Unpublished Work © 2026. Alex Povazh. All rights reserved
Becoming an intermediate chess player of 1200-1500 can take anywhere from six months to several years, depending on your talent and determination. Below is a TO-DO LIST to assist you organize and prioritize your studies so you can develop and improve your skills. Below this list, each point is discussed individually.
1 Your daily million tactical puzzles to solve for sharpening your pattern recognition, to spar short-term sequences, to build your visualization skills & tactical vision, to develop your faster decision making. Learning tactics will make you Captain Fantastics! Lichess automatically adjusts the difficulty of its puzzles to match your current puzzle rating.
2 Your daily sparring with LICHESS.ORG Stockfish to learn general mechanics of chess.
3 Your daily long time-control game is your foundation.
4 Correspondence games. In correspondence games you penetrate deeper into the essence of the positions and the concepts become better fixed in your mind.
5 Your daily unrated blitz games to practice time-stress chess and boost your pattern recognition.
6 Playing PGNs.
7 Blindfold chess to massively improve your visualization, memory and concentration.
8 Learning/remembering square colors.
9 Practicing K+BN, K+BB mates and K+Q vs K+R endgames, pawn endgames, rook and pawn endgames.
1 Your daily million tactical puzzles to solve for sharpening your pattern recognition, to spar short-term sequences, to build your visualization skills & tactical vision, to develop your faster decision making. Learning tactics will make you Captain Fantastics! Lichess automatically adjusts the difficulty of its puzzles to match your current puzzle rating
This is your number one priority. Without understanding the basic tactical patterns, you can’t play chess. How much time should you, a beginner, devote to practicing tactics? I’m absolutely sure that until your tactics score is below 2000 on lichess.org, you need to grind them daily spending most of your time. You’ll immediately recognize the benefits of practicing tactics in your games. Visit your opponent’s profile during a game and check their tactical rating! If your opponent isn’t practicing tactics, you have a chance of catching and defeating them even if you’ve missed a piece or gotten into a bad position. Go register on lichess.org and start solving the daily puzzle on the homepage. Once you have solved or failed to solve the daily puzzle on the Lichess homepage, you will be directed to continue training. The interface usually provides options to explore more puzzles, review the solution, or jump into “Puzzle Streak” for continuous challenges.
Puzzle themes. Lichess.org automatically develops your puzzle dashboard (if you are registered). The Lichess system analyzes your performance, automatically develops your puzzle dashboard as you play and solve puzzles. It analyzes your performance to track improvements, identifies your weaknesses through thematic, and calculates your rating based on success rates, allowing for personalized, automated skill development.
2 Your daily sparring with LICHESS.ORG Stockfish to learn general mechanics of chess
Playing against levels 1 (800-1000) and level 3 (around 1400) Stockfish engine on lichess, you’ll encounter stupid moves played by the engine tuned to a low strength and look for ways to refute them, which is excellent exercise for a beginner. Then, in your postmortem analysis, you’ll see your own miscalculations in position evaluation as well as your bad refutations of the engine’s stupid moves. Playing against Stockfish around level 5 (1700-2000), you’ll begin learning positional chess, which is good for your understanding the operational capacities (right here and right now) of your pieces as well as capacities your opponent’s pieces. The level-5 engine will teach you how to properly exploit a positional advantage when facing a tactically dangerous opponent: don’t engage in tactical duels, but win by exploiting your positional advantage. By the way, this is how some chess bots on the internet play, hiding behind suspicious nicknames, losing the game to you positionally or materially, but subsequently still overcoming you in the tactical complications that occur on the board, beating you thanks to their machine’s ability to brute force much deeper and precisely than you. Without the traditional postmortem analysis there is no progress for you. Remember that! Postmortem is your habit that becomes automatic and happens without conscious thought. This is just typical of you as a chess player.
Rating estimates of lichess Stockfish are: level 1 – 800-1000, level 2 – 1100, level 3 – 1400, level 4 – 1700, level 5 – 2000, level 6 – 2300, level 7 – 2500, level 8 – 2600+
Play one game on whites against level 1 queen-down Stockfish (800-1000) with immediate post-game strategic analysis (check those grey arrows of computer-suggested moves and try to find out positional ideas, why engine played its move?, try to understand positional nuances). Go lichess.org – top menu – TOOLS – Board editor – remove black’s queen from the board – click Continue from here (bottom right) – select PLAY AGAINST COMPUTER – From position – Unlimited time control.
