Chess.com University Chess 012: Strategy and Tactics for 1200-1500 Review

Treat Chess 012 as a historical listing and not as something you can buy. The only sales details we found date from 2014, and on 8 November 2026 the current Chess University product list showed four courses, none of them Chess 012. This page records what the old listing promised and how to cover the same ground today; for the provider's status, see our Chess.com University review.

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Test depth: Public information only. Nobody at ChessCourseFinder has taken this course. This page is based on a Chess.com article last updated on 1 November 2014 and on the current course site as read on 8 November 2026. How we review explains the limits.

This review has no star score. Fit, price and limits are set out instead, and how reviews are made is public.

What the 2014 listing says

The Chess.com article, last updated 1 November 2014, names the course "Chess 012: Strategy and Tactics for 1200-1500 ELO Players". It says the course was designed and taught by Kairav Joshi (username GeniusKJ), who is named there as Chess.com University President, that only 10-15% of instruction is live, and that courses are sold as independent study with recorded lectures. The listing gave the price as $87.00 and described:

• 4 written lectures and over 5.5 hours of recorded video
• a 30-day study schedule (a 30-page PDF)
• 4 assignments with optional feedback, and a final exam
• Jeremy Silman's "Amateur's Mind" (2nd edition) as a required textbook, bought separately

It said a Chess.com Diamond membership was required to fully access the material and took payment by PayPal, or by mailed check or money order after messaging GeniusKJ for the address. No refund terms were stated. These are 2014 statements, twelve years old at the time of writing, and they may no longer describe anything on offer. The rating scale is given only as "ELO", with no organisation or site named.

Chess.com announcements of the class, including one by GeniusKJ, as shown in search listings on 8 November 2026 (we could not open the pages directly), describe a four-week first run from about July 2013 and mention calculation, evaluation and planning, with emphasis on analysing forcing moves. The same 2014 article lists sibling classes on openings (Chess 013) and endgames (Chess 014), which suggests those topics sat outside Chess 012.

Is it available now?

Nothing we could read shows Chess 012 on sale. The current product list, read on 8 November 2026, reported "4 products found":

The site's Strategy and Positional Play category showed "No products found" the same day. We cannot say whether Chess 012 was withdrawn, renamed or kept off the public list, and an unlisted course cannot be ruled out. The site makes no statement about any relationship with Chess.com, and the names differ between sources ("Chess.com University" in the 2014 article, "Chess University" on the current site). We have no way to buy this course to point you to, and you should not send money for anything under the Chess 012 name without written confirmation of what you will receive.

Syllabus check for a 1200-1500 player

The strategy-plus-tactics pairing is a conventional match for this range, but the listing cannot be checked against one. The 2014 article gives no lecture titles. The table sets what coaches commonly expect at this level, which is received wisdom rather than a measured standard, against what we could read.

The one student account we found, a 2013 Chess.com blog by Chess4Him, is written by a class participant, gives no syllabus and no criticism, and is not an independent review.

The 2014 numbers, read as history

The listing's figures are useful only for judging what the class asked of a student. Calculated from those figures, $87 for over 5.5 hours is less than $16 per recorded hour. Spread over the 30-day schedule, 5.5 hours is about 11 minutes of video a day, and four assignments is roughly one a week, so most of the month was meant to go on the textbook and the assignments rather than on watching. The Diamond membership and textbook were extra. None of this is a current price or a current requirement.

Who it would have suited, and who should skip it

On the 2014 description, it was built for a player rated 1200-1500 who wanted one month of structured study around a classic book, with someone available to mark the work. Today everyone should skip it unless the school confirms in writing that it still exists. That applies with extra force if you want refund terms, a dated syllabus or material newer than the 2014 listing.

Doing the same job for free

You can rebuild the shape of the class from free tools. Lichess Practice lists a Fundamental tactics section (The Pin, The Skewer, The Fork, Discovered Attacks, Double Check, Overloaded Pieces, Zwischenzug, X-Ray), and our page on Lichess studies and practice explains how to use it. One way to spread those eight sections across the same 30 days follows. It is a suggestion in line with common coaching advice, and we make no claim about results.

1. Week 1: The Pin, The Skewer and The Fork. Play two slow games and find one missed tactic in each.
2. Week 2: Discovered Attacks, Double Check and Overloaded Pieces. Write your candidate forcing moves down before checking them with an engine.
3. Week 3: Zwischenzug and X-Ray, then a review of any section you failed.
4. Week 4: Annotate your own four most recent slow games, naming the plan you chose and the one your opponent's weaknesses called for.

"The Amateur's Mind" is a book, not a course, and it was the listing's text for the strategy half. Lichess does not replace it, or the marked assignments.

Better-documented alternatives

The options below can be checked today, but they cover only part of what Chess 012 promised. Our Tactic Ninja and BlunderProof reviews cover ChessMood courses with current prices and hours on pages we could read, and both lean towards tactics and blunder control more than strategy. For the wider field, see the best chess tactics courses and our guidance for 1000-1400 rated players.

What the seller's pages do not tell you

• Whether Chess 012 can be bought today, and at what price. The public product list we read does not include it.
• Lecture titles, a refund route and the date of the material.
• Whether the course still exists under another name. The provider review covers what the school says about its Chess.com history.