Chess Improvement Guides

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Read how to choose a chess course for your rating first; the other guides answer the questions that come up around that choice. These are decision guides, not product reviews.

Decide what to buy

• How to choose a chess course for your rating: start from the problem to fix, then check eight things on the seller's page: level range, listed hours, update date, refund terms, free preview, full price, who is selling it and what free material covers the topic.
• Chess coach or course? Cost and fit: a coach if you need to diagnose why you lose, a course if you know what to learn; coaching rates come from listings and self-reports, not averages.
• Best chess books for improvers by rating: books suited to reference and exercises, listed by improvement job from publisher and retailer pages; nobody here has read them, and bands are marked as judgement where publishers give none.

Judge the advice you are reading

• How to spot fake or biased chess course reviews: you usually cannot prove a review is fake, but you can check who gets paid, whether prices are dated and whether the writer shows they used the course; the checks apply to this site too.

Why a guide section and not a ranking

The guides explain how to decide; the rankings and reviews apply the decision to specific products. For ranked picks, see the buying guides; for single sellers, the reviews. Nobody at ChessCourseFinder has taken the courses or read the books discussed, as how we review explains.

Related routes

If you want to start with a band, go to the rating bands hub. If you want to spend nothing first, see free chess training resources. To get a suggestion fast, use the chess course finder.