This post is supported by affiliate links. Insights overview for chessebuss. The Internet's second favorite chess website recently released their newest feature: Insights. There is a ton of information here. Chess.com gives us data around move accuracy, results vs different opposition, even time-of-day and day-of-week stats. Let's break it all down and learn how we can plug our weaknesses. Insights Overview Section The overview section of insights gives us data on a few areas of our game. Let's go over each one. Average Accuracy My average accuracy has stayed very…

We can only study so much chess. At least, I can only study so much chess. But how we study is just as important as what we study. And the habits and practices of your study are even more important. That's why in this post we offer suggestions for 5 non-chess books that will help improve your game. These are all books we have read in the past year. Non-Chess Book #1: Atomic Habits We are huge, huge fans of Atomic Habits. We have an entire post dedicated to how…

Chess has gone through a transformation in to the digital age. Computers are involved in every facet of the game. We have strong, accessible chess engines for practice and analysis, online platforms to play against one another, and software for improvement. Not to mention internet forums, blogs and websites touching various topics: from opening discussions to strategy and endgame play, from practical advice to general recommendations (including this very site!). It's easy to think that chess books are on their way out of fashion. Still, some "old-school" chess players and…

A new and unique chess engine was released in September called ChessCoach. ChessCoach is a very strong engine, at about 3450 Elo and will of course beat even the strongest GMs. What makes ChessCoach unique is that it adds commentary to its own games. This can be a groundbreaking advancement for chess improvers everywhere. Imagine analyzing your game with a ChessCoach engine and having the engine explain to you, in English where you went wrong and why. The ChessCoach engine used academic papers from Carnegie Mellon and Peking University to…

Hikaru Nakamura won the Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz tournament with a dominant performance. He won the event with 3 (!!) rounds to spare. He finished with 9 wins, 18 draws and no losses. Going unbeaten in a rapid and blitz event is a very rare feat. Magnus Carlsen himself even congratulated Hikaru...kind of. Magnus is of course poking fun at Hikaru for being the #2 rated rapid and blitz player, behind only Magnus himself. Even Hikaru was in a joking mood. After his dominant performance in the Rapid and…

James Clear dissected habits in his best-selling book Atomic Habits. He explained how to form and sustain good habits as well as break bad habits. Habit Loop James Clear uses the habit loop framework to describe how habits work. It looks like this. The habit loop from jamesclear.com We can see how these four factors build off one another to form long-lasting habits. James Clear's Four Laws of Behavior Change take the feedback loop and break it down like so. Cue - Make it Obvious.Craving- Make it Attractive.Response - Make…

My wife woke in the middle of the night with severe cramping. Within thirty minutes I was awake, timing her contractions. Three minutes apart. It was go time. We have an older child who was two at the time, so we had a plan, a backup plan, and a backup backup plan to take care of him. We called Plan A. No answer. We called Plan B. No answer. We called Plan A's husband. No answer. We called our doula. No answer. We needed to leave for the hospital. Now.…

Note: This post contains chess.com affiliate links. ChessGoals may receive a commission if you purchase a membership. If you are sick of endgame books teaching you dry endings, Chess.com's Endgame Trainer is for you. I have not studied endgames much in my career. I tried making my way through 100 Endgames You Must Know but I felt I only really needed to know 25 or so in the book. The positions were too complex. Each problem was littered with many winning moves. Many positions were far too difficult for my…