A Call for a Real Beginner Roadmap on Chess.com

I don’t know… I’m disappointed with Chess.com.

As a beginner, I find bits of theory and some exercises here and there, but there's no clear roadmap on how to truly learn.

I know, I should get a coach, but not everyone has that financial option. After paying for a full year of Chess.com, I'm seriously reconsidering whether to renew for another.

There’s A LOT of information, but again, for a beginner, it’s scattered all over the site, and often it’s a mix of advanced and beginner content all in one place.

Many people here say: “Just do theory, puzzles, and play” , but honestly, that’s far too basic. Advanced players know exactly what to follow. But for beginners, the site is poorly structured.

There should be a fully dedicated section for beginners, with curated bots, puzzles, and theory,  designed step by step for people like me. Right now, the platform is just overly informative, but offers no guidance.

This beginner section should allow us to track progress, like the puzzle rating system, and help us advance at our own pace.

I know some advanced players will say “but all that content is already here.” Yes, but the reality is that it’s not organised. So as a beginner, I end up doing a puzzle here, reading a bit of theory there, playing a bot but I’m not really following any clear path.

In the end, if you don’t have a coach and you’re not improving, you start to wonder: “Am I just spinning my wheels?”

I’m seriously questioning whether it’s worth paying for another full year of the same.

This site would be much more attractive and useful with a properly structured beginner section.

Chess.com, your platform is poorly designed for beginners! and many of us are beginners!! We feel lost among so many options on your menu table

Just use lichess. The website sucks but it’s educational at least

Hi ancientconcavenator, thanks for your comment, but what I’m asking for here is a bit different. The issue is that this is a paid site, with some excellent tools, but also a lot of disorganisation especially for beginners. I have no doubt that there are highly skilled chess masters behind this platform, capable of teaching and even guiding players. However they haven’t managed to create a well structured system or an easy-to-follow pathway for beginners. You, as a professional, would know how to teach your job but this site seems more geared towards advanced players or those who’ve been playing chess their whole lives. And as a beginner, the site ends up being disappointing

Whether over the board (OTB) or online, I think beginners would benefit most from a chess club where you can get more interaction with others and able to approach others with questions or more individualized help. A lot of OTB clubs at least have those few players that come every time just to help others out and have fun. I'm sure there are some online clubs here that would have similar players. If not, I'd recommend creating one and then bringing others into that club with the intention of learning together and/or some stronger players there helping the beginners out there (unpaid, obviously). If I was new to chess, I'd be overwhelmed with all the information and content available- I’m glad I learned chess back in the days when you basically only had books, local club(s), and it was fairly straight forward how to learn the game, even if more limited.

I’d be willing to help get a club like that going or join an existing one with that aim, towards helping beginners learn, but one person can’t do it alone, you’d need to get a small group together wanting to make that happen and dedicate some consistent time to it.

Those were the days f8plays2mate ... I never had the chance to learn chess back then.

I truly believe Chess.com can do much more for beginners and I’m quite sure that in the coming years, they will improve in some ways. But they’re going to have to start listening more carefully to forums like this, and to the people who are actually using the platform.

There are so many great ideas here on how to improve the beginner experience. And if they expect people to keep paying over £100 a year they’ll need to offer something more organised maybe a real roadmap and better guidance for beginners.

You can’t just throw a menu at people with “Play” “Puzzles” “Learn” “Watch”, etc. and expect total beginners to know where to start. Most of us are just lost.

There should be a dedicated and complete section for beginners where they can clearly see what steps to follow, track their progress, and access theory, exercises, and games that are genuinely adapted to their level.

C’mon it doesn’t sound too difficult to do!

Thank you for your comment

When you say "theory", what do you mean by that?

Have you looked at the Lessons and Courses in the Learning section? There are quite a few that are aimed at newcomers.

The Learning section also has links for Classrooms and Play Coach. These provide opportunities for newcomers to receive personalized instruction.

i am a retired college professor and I know that different people have different learning styles. What works well for one person may not work for another. You could search the Forums for tips in improving. This question has been asked hundreds of times and there are many hundreds of suggestions—both from other newcomers who say what has helped them and from more established players and coaches. While it may take a while to scroll through these, you are bound to find many helpful suggestions.

