Analyzing master games is an important training method for chess improvement. A lot of aspiring chess improvers ask where to find master games and how should they approach reviewing them. For a full review, check out my latest post on how to analy...
Starting the game with 1. d4 is thought to be a more positional approach than playing 1. e4. It's easier to pick a system after 1. d4 and consistently play similar setups with the white pieces. Two of the most popular systems are the London System...
The newest ChessGoals post is learner series #10, highlighting maxmylnek's 1000+ point rating gain in just over three years. Max agreed to answer some questions about how he studied in the latest ChessGoals blog post: https://chessgoals.com/...
Round 1 is in the books for the 2020 Junior Speed Chess Championship. We saw the higher seed win in all eight of the first round matches. All eight of the SmarterChess predictions sponsored by ChessGoals were correct in picking the higher seed. ...
The Junior Speed Chess Championship (JSCC) is one of my favorite events of the year. We get to watch 16 of the top juniors compete in the same exciting knockout format as the Speed Chess Championship. I have been running stats on speed chess champ...
Today I have published the official ChessGoals Rating Calculator. The rating calculator is based on three input variables: Age Level Hours per week on chess There are two outputs given by the calculator: Expected annual rating gain R...
Rating improvement is a mysterious journey for many chess players. Sometimes stretches we can gain dozens of points, but others we have stagnant ratings for months or even years. As part of the ChessGoals project I created a new report that compar...
Yes I know the title sounds fake, but it's true and I'm excited to share how I pushed my rating to a new all-time high. In this post we will talk a bit about my background in playing chess, my career as a chess coach, and how I was able to break t...
Introduction Can adults that are already at the advanced level (1700+) still expect to improve at chess? I analyzed survey data from over 400 players and asked participants what questions the data could help them answer. One of the most popular t...
Introduction Novice players are categorized as players who have chess.com blitz ratings under 800. They can be any age and range from brand new players to experienced pawn pushers looking to reach the beginner level. In this post we will take a l...
Mastering the endgame does not have to be as complicated as it seems if you follow a systematic approach. The endgame is the most important individual phase in chess because a simple mistake or correct calculation can determine the end result. In ...
Which Factors Predict Rating Gain? Over at chessgoals.com we have been crunching the numbers to help chess players reach master level. Based on a survey of almost 400 players, how they spend their chess time, and how much improvement they have se...
Two months ago I wrote a post titled Descriptive Data which described the chess goals survey statistics. One of the points mentioned in that post was that younger players tend to improve more quickly. It seems discouraging for adults who...
It’s updated and more accurate than ever! We have pulled down a list of players with both chess.com and lichess.org ratings, subset them to only ratings with RD values < 150, and created formulas to convert the ratings. An RD value < 1...
I met Madhur in June of 2019 at the Rochester Open. He entered the event with an established USCF rating of 1034, scored 3/5 in the Under 1600 section, and increased his rating to 1200! Madhur has a passion for chess that’s very obvious when...
GENERAL OVERVIEW How old are you and how long have you been playing chess?I am 24, and I have been playing chess in my town club since September 2008 (so nearly 12 years).How many hours per week do you spend on chess?It depends on the ...
SmithyQ is an adult who improved from 1899 to 2054 in a one year period. He also has a chess improvement blog over at http://smithyq.com/. GENERAL OVERVIEWHow old are you and how long have you been playing chess?I learned chess at 6, got se...
Official Website: https://chessgoals.com (sign-up for email updates!)Chess.com club: https://www.chess.com/club/chess-goals (chat with other learners) Peter is a 39 year old who has gained over 100 points in a year to cross t...
Official Website: https://chessgoals.com (sign-up for email updates!)Chess.com club: https://www.chess.com/club/chess-goals (chat with other learners) Rating comparisons have been updated! For the chess.com and USCF colu...
Official Website: https://chessgoals.com (sign-up for email updates!)Chess.com club: https://www.chess.com/club/chess-goals (chat with other learners) The 5th installment of the learner series features Antoine, a 32 year old who improv...
Chessgoals.com contains cleaned data from November 2018 – present on 384 chess players. This post will summarized the most important variables. The majority of the players were ages 10-50, but we still had quite a few players over age 50. ...
The Learner Series will highlight players that have made significant rating progress over the past few years. The second guest in the series, Paul, is a one of my good friends and a chess student. He has gone from 1200-1750 chess.com blitz over a ...
The ChessGoals.com Learner Series will highlight players that have made significant rating progress over the past few years. The first guest in the series, Jesse, is a good friend of mine and definitely a student of the game. He has gained over 25...
Do you enjoy watching the SCC? Do you like to make predictions on the SCC matches? We've got the club for you. The SCC Prediction Nerds club is a group dedicated to discussing the SCC matches, and logging predictions. Predi...
We have a small group working on a new project called chess goals. https://chessgoals.com/ https://chess.com/club/chess-goals/ Currently, we are up to 250 (edited results table from 51 to 250) survey entries. The numbers are sti...
