Improvement guides.
Practical, sourced advice on how to actually get better — what to study, in what order, and how to know if it is working.
- Platforms
Chess.com vs Lichess: The Honest Comparison (2026)
Chess.com vs Lichess compared across every feature that matters: game quality, analysis tools, learning content, community, and what you actually get if you pay. Which one should you use?
- Learn
Chess Ratings Explained: What Your Elo Score Actually Means
The Elo rating system was invented by a physics professor in Milwaukee and adopted by FIDE in 1970. Here's how it works, what the numbers actually mean at each level, and why 'Elo' is a surname not an acronym.
- Learn
Chess for Beginners: Everything You Need to Start Playing and Winning
How the pieces move, what checkmate is, the rules beginners get wrong (en passant, castling, promotion), and the first things worth studying once you can play a complete game. No assumed knowledge.
- Coaching
Chess Lessons Online: The Best Coaching and Learning Platforms in 2026
What the best chess learning platforms actually offer, how online coaching compares with self-study, what Chessable and Chess.com get right, and which books and tools accelerate improvement the fastest.
- Learn
Chess Notation: How to Read and Write Algebraic Notation
Algebraic notation is how chess moves are recorded. Every square has a name, every piece has a letter, and every move is one short code. Once you learn it, 20 minutes, you can read any game in any chess book or database ever written.
- Learn
Chess Puzzles for Beginners: How to Practice Tactics the Right Way
Chess puzzles are positions where one side has a winning combination. Thirty focused minutes daily moves most players from 900 to 1200 faster than any other activity. Here's which puzzles to solve, in what order, and how to actually learn from them.
- Learn
Chess Strategy for Beginners: Five Principles That Win Games
Chess strategy is how you make a plan when no immediate tactic is available. Five principles cover what most beginners need: control the center, develop pieces, castle, create a plan, and trade pieces correctly.
- Learn
Chess Study Plan: The Structured Path from 800 to Club Player
A concrete study plan organized by rating band. At 800, you're fixing tactics. At 1200, you're learning endgames. At 1400, you start openings. The sequence is the point. Getting it backwards is the most common reason improvement stalls.
- Learn
Chess Tactics: The Eight Patterns Every Player Must Know
Chess tactics are short combinations that win material or deliver checkmate. Fork, pin, skewer, discovered attack, double check, back-rank mate, removing the defender, zwischenzug. Learn these eight patterns and you'll see them everywhere.
- Learn
How to Become a Chess Grandmaster: The Requirements and the Reality
The Grandmaster title requires a FIDE rating of 2500+ and three norm performances at 2600+ rating against grandmaster-level opposition. In practice, it takes 10+ years of serious study. Here's exactly what the path looks like.
- Learn
How to Actually Improve at Chess: What Works and What Wastes Time
Below 1600 rated, most games are decided by tactical mistakes. Fix tactics first. Then endgames. Then openings. The order matters more than the hours you put in.
- Analysis
India Won Everything in Chess. Here's Why It Happened.
In 2024 and 2025, Indian chess players won the World Chess Championship, double gold at the Chess Olympiad, and the Tata Steel Masters. Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi, and Nihal Sarin are all under 22. This isn't a coincidence. Here's what built them.
- Learn
Pawn Promotion: Rules, When to Underpromotion, and Why It Matters
When a pawn reaches the last rank, it must be promoted to a queen, rook, bishop, or knight. Almost always choose the queen. Here's the rule, when to promote to something else, and why the endgame positions it creates are worth studying.