Karel van Delft is a prominent figure in Dutch chess education, known for blending chess expertise with psychology and pedagogy. As a journalist, author, and the founder of the Apeldoorn Chess Academy (Schaakacademie Apeldoorn), he has spent decades exploring how players think, learn and grow. He has coached hundreds of students (including future titled players) […]

Tomorrow, July 20th, is International Chess Day.  It is a special day. Some people even say that starting a new chess quest on this day protects you from losing rating. To celebrate properly, we’ve put over 350 courses on sale, including major releases! This is one of our largest sales of the year — don’t miss it! Here are some […]

Efstratios Grivas was 13 years old when he learned to play chess. A few weeks later, he entered his first competition, a round-robin youth tournament at the Kallithea Chess Club.  Thirteen games later, he had suffered thirteen crushing defeats. Young Grivas’ blunders earned him the nickname of “Friendliest Opponent”, a tongue-in-cheek honor that spoke about […]

Level up every area of your chess game this week! From bolder new openings for Black to mental tools that turn setbacks to rating points — and even a Q&A with Grandmaster Maurice Ashley — we’ve got you covered. Let’s start with our freshest, newest repertoires for Black: Kushager’s Killer Repertoire for Black Against 1.c4, […]

In June we invited our Chessable community to take part in a challenge: maintain a study streak of at least five days between June 10 and 18. The prize: a raffle ticket to win any video course in Chessable’s catalog. And you showed up in full force. Over 900 unique entries poured in from all […]

This guest post has been written by Alan-Safar Ramoutar, an International Master and Chessable Author from Trinidad and Tobago. Have you ever wondered what separates the greatest chess players in history from the rest? It’s not just their flawless execution of openings or their impeccable endgame skills. It’s their ability to tame the most challenging […]

2 weeks go by since our last roundup newsletter, and Chessable comes out with seven newcourses!? Stop the madness! But when you have an awesome roster of grandmaster authors and amazing community authors putting their hearts and souls into making the best chess courses out there, that’s what happens!  There’s a little something for everyone these past […]

Before he became a grandmaster, Jose Gonzalez had an eye-opening experience. Along with the top players in his country (including a grandmaster and other four strong international masters), Mexican Champion Gonzalez was assigned a trainer. The trainer had a reputation for “not working hard enough.” But in time, Gonzalez realized that this reputation wasn’t entirely […]

All applications have been reviewed, and the winners have been chosen for the 2025 Chessable Research Awards! From the applications, Chessable selected two winners in the graduate student category and two winners in the undergraduate student category. For each awards cycle, Chessable Research Awards go to graduate and undergraduate students conducting ongoing or new chess […]

This guest post was written by Karel van Delft and Dries Wedda. Karel van Delft is a psychologist, chess trainer, and the Science Project Manager at Chessable. He is the author of the book Chess for Educators and co-author of the book Developing Chess Talent. He runs Schaakacademie Apeldoorn (Chess Academy Apeldoorn) in the Netherlands. […]