Chess resources

For playing online, I somewhat prefer Lichess to Chess.com. While chess.com has a lot more high-quality instructional content, Lichess looks and feels much, much better.

For playing computer engines, nothing is better than the open-source engine Leela Chess Zero.

Traditional chess engines are mindless calculators that are guided by hand-coded heuristics. It is difficult to get this sort of engine to make "natural" human novice mistakes. And traditional engines have a characteristic flaw: they simulate novice human play only by inserting obvious blunders into (otherwise) superhuman play. No matter your skill level, it is frustrating to be beaten by something that is pretending to be stupid.

"Leela" does not have the flaws of traditional chess engines, because the process of building her is different than the process of building traditional chess engines. She is an ongoing distributed project, involving the same techniques DeepMind used to built Alpha Zero. Her current strength is already above top human play, but her predecessor network weights are still available, meaning that she can be played at any of her previous strengths. She plays superbly interesting chess every single time, at whatever time length you want, without any of the frustration associated with online cheating.

A thorough guide to installing and configuring Leela can be found here.

An essential piece of (free) software is Lucas Chess. It's a chess multi-tool, and it provides a good interface for solving puzzles, studying games, and using engines (for both play and analysis). It has a clunky user interface, minimal official documentation, but it also has an active user base and developer.

For basic tactical study, the standout resource is Ward Farnsworth's (free) two-volume Predator At the Chessboard.

Here, each of the basic motifs (the double attack, the discovered attack, the pin, the various ways of removing the guard, as well basic checkmates) are explained and illustrated exhaustively; the site reproduces a two-book set that jointly spans over 1,000 pages.

For basic tactical training, I recommend Chesstempo.

The premium membership is affordable ($35/year, or) and provides the ability to adjust one's training regimen in a fine-grained way.

Chess is, until a very high level, mostly a matter of pattern recognition. This is why it is so helpful to commit positions to visual memory in a deliberate way. A number of well-known chess teachers recommend this technique, but it is perhaps most well-known as the "Woodpecker Technique."

I recommend creating a spaced repetition set (with the default technical parameters) that is comprised of every puzzle that has:

a rating at or above 4.5 stars
a length of 3 moves (6 ply) or shorter
a difficulty between 700-1400 "Blitz."

For basic comprehensive study, one widely well-regarded method is the Dutch "Steps method." The program has historically been offered in the form of a series of workbooks, but it is now also available in the form of software.

For more advanced comprehensive study, I recommend Artur Yusupov's comprehensive (ten-book) Chess School series.

One effective way to study these methods is to follow the provided instructions exactly, which is to treat them essentially as workbooks.

My method of using the books is slightly different than Yusupov's. I have every position entered as a Lichess "study," so that every instructional and test position can be analyzed at length (first without an engine, then with one). I follow up the initial instruction and test by using free spaced repetition software (Anki) to memorize all of the test positions. This is easier, faster, more useful, and more fun than it sounds.

Method of study aside, the proper order to proceed through the books is as follows: