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Plain-English definitions of every chess term — each with a board diagram and links to practice.
How to improve at chess by analyzing your own games — with Morphy's Opera Game and Fischer's Game of the Century replayed move by move on interactive boards.
Glicko-2 explained simply: rating, rating deviation, volatility, and why your puzzle and game ratings move differently.
How to get better at chess — a practical roadmap
Chess improvement is a loop, not a talent: learn one idea, meet it in real games, drill it until it is automatic. The roadmap below walks that loop with the free tools on this site — no account needed, though a free account keeps your puzzle history and ratings.
- Speak the language of chess. Every idea below has a plain-English name — fork, pin, zugzwang, opposition. Skim the chess glossary (each term comes with a board diagram), and come back whenever a new word appears. Start with castling, en passant and promotion — the three rules beginners miss most often.
- Train tactics every day. Most games below club level are decided by tactics: a mate in one or two, a fork, a pinned piece. Solve a few puzzles by theme daily — begin with mate in 1 and forks, then move on to skewers and discovered checks.
White to move: 1.Ra8# — back-rank mate. The king is trapped behind its own pawns; a pattern worth memorizing until you spot it instantly.
- Know the endings that decide real games. You cannot study every endgame, but a handful decide or save most of your points: queen versus king, the square rule, opposition, and the Lucena and Philidor rook endings. Each guide in the endgame library has a diagram and a practice position — start with opposition and key squares and the Lucena position.
- Build a small opening repertoire. Do not memorize long lines: pick one system against 1.e4 and one against 1.d4, and understand what every move is for. Browse the opening encyclopedia by ECO volume — the Italian Game is a natural first opening for White, the Caro-Kann Defense a solid first choice for Black — and check what strong players actually play in the opening explorer.
The Italian Game after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 — the bishop eyes the f7 square, and development comes fast.
- Analyze every serious game you play. Improvement lives in your losses: find the first mistake and understand why the better move worked. The guide learning chess through analysis walks through a famous game move by move, the famous games library shows key moments with engine comments, and in the app every finished game can be analyzed with the built-in engine automatically.