Remote Chess Academy 3 Steps to 2000 Elo Review

We cannot recommend this course on the evidence available. Its own page lists a three-step programme by GM Igor Smirnov, but states no hours and no outright price, and the title's 2000 comes with no rating system and no outcome data. Before paying anything, work out what is actually holding your rating back; if it is one skill, a single-topic course such as the one in our ChessMood BlunderProof review tells you far more about what you are buying, though it costs more.

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Test depth: Public information only. Nobody at ChessCourseFinder has taken this course. This page is based on the course page on chess-teacher.com (read 8 November 2026) and a TheChessWorld search listing. 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 seller says it contains

The course page on chess-teacher.com, which says Remote Chess Academy runs the site and owns the copyright, lists the title "3 Steps to 2000 ELO" with GM Igor Smirnov and guest coach IM Maximiliano Perez (2451, Argentina). Step 1 is a foundation and identifying roadblocks, and Steps 2 and 3 are more advanced. It lists 5 practical tasks covering 50+ games. The page says it launched on 12 November 2021 and was last updated on 31 July 2025. These are the seller's statements. A course page is the place to confirm the current details.

The page states no hours and no lesson count. A search listing on TheChessWorld's store also credits Angelos Kesaris, a name we did not see on the course page.

Can you still buy it?

Probably, but we could not confirm it. The seller's page was last updated in July 2025 and still presents the offer. A listing on TheChessWorld's store, seen in search results on 8 November 2026, showed $129.00 and marked it Out of Stock; we could not open that page. We did not attempt a purchase, so try the checkout before you plan around this course.

What does "2000" mean here?

The course page does not say. The rating system matters, because numbers are not interchangeable. A search listing describes the goal as becoming a "1st category player", and a search summary equates that with 2000 FIDE. Lichess's FAQ warns against comparing its ratings directly with those of other organisations, partly because the player pools differ. A player chasing 2000 on a Lichess or Chess.com account is aiming at a different target from one chasing 2000 FIDE over the board. Ask which one the course means before you judge whether it fits.

The rating promise

The title implies a rating outcome, and no measured data supports it. We found no figures on how many buyers reach 2000, no starting ratings, and no time frame. A promise built into a title is marketing and not evidence.

Proof would need a group of students with known starting ratings, tracked over time and compared with similar players who did not take the course. The best-known study in this area shows why that is hard. Charness and colleagues (2005) surveyed tournament players and found that serious solo study was the strongest predictor of rating in both samples, but it was a correlational, self-reported survey that cannot show that practice causes rating gains, still less that any one course does. What it does suggest is that time spent on serious work matters, and a course can only be a way of organising that time.

The price puzzle

The seller's page is a launch post from November 2021. It says the course was "already discounted by 50%, saving about $65" and that a combo with "How to Beat Stronger Opponents" was $89, saving $60. Those offers were tied to the launch, so read them as history and not as a current price. The post gives no outright price and names no refund policy, but RCA's separate terms, read on 8 November 2026, say a refund must be requested within 15 calendar days of purchase, apply to an individual product only (not bundled products, so not the combo above), and are given only if the purchaser is not satisfied with the chess content. We do not know whether those terms apply to a purchase made anywhere other than RCA's own site. The post does list a "Lowest price guarantee", which is a price promise and not a refund.

The following figures are calculated from those statements, and none of them is a stated price:

• On the 2021 launch figures, if $65 is 50% of the list price, the list price was about $130 and the discounted price about $65.
• If the $89 combo saves $60, the two courses would otherwise cost about $149 together. On a $65 price for this course, that would put the other course at about $84.
• The $129.00 on TheChessWorld's store is close to the implied list price and about double the implied discounted price, so the two figures cannot both be what you would pay.

Confirm the real figure at checkout, and be wary of any percentage off a list price that is never shown.

What a programme aimed at 2000 should contain

An all-round programme has to work on several skills, and at this level the priorities are a matter of coaching judgement. The list below is conventional advice, set against what the page says.

The page describes steps and tasks rather than chapter titles, so "not stated" means it does not list that topic. It may still be taught inside a step, and without a syllabus nobody can tell from the outside.

The 50+ games deserve attention, as they hide a time cost. Assuming 20 to 30 minutes per game, which is our assumption, 50 games is about 17 to 25 hours of your own work on top of any video. That is not a criticism, since game-based work is what many coaches recommend, but it is a real commitment that the page does not mention.

Do this before you buy any "road to 2000" course

This costs nothing and tells you what to look for.

1. Take your last 20 losses at a time control you care about.
2. For each one, write down the main cause: a tactical miss, a bad opening, a lost endgame, a positional drift or time trouble.
3. If one cause accounts for about half of them, buy for that, or use a free tool for it. A general programme is a weaker fit.
4. If the causes are evenly spread, an all-round programme makes more sense, but it needs to show you a syllabus.

The threshold in step 3 is a rule of thumb and not a research finding.

Who it might suit, and who should skip it

It may suit a player who wants a structured, game-based programme from a titled coach and who accepts a discount-led price and no stated hours. Skip it if you need hours and a syllabus, a refund window longer than RCA's 15 days, or any evidence that the programme moves ratings, or if your own losses point to one clear weakness.

The free route

The diagnostic above is free, and Lichess can do much of the rest. Its puzzle section includes a Puzzle Dashboard and puzzles from your own games, and Lichess studies and practice cover endgames and tactics at no cost. We cannot say how much this overlaps with the course, because the syllabus is not published. What you give up is a coach's order of work and set tasks. The only user comment our search found was a Chess.com forum post, seen as a search snippet only, and it praises Smirnov's YouTube presentation rather than this course.

Better-documented alternatives

ChessMood's pages list hours and prices, though each course covers one topic and all cost more than the implied price here. These are as of 8 November 2026, with per-hour figures calculated from listed time.

ChessMood's pages also say plans start at $79. None of these replaces an all-round programme, so they suit you only if your diagnostic points to that skill.

What the seller's pages do not tell you

• Hours, or how many lessons the three steps contain.
• A stated price, and whether the 50% discount is permanent. The implied discounted price is about $64 below the store listing.
• Which rating system the 2000 refers to.
• Any outcome data behind the title. The 15-day refund terms sit on a separate page and not on this one.