How the ladder, XP, puzzles and accounts work.
Most players either play strangers and only learn who won, or study alone without testing it in a game. On ChessLvl you play a rival chosen to be just beyond your level, and every move is checked as you play. The Helper shows a better move right after a mistake, and every game, finished or paused, has a full review: what each move did, the move that would have been better shown on the board, the mistakes drawn with the reply that punishes them, and the opening with notes. Your score and accuracy show whether you're improving, game after game, even before the wins come.
A chess site built around a ladder of 100 named rivals, from a 600-rated beginner at level 1 to a 2500-rated King at level 100. Each rival has a personality, a favourite opening and a playstyle. Alongside the ladder there are piece lessons, opening walkthroughs, a daily puzzle and an AI coach.
No. The Rules of Chess page covers the basics in about five minutes, and the piece lessons (Pawn, Knight, Bishop, Rook, Queen and King) show how each piece moves on an interactive board. Your first rival, Yuki, is rated 600 and makes plenty of beginner mistakes.
Yes. All 100 levels, every rival, the lessons, the opening walkthroughs, the daily puzzle and the AI coach are free, with no credit card.
For your first 3 games, no: you can play straight away as a guest. To keep playing after that, you'll need a free account (Google, or a sign-in link sent to your email). It brings your games with it, keeps your level, XP and games on every device, and adds a public profile, a place on the leaderboard, daily puzzle streaks and the AI coach.
There's no clock. Take as long as you like over each move; the timer on screen only records how long the game lasted. If you need to stop, pause the game and finish it later.
There are 100 levels in six tiers: Pawn (1-10), Knight (11-25), Bishop (26-50), Rook (51-75), Queen (76-99) and King (100). Each level has one rival. Beat the rival at your level and you move up straight away to the next one. You can always replay a rival you've already beaten as practice. Every game also earns XP (75 for a win, 25 for a draw, 10 for a loss), a running total that shows how much you've played.
Nothing is taken away. You keep your level and your XP, earn 10 XP for playing, and can rematch the same rival straight away. Review the game first: every move is graded, and the mistakes show you exactly what to fix for the rematch.
No. They're characters played by a chess engine tuned to each rival's rating, with a backstory, a country, a signature opening and a style. Early rivals are set to blunder the way real beginners do, so a 600-rated rival plays like a 600 rather than a weakened grandmaster.
We built them from data on how real people actually play. We studied a large number of rated games between people at every level and measured how often players at each rating make a small slip, a real mistake or a blunder; how that changes in quiet positions compared with sharp ones full of captures and checks; how it changes when they're winning or losing; and how often they notice when their opponent leaves something hanging. Every rival is tuned to match the players at its rating. So a rival doesn't play perfect engine moves and then throw a piece away for no reason. Its mistakes are the kind people make: a greedy capture that walks into a trick, a natural-looking move that misses a threat two moves deep, a free piece it doesn't spot. Stronger rivals make fewer and smaller mistakes and punish yours more often. Before any change reaches you, each rival plays thousands of moves against simulated players of known strength, and we check its mistakes and results against the real numbers. It's also what makes your estimated rating meaningful: beating a rival means you can play like a person of that rating.
Level 1 is rated 600 and level 10 is 1400. The Knight tier runs from about 1430 to 1720, level 50 is 2050, level 75 is 2250 and the King at level 100 is 2500.
Because beating "Bot Hard" doesn't mean much. Beating Tomás Reyes, who plays solidly until move 12 and then loses focus, is a win you remember. Each rival also tends to play a particular opening, so you learn to meet it.
Yes. The ladder only goes forward: Play always matches you with your current rival, and the next one unlocks when you move up. That keeps every game at the right difficulty.
Yes, as a practice game. Open any rival you've beaten on the Levels page or their rival page and choose Practice. Practice games don't give XP and never change your level, so the ladder can't be skipped by beating easy rivals over and over.
