Announcing the Winners of the 2024 Chessable Awards!
Awards season is here! Move over Grammys, it’s time for the Chessable Awards.
The contest was closer than ever, with thousands of votes cast and some categories being decided by just a handful of votes.
This year, we’re featuring 15 categories. So without further ado, here are the Winners of the 2024 Chessable Awards:
Author of the Year - Can Kabadayi
Can Kabadayi is a cognitive scientist from Sweden. His courses use his background in education to explore topics that often aren’t covered in other material. His Art of… series takes a deeper dive into the ideas of Exchanging, Awakening, and Burying pieces. The Chess Elevator is a handbook to improving beyond 1200 and a common theme in the reviews is “I wish I had this course sooner”.
Kabadayi takes an approach to chess improvement that shows real results, with hundreds of glowing reviews from his students. That’s why he’s our author of the year. Congratulations, Can!
Chessable Course of the Year - The Woodpecker Method 2: Positional Play
The famous Woodpecker Method has long been regarded as one of the best ways to supercharge your tactical skills. But last year, GM Axel Smith published the sequel and it’s proving a great way to hone your strategic skills too.
Best New Author - Peter Leko
Best Strategy Course - Super Grandmaster Strategy: Leko’s Ruy Lopez
The name “Peter Leko”, the 2004 World Championship Challenger, shouldn’t be new to anyone - but in 2024 he published his first-ever Chessable course. Leko’s decades as an elite player made him one of the world’s leading experts on the Ruy Lopez, with both colors. Super Grandmaster Strategy: Leko’s Ruy Lopez is the product of his 30 years at the top. After mostly retiring from competitive play, he holds nothing back in a 30+ hour masterclass on this timeless opening.
Best Presenter - Christof Sielecki
Christof Sielecki has been publishing Chessable courses since 2018. His years of experience have helped him develop into a presenter who can explain difficult concepts in a way that anyone can understand. It’s easy to follow Christof’s explanations, whether he’s breaking down a Lifetime Repertoire like the Triangle Slav, or if he’s showing off his famous Keep It Simple series. Christof Sielecki makes chess easy to understand - or at least he makes you feel like it is!
Best Author Support - Kamil Plichta
Kamil wins Best Author Support again this year, adding to his accolades from 2021 and 2023.It’s no coincidence that his students keep voting him as one of the most supportive authors. Kamil diligently maintains his courses and actively replies to questions. He’s deeply invested in his students getting better at chess, with regular updates and even whole new chapters added to his courses.
And while Kamil is there to support you - he’s no friend to your opponents. He has produced some of the most aggressive attacking repertoires on the website.
Best Opening Course for White - Gustafsson’s Aggressive 1.e4
GM Jan Gustafsson teamed up with CM Vjekoslav Nemec to create the ultimate attacking guide for club players and beyond. The repertoire combines top-level theory with a desire to destroy your opponents completely - giving you a repertoire that holds up at a level, is guaranteed to bring you wins and maybe best of all… it’s a lot of fun to play!
Best Opening Course for Black - Lifetime Repertoires: Giri’s Grünfeld
Anish Giri is one of the world’s leading experts on the Grünfeld. This concise repertoire gives you a rock-solid Black repertoire in under 400 variations. Giri’s opening creativity shines through, as he recommends novelties and fresh ideas throughout the course.
Best Tactics and Calculation Course - The Shankland Method: Strategic Calculation
The Shankland Method is, unsurprisingly, the method that Sam Shankland uses in his own games. He credits it as the main way he beats strong players and the 2018 US Champion does that regularly.
Best Print Adaptation - Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide
Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide by Mauricio Flores Ríos was first published in 2015 and quickly became one of the definitive guides to pawn structures. Last year, we gave it a huge revamp - adding hundreds of new puzzles, updating the analysis with the latest engines and adding over 30 hours of video by GM Peter Heine Nielsen.
Best Endgame Course - Endgame Labyrinths
GM Jacob Aagaard and Steffen Nielsen (2022 World Champion of Chess Composition) created this comprehensive guide of 1,002 endgame studies that will take good players and make them great players. The Quality Chess book aims to give you studies that are possible to understand and solve, even if they’re difficult.
Best Beginner Course - Total Board Vision for Beginners
GM Sam Shankland helps beginner players develop one of the most important skills in chess - being able to see all of the pieces and what they’re doing. Total Board Vision helps take you from the “oh, I didn’t even see that” and far beyond.
Best Community Course - The Complete Scotch Gambit
The Complete Scotch Gambit illustrates what’s best about the Chessable community. With over 500,000 words of high quality instruction, it’s a complete guide to the Scotch that can last you a lifetime. And it’s backed up by over 500 puzzles, 200 reference games and multiple Quickstarter Guides!
Spanish Course of the Year - Fundamentos del Ajedrez: Desarrolo
This year’s Spanish Course of the Year was a video adaptation by FM Luis Fernández Siles of IM Andras Toth's beloved Chess Principles Reloaded: Development. Andras Toth’s popular CPR series is well known to English speakers and it has now gone global. Luisón proved to be the perfect presenter for this material, demonstrating a mix of instructiveness, entertainment and passion for chess.
German Course of the Year - Semi-Tarrasch & Co - Prinzipiell gegen 1.d4
WGM Josefine Heinemann’s second Chessable course provides students with a complete repertoire against 1.d4. Josefine not only presents different approaches within the Semi-Tarrasch, the heart of the course, but also covers all other openings that can arise after 1.d4, such as the Catalan, London, or Trompowsky.
Congratulations to all of the winners! Although we could only have one winner in each category, the dozens of courses that were nominated are also on sale now. So if you’re looking for a bargain and need one of the best courses of 2024 - head to the sale!