What you can do right here and right now is more important than what you know. Play next game on whites against level 8 queen-down Stockfish (2600+)! Feel the difference! Experience the full power of the engine! Learn from the engine: your brain is capable of perceiving and synthesizing the information it gets! This is invaluable experience that you get absolutely free. Post-game analyze the game by moving the pieces back and forth and monitoring the changes in the computer’s evaluation of the positions. To analyze a game immediately after playing on Lichess, click the “Analysis board” button on the game results screen. Use the “Request Computer Analysis” button to activate Stockfish, highlighting inaccuracies, mistakes, and blunders in the move list. Reviewing key moments and understanding why top moves are better helps improve your game.
Next time remove the queen’s rook of blacks (on the left side of the board) and play the game on whites… Next time remove two minor pieces from level 8 Stockfish (2600+) and play a game… Play a game on blacks with material-down Stockfish… Diversify your approaches.
Go play against level 8 Stockfish (2600+) for your personal record—how many moves you survive against the top-tuned engine on whites and on blacks?
By gradually mounting the strength of your sparring engine, you will also increase your level of positional chess. Computers provide instant analysis, highlighting mistakes and suggesting better moves, which aids in understanding the game’s principles you can learn intuitively. Playing against the lichess.org’ Stockfish is beneficial for beginners because it provides a structured learning environment, immediate feedback and opportunities to practice specific skills. By analyzing your games on the computer, trying different moves and lines, reading the computer’s thoughts, you get the opportunity to learn the ideas behind the moves… Slanderous opposition may say that learning chess from engines is like learning biology from a teacher of physics but you are going to learn Piece Coordination regardless of openings, positions or setups. You are going to beef up your technique (how to do) and create your strategic vision (what to do). That matters for you more than anything else including all kinds of allegations against computer assistance for beginner ranks.
Go register on lichess.org and play your first game vs engine NOW!
3 Your daily long time-control game is your foundation
Rapid games like 15+30, 30+ games are ok, but 60+ is much better as it gives you time enough to think real deep and fight childhood diseases such as hustle moves and moves with your hand instead of your head. It provides enough time for you to develop strategic ideas and plans, it gives you time for endgame practice.
Go register on lichess.org – TOP MENU – PLAY – Create lobby game
Learn the icons at the bottom of lichess.org Analysis board to unlock deeper insights into your game. For that way, type “lichess icons on the bottom of analysis board explained” into your browser to find out a bunch of useful info.
Post-game two-way analysis to address your issues.
First off, you analyze your game completely on your own without computer’s aid. Clicking the forward and back-moves icons on the right from the chessboard you shuffle the game’s moves back and forth to see the critical positions and consider your best move now without a time pressure on you. Why did you play that particular move? What was idea behind that move, etc. Only after your own analysis is done, you toggle the engine on to get answers for all your questions (the microscope icon to the left from moves icons or by clicking on the analysis board window below).
Your engine you are going to analyze your game with is always 2600+ Stockfish. Keeping track of time you spent on your moves is another good idea for asking yourself questions like why the heck do I spend time on simple moves like that? as well as to spot your weaknesses. This might even make you giving closer looks to the Time Management in chess.
On the right from the board there is tons of info you can check for getting your bearings in an Opening you are playing right now (the image right above). Masters database has games of the world’s elite players. The Lichess database is the home for players from 1000 to 2000+ and above. “Player” offers you to find an info on a specific player. The red rounded rectangle on the left (the image right above) shows statistics (the most popular moves in a given opening, the percentage of games in which these moves were made, the number of games in the database, the number of wins with white… hover your cursor there to see the average player rating, etc.). Select games and check them to see possible variations, immediately seeing the computer’s assessment of the position and seeing where the players made mistakes. Absolutely amazing tools at your disposal.
4 Correspondence games. In correspondence games you penetrate deeper into the essence of the positions and the concepts become better fixed in your mind
A game with days per move, which allows you to dive really deep while playing and analyzing the same game on your physical chessboard with physical chess pieces. Suits busy beginners and strategic-thinking players that love patience and relaxed pace. Using Opening Books is ok, but using engines would lead to a ban (the worst thing that can happen with you: you lose trust, friends and everything).
5 Your daily unrated blitz games to practice time-stress chess and boost your pattern recognition
Unrated games do not affect your rating! Potential downsides of playing blitz is no problem for you thanks to the specific tasks you are going to achieve like developing your ability to play under intense stress of time pressure & improving your time management skills, improving your psychological balance, to force and intensify your pattern recognition development, supporting trust in your intuition, fast stress-calculations practice, challenging your visualization skills.
Registered on lichess.org. Go challenge someone to an unrated game or use Play with a friend feature. Set the game to Casual, customize settings if needed, and send the challenge. When challenging a specific user, go to the player’s profile then click on the king icon to send an unrated challenge directly.
