Why Chess.com Is failing for Beginners (And How It Could Improve)

ionalionova. If you're a coach then you surely know more about training than I do. Your theory about mental overload might make sense, but my question remains ..why isn’t that explained anywhere? Why are beginners treated like they should just “figure it out” and come back once they’ve reached intermediate level? Honestly, I don’t think that’s reasanoble. I'm also pretty sure you give your students exercises and a teaching roadmap based on their level. I doubt you just tell them “go figure it out” and wait for them to survive the overload phase

Josh I’m not arguing with what you’re saying I know this could be one way to learn, ovbiously not need to pay 1 year of Chess.com. But are you saying that beginners don’t need a coach at all? Is the idea that chess academies just tell the beginners: “Research until you reach 1000 and combine what you find in all the videos” (like the high-volume approach ionalionova mentioned earlier) and that’s it? No structure, no guide no real teaching? Just “See you in a year”?

I understand ionalionova but that’s exactly what I feel is missing on this website… structure and a clear method, especially for beginners.

I know automating a full teaching system is complex but Chess.com already has tools moving in that direction like the Coach, the puzzle islands and challenges. The technology is there, but the platform doesn’t seem truly focused on the beginner experience.

As a beginner, I see gaps everywhere. The site feels overwhelming, and I’ve had to create my own roadmap just to make progress. It shouldn’t be like this especially for paying users.

And yes, coaching is important, but not everyone can afford it. Honestly, I sometimes think I should have spent the money on a coach instead of Chess.com.

It's good that you made an improvement plan. In my experience, most beginners don't do that. I mentioned in your other forum post that free coaches do exist. And there are a lot of resources on youtube for chess improvement at all levels. But I guess none of that addresses your topic.

It's probably a question of investment from chess.com's perspective. Many (not all) beginners are looking for instant gratification and even if there are resources available - that means studying and they won't do it. That being said, some of the things they could do wouldn't involve a ton of time. Maybe they could make a beginners landing page and overhaul that aspect - have ten essential lessons or something.

Thank you all for your response. First of all I want to clarify that everything I will express here is from the perspective of a beginner. I don't have any expertise in teaching chess, but from my position I can share insights based on my personal experience navigating your webste. Hopefully, those of u with far more knowledge of chess can use this feedback to better guide those of us who are just getting started and, in turn, improve user satisfaction. From what I’ve seen so far the site seems heavily tailored toward intermediate and advanced players. It does not meet basic didactic standards for beginners.

There’s a lot I could mention, but I’ll try to be brief As a beginner, I often feel lost when using the site. There should be a dedicated, complete section for beginners, with clear guidance, a learning roadmap, and tips on how to navigate the large number of available tools. There should be puzzles, bots, and lessons designed exclusively for beginners. In that section, beginners should receive coach-like guidance on what to do each week: How many exercises? What kind? Should I play games? Against bots? Study openings? Do puzzles? Focus on strategy? And how much of each? Is there any way to track our progress? A notebook tool or checklist would be extremely helpful. Right now, there’s too much frustration we feel like we’re building our own plans without any real support from the platform.

My perception as a beginner is that, for someone like Magnus Carlsen, this site must be a pleasure to use. But for us beginners, it’s easy to get lost. It often feels like the platform expects us to "figure it out" by reading forums and that’s not right.

Now, I want to mention some positives. The Game Review tool is excellent the best feature on the site under my opinion. The Coach is also a great concept and a step in the right direction. However, it’s still too basic. The advices are inconsistent, and sometimes there is no advice at all. For beginners, the advice should be broader, offering a more general understanding of positions and possibilities not just commentary on one move. Ideally, the Coach should also be connected to the Insights section to offer personalised feedback based on each player’s weaknesses and strengths. I know this might be difficult to implement, but with the advancements in AI, these kinds of improvements are possible and worthwhile.

Unfortunately, I’ve also come across many negative aspects. Starting with the puzzles while I enjoy them and find the interface easy to use, they lack structure. The custom puzzles tool is great, but it took me 5 months to discover it because it’s buried deep in the site. Even then, the categories are too broad. As a beginner, I don’t know which ones to focus on, or how many I should do per week. This is the kind of basic coaching guidance that I was saying it’s missing.

