describe scoring or review. Student comments on the page raise practical questions: one from September 2023 asks how to see answers to quiz questions they got wrong, one from September 2024 says alternative moves sometimes affect their course rating, and one from September 2025 asks whether puzzles can be exported as PGN. These are unverified comments, but they are worth checking.
- How critical the reviews are. Of the 365 student reviews embedded on the page, 356 give five stars and nine give four, with none lower. They are posted on ChessMood's own site, and rating gains mentioned in them are anecdotes.
- No update date, and no named rating system behind 800-2200.
- Standalone access length and per-course refund terms were not on the page. The only refund terms we saw are membership-level.
Original test pending
We have not taken Tactic Ninja. A real test would record how much of the listed 19h 26m and 2,475 puzzles is available, how long the puzzles take, whether the mixed sections are enough to carry the motifs over into games, how puzzles are marked and repeated, whether the course stretches a player near 2000, and when the material was last updated. Until then this page makes no claim about learning outcomes.