Unregistered or signed out. Click on Lobby and change settings for a blitz game to play.
6 Playing PGNs
Playing games through their PGNs is another way of building and massively improving your visualization skills. Mentally following the written chess notation (Portable Game Notation), you mentally move the pieces inside your head on your imaginary chessboard. This is a good way to learn how to navigate the chessboard before playing blindfolded.
7 Blindfold chess to massively improve your visualization, memory and concentration
Start a new game. Click on the hamburger icon on the right from the board and select the “Blindfold” option.
You can click on the hamburger icon any time to see what is happening on the board.
8 Learning/remembering square colors
The Math Method
Odd ranks (horizontal lines of squares) are 1, 3, 5, 7
Odd files (vertical columns of squares) are a, c, e, g.
Dark squares have both odd or both even coordinates. Light colors have one odd and one even (or vice versa).
odd/odd, even/even – dark square; mixed – light square
a1-square is odd (file) + odd (rank) = even – a1 is dark color; b1-square is even (file) + odd (rank) = b1 is light color
Move-your-piece method
(a) Move your dark-squared bishop from c1 to b2 and further down the longest dark-colored diagonal up to h8. Move the bishop h8-g7, then f8-g7, g7-h6, h6-f8, f8-e7, e7-h4… to wherever. Keep recognizing names of squares (coordinates) and the square colors while moving the bishop.
(b) With your eyes off the board, travel the given bishop from its starting position on c1 to the longest dark-colored diagonal and up to h8 naming all the squares and their colors. Keep travelling on the board, hit all the available squares.
(c) Do the same with the rest of your pieces in the diagram.
9 Practicing K+BN, K+BB mates and K+Q vs K+R endgames, pawn endgames, rook and pawn endgames
K+BN mate. For the super league!
1970s chess set by Ausma, Riga, Latvia
You are suggested to select a SESSION from the list below or make your own compilation
The Internet says that for a very beginner chess player an effective study distribution focuses heavily on tactics and playing hundreds and thousands of games, rather than memorizing opening theory (but learning and adopting some of the typical opening setups is still a wise approach). The goal is to reduce blunders and recognize positional and tactical patterns. The internet offers not just a single solid plan, but a whole bunch of them, prioritizing the development of one skill or another, and debates about the appropriateness of each approach continue and will never end. I propose, in my opinion, the most effective plan for those beginners who still miss basic tactics in their games:
50% Tactics puzzles
30% Playing and post-game analyzing
10% Endgame studies
10% Opening basics (not the Opening Theory!)
Since beginners need to play more longer time-control games like 60+ as well as do tons of other things and learn tons of basics, my intermediate-to-advanced rank’s experience (not that far from the beginner’s domain, so I still remember and suffer from gaps in my chess education!) tells me that the AI suggested plans need some adjustments and specific targeting.
1st SESSION. Duration up to 2 weeks
(1) Solve tactical puzzles on lichess.
(2) 60+ online games only with white pieces starting the game with 1. e4. Computer post-game analysis. Checking the Lichess players database stats and variations that go with the game you have just played.
(3) 15+10 rapid games only with white pieces starting the game with1. e4. Computer post-game analysis. Checking the Lichess players database stats and variations that go with the game you have just played.
(4) Read articles in this book from page one. Explore the table of contents.
2nd SESSION. Duration up to 2 weeks
(1) Solve tactical puzzles on lichess.
(2) Rapid games 15+20 sparring with lichess.org’s Stockfish from level 1 with white and black pieces. Just as many games as you can sustain as long as you can beat it, then tune it for the next level to make it harder for you to play against the engine. Computer post-game analysis of every game you played. Learn chess mechanics primarily from game analyses, which are always performed by top-level computer. Be sure to pay attention to how popular your moves are with other players at the very beginning of games (check percentage and wins by white and black in both Masters and Lichess databases).
(3) Practice K+BB checkmates on lichess: top menu – TOOLS – BOARD editor – set up a position (king + dark-squared bishop & light-squared bishop vs king) – play on strongest side.
(4) Practice K+BN checkmates on lichess: top menu – TOOLS – Board editor – set up a position (king + dark-squared bishop & knight vs king) – play on strongest side.
(5) Read articles in this book. Explore the table of contents.
3rd SESSION. Duration up to 2 weeks
(1) Online 60+ games only with black pieces. Computer post-game analysis. Checking the Lichess players database stats and variations that go with the game you played.
(2) Solve tactical puzzles on lichess.