Because it's the best way to sharpen what you learned. Each rival is built around one part of the game, so a rematch lets you drill that skill without the pressure of the ladder. Try to beat them with a higher score than last time: practice games are graded out of 1000 like every other game, so you can see whether you're playing cleaner. Practicing an opening against a rival who plays it, or testing a new idea before your next real rival, are both good uses.
They're saved with your games and graded out of 1000, so they show up in your head-to-head record against that rival and in your score history. They don't add XP, don't change your level and don't affect the leaderboard ranking, which is by level and XP.
You always play White and move first. The rival answers each of your moves.
No. Ladder games have no takebacks and no hints, because the point is to find the moves yourself. You can turn on "Show last move" to see where the rival's last move came from, and the AI coach on the opening pages will explain any position.
Yes, both. Resigning counts as a loss. A draw can be offered once each side has made 10 moves, and the rival accepts if the position is roughly level or the game has gone past move 50. Otherwise it plays on.
Every game you play is graded out of 1000, and so is your rival's play. The score measures how well each side played, move by move, not who won. It's shown live during the game and saved with every game. The scoring page explains it in full.
Accuracy is how close each move was to the best move available, from 0% to 100%, averaged over your moves in a game. The engine's best move, or one just as good, counts as 100%; a slip costs a little and a blunder can cost almost everything. You'll see it on the scoreboard during and after every game (with the change after each move), on every game in your profile, and as your average accuracy, split by wins, losses and rivals. Tap any accuracy figure for a full explanation.
Both come from the same move-by-move checks. Accuracy is the plain average of how good your moves were. The ChessLvl score, out of 1000, is built from them but spreads out the top end, so a strong game and a near-perfect one are clearly apart. Accuracy moves a little after each move; the score shows where you stand at a glance. See the scoring page.
ELO is the rating system chess has used since the 1960s, named after its inventor, Arpad Elo. It measures a player's overall strength: beat a stronger player and your rating goes up a lot, lose to a weaker one and it drops. Roughly, 600 to 1000 is a beginner, 1200 to 1600 a solid club player, 2000 an expert, and 2500 a grandmaster. Every ChessLvl rival has a rating, from 600 at level 1 to 2500 at level 100. More in what ELO means in chess.
After 10 finished games, your profile shows an estimated rating: a rough idea of the ELO you might have, shown as a range such as 1100 to 1400. It comes from two things. First, your results against your rivals: each rival has a rating, so wins and losses tell us roughly where you stand. Second, how well you play: your average ChessLvl score, compared with how real rated players score on thousands of moves. Results count for more as you play more games, and the range gets narrower with every game you finish. Please treat it as an estimate, not an official rating: our rivals are tuned to play like real people of their rating, but they're still rivals, not people, and a handful of games can swing it. It isn't a FIDE, USCF, Chess.com or Lichess rating. The more games you play, the more it means.
A rating puts a number on how strong you are, so you can see where you stand and whether you're improving, without playing rated games anywhere else. Your estimate appears on your profile and the leaderboard after 10 finished games. To raise it on ChessLvl: beat your next rival (each is a step stronger, and wins against stronger rivals count most); review every game, where each move is graded and the board shows the danger your mistakes allowed and the better move; build the habit that fixes your most common mistake, starting with the blunder check; do the daily puzzle to spot tactics faster; learn your next rival's opening move by move; and slow down with Relaxed rival speed and the Helper on. It's an estimate, not an official FIDE, USCF, Chess.com or Lichess rating, and a few games can move it.
They answer different questions. ELO asks "how strong is this player?" and is built from results over many games. The ChessLvl score asks "how well was this one game played?" and is built from the quality of every move in that game, whatever the result. ELO runs from about 100 to 2800 and always says ELO; the score runs from 1 to 1000 and always shows as "/1000" with a letter grade. See the scoring page for how scores work.
