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Our blog is full of tips, guides and news from our masters and our founder, providing helpful content to take your game to the next level.
Online Chess Lessons, Tutors & Tournaments Near You: The Complete Guide for Parents
Every parent knows the feeling — you watch your child sit across a chessboard, eyes narrowing with focus, and something clicks. Chess isn't just a game. It builds patience, sharpens logic, and teaches kids how to think two, three, ten moves ahead. The only question is: how do you find a teacher truly worthy of that potential? Whether you're searching for online chess lessons, an online chess tutor who can meet your child exactly where they are, or chess tournaments near me to
Misha Vilenchuk
8 min read
How to Convert a Winning Position in Chess Step by Step
Winning a game is not the same as having a winning position. That distinction is where many games are decided—not at the moment the advantage appears, but in what follows. A better position creates possibility, not certainty. It offers direction, but it still demands execution. And execution is where things often collapse. Because once you’re winning, the nature of the game changes. The risks shift, the priorities evolve, and the margin for error—paradoxically—feels both larg
Mike Benavides
4 min read
How to Recognize When You’re Better or Worse in Chess
Learning how to recognize when you’re better or worse in chess is one of the most important skills for making consistent decisions. They begin with misjudgment. A position feels better than it actually is, so you push too hard. Or it feels worse than it really is, so you become passive, cautious, hesitant to act. In both cases, the problem is not what you see—it’s how you interpret what you see. Because every decision in chess depends on one question: What is the position… re
Mike Benavides
5 min read
How To Recognize Critical Moments in Chess Games
Most moves during critical moments in chess are not equal. Some pass quietly, almost routine, maintaining balance without demanding much precision. Others—far fewer—carry weight. They define direction, reshape the position, and often determine the outcome long before the result becomes obvious. The difficulty is not playing critical moments in chess—it’s recognizing them early enough. Because if you treat a critical position like a normal one, you don’t just make a mistake—yo
Mike Benavides
4 min read
How to Think During Your Opponent’s Turn
Time in chess doesn’t belong only to the player who is about to move. Half of the game unfolds while waiting. And yet, this phase is often wasted—spent watching passively, reacting late, or thinking only after the opponent has already made their decision. By then, the position has changed, the clock is running, and clarity is already under pressure. Strong players don’t wait, they prepare. Why Most Players Waste Time During Opponent’s Turn in Chess Attention drifts easily whe
Mike Benavides
3 min read
Why Most Chess Players Use Incorrect Chess Thinking (And How to Fix It)
Thinking Errors Are Invisible Most chess players don’t lose because they lack knowledge. They lose due to incorrect chess thinking. That’s the uncomfortable truth. The real problem is not tactical blindness or opening ignorance. It’s something far more subtle: flawed thinking processes that operate beneath awareness. Invisible errors. Silent distortions. The kind that feel like intuition but are, in reality, shortcuts gone wrong. You don’t notice them. You trust them, and tha
Mike Benavides
4 min read
The Discipline of Candidate Moves in Chess
Most mistakes in chess don’t originate in calculation. They begin earlier, quieter, almost unnoticed. At the moment of the selection of a candidate moves in chess. You see a move, it looks reasonable, maybe even convincing, and without friction, without resistance, you follow it. No comparison, no internal debate, no widening of the lens. Just a single idea advancing because it appeared first and felt sufficient. It feels efficient, clean, decisive. But it’s fragile. Because
Mike Benavides
4 min read
The Role of Intuition in Chess (And When Not to Trust It)
Some moves arrive before thought has time to organize itself. You look—briefly—and something aligns. A weakness reveals itself. A piece seems slightly off, almost out of rhythm with the position. Then a move surfaces. Not forced, not calculated to the end, but persuasive. It feels right. Quietly, convincingly right. That sensation—immediate yet hard to justify—is intuition. And in chess, it operates like a double-edged blade: precise when handled well, unforgiving when truste
Mike Benavides
4 min read
How to Evaluate a Chess Position Without Guessing
Evaluation is where most decisions are won—or quietly lost. Not in calculation, not in tactics, but in the moment you decide what the position actually means. Because every move you consider, every plan you build, depends on that initial judgment. And when that judgment is vague, unstable, or based on feeling rather than structure, everything that follows becomes unreliable. Guessing feels fast, but learning how to evaluate a chess position properly creates more reliable deci
Mike Benavides
4 min read
Most of the content is written by our Head Coach and Founder, Misha Vilenchuk, as part of our montlhy newsletter
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