(3) Play a few 3+2, 5+3 unrated blitz games against players on lichess to experience a stress from time shortage and kick your brain’s ass. Play 1. e4 on whites as your unrated games. On blacks avoid Closed Games, go for an Open Games instead (find out the difference between an Open and Closed Game through the internet). With black pieces play the Hippo System as your rated games (find the Hippo in this book). Move your bishops to b7 and g7, your knights to d7 and e7, thus build the Hippo setup.
(4) Play against down-material Stockfish level 8 (top level!). Lichess – TOP MENU – Board editor – remove the queen from blacks – play with white pieces.
(5) Read articles in this book. Explore the table of contents.
4th SESSION. Duration up to 2 weeks
(1) Survival Drill. A long time-control game against Stockfish level 8 (top level!). Set the position after 1. e4 e5 and play with black pieces to see how many moves you are able to fight the machine from opening into middlegame. Remember the move and the setup you screwed up and the reason for it so you don’t repeat the same mistake next time: look at the computer’s hint (grey arrows) and computer’s position evaluations changing from the first move of the game.
(2) Solve tactical puzzles on lichess.
(3) Online 60+ games with black and white pieces. Computer post-game analysis. Checking the Lichess players database stats and variations that go with the game you played. Try to find out an opening (very first moves in a game) or a setup you gravitate to for white and black pieces.
(4) Play against down-material Stockfish level 8 (top level!). Lichess – TOP MENU – Board editor – remove two rooks from blacks – play with white pieces.
(5) Read articles in this book. Explore the table of contents.
5th SESSION. Duration up to 2 weeks
(1) Solve tactical puzzles on lichess. If you still really bad on tactics go solve puzzles non-stop and abandon every other chess activity.
(2) Playing white and black pieces, practice openings you gravitate to against Stockfish level 3 (around 1400) in 60+ games. Playing on a computer, do not hesitate to draw arrows during a live game as it is visible only to you: hold down the right mouse button and drag from the start-square to the end-square for a green arrow. Alt + right-click = blue color; Shift + right click = red color; Shift + Alt + right click = yellow color. Left-click and empty square to clear. On smartphone hold a square with a finger and draw the arrow with another finger. Computer post-game analysis. If you feel an urge, use a paper notebook to save specific ideas and countermoves despite the fact that all your games are automatically saved on lichess: having your own little library at your hand is always good idea.
(3) Play against down-material Stockfish level 8 (top level!). Lichess – TOP MENU – Board editor – remove rook and bishop (or knight) from blacks’ queenside – play with white pieces.
(4) Read articles in this book. Explore the table of contents.
6th SESSION Duration up to 2 weeks
(1) Solve tactical puzzles on lichess. If you still really bad on tactics go solve puzzles non-stop and abandon every other chess activity.
(2) Online 60+ games with white and black pieces. Computer post-game analysis. Checking the Lichess players database stats and variations that go with the game you played.
(3) Play against down-material Stockfish level 8 (top level!). Lichess – TOP MENU – Board editor – remove five pawns from blacks’ queenside (a7, b7, c7, d7, e7) – play with white pieces.
(4) Play the Hippo system with black pieces against Stockfish starting from level 3 and up to level 8 (top level!)—six games—and catch the difference in engine’s play. Rating estimates of lichess Stockfish are: level 1 – 800-1000, level 2 – 1100, level 3 – 1400, level 4 – 1700, level 5 – 2000, level 6 – 2300, level 7 – 2500, level 8 – 2600+.
(5) Play blindfold game against Stockfish level 1 (find out on the internet how to do that or read in this book).
(6) Read articles in this book. Explore the table of contents.
7th SESSION. Duration up to 2 weeks
(1) Solve tactical puzzles on lichess. If you still really bad on tactics go solve puzzles non-stop and abandon every other chess activity.
(2) Online 60+ games with white and black pieces. Computer post-game analysis. Checking the Lichess players database stats and variations that go with the game you played.
(3) Play against down-material Stockfish level 8 (top level!). Lichess – TOP MENU – Board editor – remove bishop & knight from blacks’ queenside – play with white pieces.
(4) With your eyes on a chess diagram or a chessboard, play a few games by following PGNs (without touching pieces).
(5) Practice K+BB, K+BN checkmates, K+Q vs K+R endgames.
(6) Read articles in this book. Explore the table of contents.
If you learn and go fast, grab themes from any session.
Having done all of the above, having gotten used to the workload, having developed some abilities, having identified your shortcomings and priorities… go and build your own STUDY PLAN that takes into account your weaknesses and your priorities.
No matter how good you are, remember to do the following:
(1) Solving Tactical Puzzles
(2) Playing long time-control games
(3) Doing post-game Analysis
(4) Playing sparring games against Stockfish
It’s not about doing everything you can.
It is about doing what you have to do