# How to get good at Chess

*Note: This is meant for beginner and intermediate players. I am not a chess expert, but I was a chess coach. My rating is around 2000 ELO.*

## The old way
For centuries, the best way to get good at chess was to read chess books, and compete in over the board tournaments. This is still effective, but many find it boring and time-consuming. It's 2023, and we now have a plethora of tools at our disposal to make learning chess more fun, engaging, and rewarding.

## The new way
The world of chess has largely moved online. Internet chess is dominated by two websites, chess.com and lichess.org. Both are fantastic, but Lichess is free and open source, and has effective feature parity, so I am recommending Lichess in this post.

# Part 1: Creating a foundation

The first thing to do is play the interactive chess lessons on https://lichess.org/learn#/.

Start at the beginning, even if you already know how the pieces move, and work through as many as you can (they go quickly).


Next move on to the Fundamentals and Intermediate sections. If you are feeling especially motivated, cap it off with the Advanced section. You'll be pleasantly surprised at how good you are getting already.

Next, it's important to get a guage for how good you are at real chess. Create an account on lichess.org if you do not have one. Immediately switch to dark mode :P On the home screen, you will find this layout:


The center grid is composed of buttons for matchmaking with other human players. The numbers indicate how much time each player starts with, and how much time they gain per move. For example, 5 + 3 means each player starts with 5 minutes per side, and every time they make a move, 3 seconds gets added to their clock. This is called an "increment", and is helpful for not running out of time towards the end of a game.

At this stage, you can jump right into games with real humans, or play against the computer a few times. The point here is to establish a rough ELO rating for yourself - so don't spend too much time on this just yet.

To play against the computer, you can click the button on the right side, which opens up this modal:


Keep the defaults, and click the half black / half white king to start the game. Once you can beat Stockfish level 1, you can move up to level 2, and keep going until you can't win any more. Only try once or twice per level.

When playing humans, your ELO will move up or down depending on wins and losses. The server will try and match you to people who are equal strength, but it may take a few games for your ELO to adjust accordingly. Many people don't realize that you can jump right into playing real humans once you know how the pieces move. **There is always someone worse than you at Chess.** You won't be great until you learn more strategies and tactics, but the next part of this post will help you get there.

**The time controls I recommend are 5+3, 10+5, and 15+10. Playing faster games like bullet does not actually help you improve, but it is fun.**

This should set you up to a point where you feel comfortable playing online. I recommend playing at least a few games a day, which will be part of your learning process, as I will discuss in Part 2.

# Part 2: Learn from the masters

We live in the golden age of chess because there are thousands of hours of videos of super-grandmasters playing chess online. They explain their thought process for every move, and have different series catered towards different experience levels. Here are the ones I recommend the most:

[Chess Fundamentals Playlist](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLl9uuRYQ-6MBwqkmwT42l1fI7Z0bYuwwO) - a 5 video series by IM John Bartholomew that I recommend everyone watch. Even though it is 8 years old, it is timeless. Just read the comments to see how helpful it has been.

[Building Habits](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUjxDD7HNNThftJtE0OIRFRMMFf6AV_69) - an 8 video series by GM Aman Hambleton that brings a fresh perspective to improvement as a beginner. Aman lists out key habits that every chess player must do, and follows them to the T, even though he knows when there are exceptions to the rules.

[Master Class Speedrun](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT1F2nOxLHOefj_z54LNBpnASnIROm43e) - a big series by super-grandmaster and streamer Daniel Naroditsky where he works his way up from beginner to master level chess. He spends a long time analyzing each game after he is finished, which is an incredible habit to build.

[Opening Theory Speedrun](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT1F2nOxLHOc80pNT3XH1xUDyeom46R3X) - another great speedrun by Daniel Naroditsky where he works his way up from beginner to master level chess, this time with an emphasis on openings.

Watching these videos is relaxing and educational for many chess players - a rare combination. It's important to keep playing your own games throughout your chess journey, and analyze them afterwards.

If you really prefer to read instead of watching videos, I recommend [My System](https://www.amazon.com/My-System-Century-Aron-Nimzowitsch/dp/1880673851/) by Aron Nimzowitzch. This book revolutionized chess theory when it came out, and is still relevant today.

In Part 3 I will teach you how to analyze your own games, which is possibly the single most impactful habit to build.

# Part 3: Analyzing your games

Coming soon.

# Part 4: Puzzles

Coming soon.

# Part 5: Openings

Coming soon.