Because you get feedback while you play, not just a result at the end. Each rival is a step above your level, so games stay winnable but push you. Every move is graded as you make it, so a mistake shows up the moment it happens instead of hours later in an analysis. And your average score proves you're getting better, even in the weeks before the wins start coming. It's the feedback a coach would give, on every move of every game.
Every move is graded, so the score moves with the game. A good move holds it steady; a mistake drops it the moment you make it. Instead of only knowing you lost, you see which move cost you and roughly how much. After the game, replay it and look at where your line dropped: those are the moves to study. Over many games you'll notice the same kinds of drops (a missed threat, a loose piece, rushing when ahead), and you'll see your average climb as you fix them. How scoring works.
A higher-rated rival is harder to play well against, so the same score means more against a stronger rival. But the score itself never looks at ratings: a 600-rated beginner can score 900 in a clean game, and a 2500-rated rival can score 600 in a sloppy one. That's what makes it useful: when your scores hold steady as your rivals' ratings climb, you're getting stronger.
Not a public one. Your level (1 to 100) shows where you are on the ladder, and each level matches a rival's rating, so reaching level 30 means you've beaten rivals rated around that strength. Your average score shows how well you're playing along the way.
Because a result hides how you played. You can win after three blunders because your rival made four, or lose a game you played well to a stronger opponent. The score shows the quality of your moves, so you can see real improvement from game to game, even before the wins start coming.
After every move, a chess engine checks the position and compares your move with the best move available. Moves that keep your position strong keep your score high; mistakes pull it down, and big blunders pull it down hard. Your game score combines all your moves into one number out of 1000. Well-known opening moves, and moves just as good as the engine's top choice, always keep full marks: you're never marked down for picking one strong move over another.
Not on its own. A win where you played loosely can score lower than a careful loss. A perfect 1000 means nearly every move was the best one, which even very strong players rarely manage.
Every game's score out of 1000 gets a letter grade, for you and for your rival. It grades how well the game was played, not who won. A+ (950+): near-perfect, almost every move the best one. A (900+): excellent, at most one small slip. A- (850+): very good, clean chess with a couple of small inaccuracies. B+ (800+): good, a few slips that gave a little away. B (750+): solid, with an inaccuracy or a mistake that cost something. B- (700+): decent, but mistakes gave away part of the position. C+ (650+): mixed, some good ideas and several mistakes. C (600+): uneven, mistakes cost a clear share of the game. C- (550+): shaky, a blunder or several mistakes swung the game. D (450+): rough, blunders decided the game. F (under 450): very rough, a game worth replaying to find the turning points. See every grade on the scoring page.
Most games on ChessLvl score between 550 and 850, and 900+ takes near-perfect play. Raising your average by 50 points is real, visible improvement, and short games score higher simply because there are fewer moves to get wrong. Your average and your best game are on your record against each rival and on your profile.
So you can see who actually played better. Early rivals are built to make beginner mistakes, so their scores swing; higher up the ladder they play more accurately, and matching their score becomes the challenge.
Yes. A live score card next to the board shows your score and your rival's, updated after every move, with a line that tracks how the game has gone. When the game ends, the final score and grade appear on the result screen.
No. Levels and XP still come from your results against your rival. The score is there to show how well you're playing, so you know what to work on.
On each rival's page, under your record against them, with every game graded and linked to its replay, and on your profile. The leaderboard shows each player's average score.
Every day there's one puzzle: a position with one best move to find. Everyone gets the same puzzle, and a new one appears at midnight UTC.
Your streak is the number of days in a row you've solved the puzzle. Streaks are saved for signed-in players only. Miss a day (UTC) and the streak starts again from zero.
Yes. After you solve a puzzle you can add your email, and the next day's puzzle arrives every day at 13:00 UTC. Every email has a one-click unsubscribe link.
Learn covers the basics: how the pieces move, the rules and checkmate. The opening walkthroughs teach real openings move by move, explaining what each move does and what your opponent is aiming for.