Some features are simply useless for beginners:

• Leaderboard and Blogs are too advanced.
• The Courses section, surprisingly the second option under “Learn”, includes mostly paid content and very little aimed at true beginners.
• The Coaches tab feels like pure advertising, which makes me wonder why I’m paying for Chess.com in the first place.
• The Daily Puzzle is a joke for beginners … I’ve never been able to solve one!
• Tournaments … are there really any for beginners? Almost all I’ve seen are for players over 1000.
• The Classroom feature is confusing.. I still don’t understand how it works or what it’s for.
• Puzzle Battle pits you against stronger players with no beginner-only mode.
• Openings is a useful section, but again too vast and unstructured. Should I watch every 30minute video? Do I need to memorise them all? There’s no guidance.
• The Lessons section is both good and bad. The “Guide” part is excellent, but extremely limited. Only 6 short videos are dedicated to beginners!
• The Insights section is helpful, but mostly for coaches. As a beginner, I find it hard to understand. Again, this is where it could be integrated with the Coach for a more guided experience.

I hope this gives you a clearer picture of how poorly the platform is structured for beginners. I know we make up a large part of your user base, and I understand that the site is always evolving. I just hope they start listening more closely to the voices of beginners.

Thank you.

Ionalionova the ascending video series you mentioned is exactly what I was referring to earlier on the guide section and yes, there are very few of them (only 6 for beginners!). When compared to the countless lesson videos aimed at intermediate and advanced players it’s a very tiny fraction. If I were to make a rough % map, the beginner-level content wouldn’t even reach 10% of the total material available on the site. I actually went through those videos months ago and did them again and the gap is still huge. Once again it just shows how little interest chess.com seems to have in truly supporting beginners

An update: I contacted the Support section. It turns out it was an AI assistant. After repeatedly asking to speak with a real person, they told me they would connect me with someone named Mia who they said it was a real person. I wrote a long message to her only to later realise she was also AI.

What a shame chess.com!! You clearly have no real interest in listening

You've brilliantly articulated a very common and valid frustration that I see a lot with my own students. The "library vs. school" analogy is perfect; having a vast amount of resources is useless without a structured curriculum to follow. Creating that personalized roadmap you're describing is precisely the gap a coach helps to fill, turning that overwhelming library into a manageable, step-by-step course tailored to your specific weaknesses.

Hey OP,

About puzzles. I'd recommend lichess - sorry chess.com. I love this website for so many things, but puzzles are not anywhere up to par with the competition. Lichess has free puzzles, and you can organize them by themes. So let's say you play a lot of the Italian game - e4/e5 openings. You can select that as a theme, and then you will only be working on puzzles that you'd actually see in one of your games.

I'd recommend doing at least 30 minutes of chess puzzles per day. Don't expect instant results in your game. It's going to take some time for your brain to process the tactics you are learning.

This didn't happen. Making things up for effect, in this case to disparage chess.com, is a great way to lose credibility.

As you've admitted elsewhere, 'Chessica' passed the conversation on to a human Support agent, Mia. You then presented Mia with a long essay about what you think is wrong with the platform and how it could be improved, misunderstanding the purpose of chess.com Support (join Beta and make your pitch there). She thanked you and promised she'd pass it along to developers.

If you haven't learned the basics, there is no point in moving on to things that are more complicated.

And it's not a contest. Content providers provide what's in demand.

They are constantly working to improve the platform, but they do not have time to listen to the individual suggestions and complaints of millions of users.

puzzles are the answer the the whole problem here. puzzles start at an entry level, forcing u to think and through discipline and time, you get better. there is no learning curve, because the puzzles adapt to your skill.

Why bother, it'd just be mostly bots and smurfs. Honestly playing online chess on CC as a beginner is one of the worst, most hostile, toxic, gaslighting-type experiences I've had in life. It's exactly like trying to play any crap video game online with abusive sweaties and people pretending to be low-tier to get ego boost or being unfairly advantaged in other ways. 100% nonsense. When matchmaking works you feel like you're playing against equals most of the time, not 50/50 "this player is making random moves and not even trying" and "this person is crushing me (possibly and often after starting to lose) and I'm not even in the game". Exactly what you expect from online gaming.

total baloney

Puzzles are not the answer. My rating went from 900 puzzles to 2200 on lichess and I can't break 300 blitz here and my rapid rating is also garbage and never changes. I don't even care anymore, this website has made me despise chess.