Most players know their rating but not their actual chess profile. A 2300 might calculate like a 2500 in tactical positions, then drop to 2100 when handling strategic imbalances. A 2450 converts technical endgames at 2600 strength but freezes in critical moments, playing more like 2250. GM Alexey Dreev and GM Pier Luigi Basso built 100 Moves to 2700 – The 2026 Edition to expose these hidden discrepancies—turning vague self-assessment into concrete, actionable data about where your chess truly lives.
Labels:
3h 24m PGN Download Interactive Tests
Blohberger's approach addresses the most common struggle in competitive chess: what to do once the opening ends and familiar territory disappears. Rather than offering a collection of tactical motifs or abstract strategic principles, the course teaches systematic thinking through pawn structure analysis, piece improvement, and positional evaluation. The Austrian grandmaster, winner of the Modern Chess Autumn Challenge, previously created a comprehensive treatment of 1.c4 e5 for Black. Now he shifts focus from opening preparation to the middlegame phase where games are truly decided.
Labels:
1h 44m PGN Download Interactive Tests
Multilingual Database:
Inside Your Games – Edition 1 is a premium diagnostic training product built around 15 real games played by members of the Modern Chess Academy and analyzed in depth by GM Ioannis Papaioannou. These are not polished model games chosen for aesthetic value. They are authentic tournament games, containing the typical inaccuracies, wrong plans, and critical decisions that decide games at the board.
The goal of this project is simple but ambitious:
to teach you how to think better in real positions, not how to memorize perfect moves.
Sequence: Inside Your Games »
Labels:
3h 43m PGN Download Interactive Tests
Multilingual Database:
GM Swapnil Dhopade's October Tactical Thursday course examines two interconnected aspects of advanced chess understanding: strategic calculations and positional sacrifices. This four-part study addresses a common gap in player development—the ability to calculate not merely for tactical gain, but to verify the soundness of long-term positional ideas.
Labels:
6h PGN Download Interactive Tests
GM Ioannis Papaioannou's latest Strategy Wednesday course addresses one of chess's most fundamental yet frequently misunderstood strategic concepts: pawn majorities. This four-part examination traces how pawn majority advantages are established in the opening, exploited through the middlegame, and converted in the endgame.
The course synthesizes practical examples from diverse opening systems—the Caro-Kann, Colle System, Nimzo-Indian, Modern Benoni, French Defense, Catalan, and Réti—demonstrating that pawn majority patterns transcend specific repertoires. Each structure presents distinct strategic challenges: when to advance your majority, when restraint proves superior, and how to transition positional advantages into technical wins.
Sequence: From the Opening to the Endgame »
Labels:
6h PGN Download Interactive Tests
There's a paradox at the heart of chess mastery that GM Efstratios Grivas confronts directly in the second part of his exploration on exchanges: the decisions that seem most mechanical—trading piece for piece—are often the most consequential. While beginners learn arithmetic values and apply them rigidly, strong players understand that the real value of pieces fluctuates with every move. Grivas builds his teaching on a deceptively simple principle: "Only exchange pieces for a good reason." This course examines the intricate logic behind when to trade and, perhaps more critically, when to refrain from exchanges.
Labels:
2h 5m PGN Download
The arithmetic is deceptively simple: three points for a bishop, five for a rook, nine for a queen. Yet as GM Efstratios Grivas observes in his latest course, The Art of Exchanges - Part 1, the gap between knowing what pieces are worth and understanding when to trade them represents one of chess's most persistent challenges. His central insight crystallizes the developmental leap all improving players must make: "We will realise that exchanging pieces purposefully can be a very powerful weapon!" This focus on irreversible decisions—the trades that permanently reshape the position—addresses what he identifies as "the hardest ones to make" and those with "the highest impact" on the game's trajectory.
Labels:
2h 14m PGN Download
The Stonewall structure has long divided the chess world. Critics dismiss it as rigid, even passive. Advocates see something deeper: a strategic laboratory where pawn tension, piece coordination, and long-term planning converge into a coherent positional system. GM Evgeny Romanov belongs firmly to the second camp—and his new course, Middlegame Understanding - Stonewall Structures, makes a compelling case for why.
Sequence: Universal Pawn Structures »
Labels:
3h 7m PGN Download Interactive Tests
When Emanuel Lasker wrote that "chess is a fight," he wasn't referring to the board alone. The psychological dimension—managing losses, navigating fatigue, choosing when to press or consolidate—has always separated strong players from champions. Yet while opening theory evolves daily, tournament psychology remains chess's least systematized frontier.
GM José Martínez Alcántara (Jospem) and GM Pier Luigi Basso address this gap with Life of a Tournament Player, a course that dissects competitive reality through the prism of the Fujairah Global Chess Championship 2025—a GM-only event where José scored 6.5/9 and finished sharing 2nd place.
Labels:
5h 19m PGN Download Interactive Tests
Multilingual Database:
Tigran Petrosian, the ninth World Champion, built his reputation on prophylactic mastery—neutralizing opponent ideas before they materialized. Yet even Petrosian understood what many players miss: the strongest defense often involves creating threats of your own. GM Ioannis Papaioannou's Preventing and Creating Counterplay explores this duality, examining how the interplay between suppression and initiative determines the outcome of complex positions.
Labels:
6h PGN Download Interactive Tests