Good luck. I hope you stick with chess.

Magipi what I meant is foundational knowledge, basic opening principles, and lessons divided by theme and adjusted to a beginners level, all within a dedicated category for beginners.

On Chess.com I only found a beginner guide made up of 10 videos of about 8 minutes each, and honestly, that’s not enough!

There’s also a library for beginners, but many of the lessons are labeled "Beginner to Mastery" which for a real beginner, is confusing and hard to follow.

There are a lot of lessons on the site, but the way they are presented lacks proper guidance. What's really missing is structure and organisation.

Chess.com should be designed more like a coach that guides you step by step, instead of just sponsoring tournaments and promoting paid services from private coaches.

If you want the "path" then find a live coach

NM mikewier thanks for taking the time to reply.

About the Lessons yes I actually mentioned that earlier in the thread. There are only a few, and they’re not really structured in any clear or progressive way. It feels like a small number of lessons, all scattered rather than a true learning path.

As for Classroom, I honestly find it tedious it’s not very intuitive, and it feels more complicated than it should be for a beginner.

The Play Coach” feature is something I did find a bit more useful. I like that it gives live advice and comments as you play that’s definitely a step in the right direction. But even that tool has several issues. For exampl, it often tells you to move a piece (like a pawn) without really explaining why, and it doesn’t seem to be actively teaching you how to improve your game.

Also when I’ve played against the Coach I’ve ended up reaching ratings way beyond what I could realistically achieve on my own which makes it feel less reliable as a tool for tracking progress.

I do agree with you that different people have different learning styles. But at the same time, if we’re paying for a platform, it should provide more than just a menu and a bunch of forum threads. Otherwise what’s the point of paying for it when we could just Google advice for free?

 

The feeling I get from Chess.com is that it’s much more focused on intermediate and advanced levels, and not nearly enough on beginners. As beginners, we’re left to search around the site, search the forums, and figure things out on our own and it really shouldn’t be like that.

I’m not a chess coach, and I probably never will be, but I’m certain that every coach has a method that works reasonably well for beginners. That’s exactly what I don’t see reflected in Chess.com.

Again, thank you for taking the time to comment. I really appreciate it.

 

I think that what you are asking for is not yet possible. AI is not yet able to provide such personalized instruction.

i think of chess instruction like my college courses. For every hour of course instruction, students are expected to put in three hours of applied work on their own—reading, exercises, projects.

After working on a chess.com lesson, you need to spend several hours trying to apply what you have learned. After that, two students who have taken the same lesson will then need different follow-up work.

Perhaps you could find an OTB club that would give you the opportunity to talk with stronger players about how they think during a game. This is one of the best ways to improve your own play.

MrChatty: I’m actually considering that because Chess.com just doesn’t feel designed for beginners

This choice should not depend on chess.com

I appreciate your perspective NM mikewier but honestly, I don’t think what I’m asking for is that hard to create.Yes maybe AI will help improve things in the future bt even without it why can’t there be a dedicated section just for beginners?

Why does it fall on users like you to explain how chess instruction works, or on us to guess what “homework” we’re supposed to do after a lesson? Why doesn’t the platform itself guide us with that?

There’s a ton of great info right here in the beginners forum. I’m sure any experienced coach could design a solid beginner section for Chess.com one with structured lessons, follow-up exercises, and practical methods that most coaches already use when teaching.

That’s what’s missing here, a clear, complete learning guide for people like me.

Sometimes it feels like they either don’t want to make the effort or they’re avoiding it because there’s this unspoken idea that beginners should just “figure it out on their own.” But that shouldn’t be the case in every field of learning, there are methods and teaching frameworks. So why is there no method at all on Chess.com?

MrChatty: I understand, but I’ve already paid for this platform and it presents itself as the world’s leading chess site! If that’s true, then it should provide proper structure and guidance for beginners. Or at the very least be honest and tell us that this site IS NOT designed for beginners but rather for intermediate and advanced players

Well, ok...

Huh. That’s a mouthful. Oof. Go to the support ai and put your suggestion for chess.com there. Pls don’t continue. At this point you are fighting for no reason. Go set out what you sought to do.

Josh I’ll go to support but this forum matters too. Many beginners are lost here. I wanted to prove I was wrong about Chess.com. I couldn’t

I think it's a good point.
Maybe a road map example for beginners is interesting.

There is no one, single, unified and agreed-upon model for improvement. If only it were that simple...

Having said that, I'd say you definitely have a point about using the site to improve. In defense of chess.com, the interface and the tools they provide are just great. I love the library, the database, the games, and the analytical tools. But you're right - nobody is telling you anything about their utility or what you should be doing with them. It's a case of "you don't know what you don't know, and unless somebody tells you, then how are you supposed to know?"

Unfortunately, I think you're going to find out that there is no website out there that's going to provide you with this road map you seek. I'd say it'd be a mistake to hold chess.com to account for not giving it to you. It'd be nice if they did, but the tools they do provide I think are more than worth the money they charge. The bottom line is, I think, that you're going to find it very difficult to become good at chess in a vacuum. You're going to need to associate yourself with people, with other chess players, and map out your path forward through those interactions. Clubs and coaches are a good starting point for that.

A word to the wise about coaches: they are typically quite expensive. Dan Heisman also has what he calls the "7%" rule, and that is that you only learn about 7% from a teacher and 93% on your own from the work you do independently. This is great news. It means all you really need is that road map. So while you might not be able to afford long-term coaching, you could interview a few coaches and tell them about this study / improvement plan you are looking for. A 2-hour session with one of them could give you an enormous trove of direction on how to proceed. I don't see why a professional coach, even an expensive one, should have any problem helping you out with this. They're getting paid and they certainly must understand that not everyone can afford $500/mo for lessons.

Most U.S. based coaches are going to have a high rate, but there won't be a language barrier so the time will probably be used more efficiently. That said, there are many foreign coaches whose English is either excellent or good enough as to not be an impediment. European coaches, many of them titled or master-level players, especially eastern, can be hired for comparatively low rates.

Another possible alternative is email lessons. You can do further research on this, but one recommendation is Chien. He goes by the chess.com handle "fhunfi." He offers email coaching for $25/mo and has pretty good feedback from what I hear. I haven't had the pleasure myself, but I do know he offers the first month free so there's nothing to lose. He could give you his ideas of a training map over the course of a whole month that you wouldn't have to pay for.

Books are also good, but you have to select appropriate books for your level and learning style. NM Dan Heisman has recommendations on this. Another good thing about Heisman is if you get a lesson with him, he can give you all of his novice nook articles he's written - all of which would be important reading for a beginner. The thing about Dan is that he's been a full time coach for decades. This means he really understands what beginning players need.

Once you have your map, there are many trillions of bytes of free material on the internet. You of course already know this, and you of course are trying to figure out exactly whose stuff to focus on. I'd say avoid the "chesstainment" sites. These are engineered for clicks, likes, and subscribes and they don't have much to do with you getting better. Once you know what your specific topic is that you need to learn and build skills around, try LionChess, John Bartholomew, Igor Smirnov (Remote Chess Academy), and Stjepan Tomic at "hanging pawns" on YouTube. Stay away from the sites where you are just a passive observer. You don't get better by watching other people play chess, no matter how good they are. There's no secret special "sauce" that's going to magically rub off on you if you find just the right Twitch stream. I'm not dissing streams, I just don't find them useful or relevant toward player improvement. They are purely entertainment. I don't think you get better at golf either by watching tournaments on TV.

I'd also recommend trying Artur Yusupov's books. Not everyone likes them, but Vishy Anand thinks they are the greatest course books ever. Artur was at one time, when Kasparov was world champion, the number 3 player in the world! His books encapsulate the Soviet chess training methods into a 10 book set that goes from fairly basic to super hard. Not everyone likes the format because there will be times when you will be feeling quite frustrated. Frustration is just something you're going to have to get comfortable with if you embark on a chess improvement quest. You can try the first volume for free at https://archive.org/details/yusupov-artur-build-up-your-chess-1-the-fundamentals/page/n7/mode/2up?utm_source=chatgpt.com&view=theater

I really hope something in this post resonates with you. Good luck with your chess.