Best Chess YouTube Channels for Improvers

Of the channels we list, Hanging Pawns, GothamChess, Chess Vibes, agadmator and PowerPlayChess came up most often across the four public lists we read, and the Saint Louis Chess Club is the one the lists describe as giving long formal lectures. Which one helps you depends on your level and on whether you practise afterwards, so this page reports what those lists say, what we could confirm, and how to judge a channel yourself. Nobody here has watched these channels for this page, and we give no ranking of them.

Where this page mentions a rating, it means the Chess.com rapid scale, approximately; the rating bands overview explains the bands.

Channels that keep coming up

We read four lists: a Chess.com blog updated March 2026, a chess.game article updated May 2026, a Lichess forum post from January 2022 and a Chess.com blog updated September 2021. All four are opinion, none gives a method we could check, and being named by several hobby lists shows familiarity rather than teaching quality. The "may suit" column is our own reading of those descriptions.

We give no subscriber counts, view counts or upload schedules. The figures we saw on third-party pages differ widely and we could not confirm any of them from a source we could read.

Other notes on what we left out. All four lists also name Daniel Naroditsky's videos. News outlets reported that he died in October 2025 (CBS Sports). We do not list him as a source of new videos and could not find the status of his channel in 2026.

A free index most lists skip: Lichess's video library

If you want to pick a video by topic and level rather than by personality, Lichess's video library is the most useful place we found. It says all videos are "free for everyone", that it has "carefully selected" 1,547 videos, and that you can filter by tags. We could not read the tag counts when we looked on 8 November 2026.

The library shows a level on each video, which YouTube channels rarely do. Two limits apply: the selection is Lichess's, with no published criteria that we read, and we did not check how recently videos were added.

Choose by format before you choose a channel

Format tells you more about what you will get than a channel's name does. This is our reading of the list descriptions and conventional coaching advice.

How to judge a channel for your level

None of these tests needs a ranking from us.

1. Look for a stated level. Coaches commonly suggest videos that explain ideas in plain words below 1000, and game-based and concept-based videos above 1500; that is received wisdom, not a measured result. Channels rarely state a rating range, so check by trying one video and asking whether you could explain it afterwards.
2. Check the date. Chess ideas do not age much, but opening theory and tool walkthroughs can.
3. Ask if it is teaching or entertainment. Some videos are great to watch but give you little to practise. A video that leaves you with a position or exercise to try is more useful for study.
4. Notice what is being sold. If a creator also sells a course, the videos may point to it. That is not a reason to avoid them, but it shapes what is free.
5. Watch for rating-gain claims. Treat any promise of a fixed gain as marketing. Our guide to spotting fake or biased reviews covers this.
6. Check the address you are following. A channel name in a list does not guarantee the handle you guess is that person, which is why we link only channels we could confirm.

How to watch so that you learn something

Video alone is the passive end of studying, so make it active. In Roediger and Karpicke (2006), students who had to recall a passage retained it better after days than students who reread it. That study used prose and not chess, so treat the link as a reasonable inference.

A simple method based on that idea:

1. Pause before each critical move and decide what you would play and why.
2. Afterwards, write one sentence on the idea you want to keep.
3. Within a week, try it in a game or find it in Lichess puzzles.

Then budget for it. On a 5-hour chess week using the 35% study share in ChessMood's plan for 1,000-1,500 players, you have 105 minutes of study, and only about 32 of those fall outside tactics (30% of 105). One 30-minute video a week uses all of that. Our 1000 to 1500 study plan shows how the time divides. This is our arithmetic on a seller's split.

By rating, as a starting approach

This is conventional advice, not channel-specific evidence.

• Under about 1000: videos on rules, checkmates and simple tactics, then play. Skip long theory videos.
• About 1000 to 1499: videos that walk through full games with commentary, plus short pieces on a weakness you have identified from your own game review.
• 1500 and up: annotated master games, endgame lessons and structured lecture series. Free channels get thinner on specifics, and a coach or course may add more.

Who should skip YouTube as a main resource

• You need accountability or a plan. Watching without a structure is easy to do and hard to measure.
• You want exercises. Use free Chessable courses or Lichess instead.
• You get most from feedback on your own games. A coach does that, and videos cannot.

The free resources that cover the same ground

Lichess Practice and puzzles cover tactics and endgames with exercises, and the free versus paid page explains where free runs out. More free options are on the free resources hub, including free Udemy courses. To pick a paid course, use how to choose a chess course.