The London System, Italian Game, Smith-Morra Gambit, Caro-Kann Defense, Queen's Gambit Declined, King's Indian Defense, Sicilian Najdorf and Slav Defense. Each one is paired with a rival who plays it, so you can learn an opening and then meet it in a game.
A chess-only assistant on every opening walkthrough page. It knows which opening and move are on screen, so you can ask "why this move and not Nc3?" or "what if Black plays ...c5 here?" and get a short, focused answer. It's free with an account, up to 50 questions a day, and it won't answer questions that aren't about chess.
Honestly, chess improvement is slow: most people see real gains over months, not days. ChessLvl's job is to make daily practice clear and motivating, with one rival to beat next, a puzzle each day and short lessons, so you keep coming back. The practice is what makes you better.
Yes. Press Pause & save and the board is kept exactly as it was. Games also save themselves if you close the tab or leave the page. You'll see a Resume button on the home page. Signed-in players can resume on another device, as long as it's the game against their current rival.
Yes. Every game has its own link and every move is saved. Step forward and back move by move, jump to the start or the end, scrub with the slider, or press Watch to play the whole game back at the speed it was played, or 2x, 5x or 10x faster, with the game clock running. On a computer, the arrow keys step, Space plays or pauses, and Home and End jump.
Every move in every game is reviewed for both players: whether it was a book move, the best move, good, an inaccuracy, a mistake or a blunder, what it did, and the score after it. Tap Explain on any move for the full lesson. For a mistake, Show the mistake draws it on the board with the reply that punishes it. Show the better move draws what you should have played, labelled, with the points it would have kept. Opening moves come with notes from our opening lessons, and the game review lists each player's best moves, mistakes and the key moments to jump to.
Yes. A paused or live game has the same review as a finished one: every move explained for both sides, the better moves, the mistakes on the board, the opening and the scores, so you can study the game before you carry on.
During a game, right after one of your moves that isn't the best, the Helper shows what was better and why, next to the board. Step back to any earlier move during the game to see the same notes, the better move on the board and the mistakes. It's on by default and you can turn it off in Settings to play without hints; reviews after the game always show everything.
Yes. Turn on Board markings in Settings to show every square's name (e4, f6 and so on) and bigger a–h and 1–8 labels, which helps when following notes like "Pawn e2 → e4". It's off by default, so the board looks like a standard board.
Signed-in players get a profile at chesslvl.com/your-username with their level, record and recent games. In Settings you can make the profile private or hide your games.
The leaderboard ranks everyone who has finished a game, by level, then XP, then average score, then wins. Players without an account appear under their player number. It shows each player's country, games played and average score.
No. Everything is free. If optional paid extras are ever added, the core game stays free.
Yes. Your level, XP, game history and lesson progress stay yours whatever changes.
Yes. Your level, XP, lessons and games are saved to your account and follow you to any device. A guest's games are kept in the browser they were played in and move to the account when they sign in.
Go to Settings and choose Delete account. It removes your account, profile and saved games. To start the ladder over but keep your account, use Reset progress instead.
Yes. It's designed for ages 10 and up. There's no chat, no messaging and no matchmaking with strangers: you play the named rivals, and everything else is lessons and puzzles.
Nothing stops you, since they're bots and not people. But the ladder is there to make you better, and reaching King with an engine's help won't win you a single game over a real board.
No. Each rival plays at its listed rating and never looks at anything you can't see. A 600-rated rival makes 600-rated mistakes, and a rival doesn't get stronger because you start winning.
Any modern browser on a computer, tablet or phone. There's nothing to install.
Yes. Settings has five board themes (modern, classic, tournament, vintage and neon), several move-sound styles and a mute option.
Send us a message through the contact form. Say what you were doing, what you expected and what happened.
An independent founder and a small team. It isn't VC-funded and isn't trying to be the biggest chess site, just the one that helps you improve.