A chess platform that turns every game into a lesson, with rivals built to teach one skill at a time and every game graded out of 1000, live.
GREENVALE, New York, October 14, 2026: ChessLvl (chesslvl.com), a chess learning platform founded by Michael Szerencsy, today announced its public launch. Instead of anonymous bots or rated games against strangers, ChessLvl teaches chess through a ladder of 100 named rivals, each with a personality, a signature opening and a playstyle designed to teach one part of the game, and it grades every game out of 1000 as it's played.
Every player starts at level 1 against Yuki Tanaka, a 600-rated beginner who attacks first and thinks later. Each level adds a rival who is a little stronger and tests something new: a solid London System player who drifts after move 12, a returning player who knows the openings but misses tactics, a gambit attacker whose attacks leak material if you defend calmly. Beat your rival with a full XP bar and the next one unlocks. The ladder climbs through six tiers, Pawn, Knight, Bishop, Rook and Queen, up to the King at level 100, rated 2500.
The early rivals are tuned to play like real beginners, blunders and missed checkmates included, so a new player can win, learn why, and move on. Higher up, the rivals get stronger and stop forgiving mistakes, so progress on the ladder tracks progress at the board.
ChessLvl introduces a live score for both sides of every game. A chess engine checks every move against the best move available, and the ChessLvl Score shows how well the player and the rival are playing, out of 1000, updating after each move next to the board. It grades the quality of play rather than the result: a sloppy win can score lower than a careful loss. The final score and a letter grade, A+ to F, are saved with every game. How the ChessLvl Score works.
Because the engine grades each move, the score moves with the game. A strong move holds it up; a mistake pulls it down at the exact moment it happens. Players see which moves cost them, not just that they lost, and the replay shows the score line next to every move, so going back to the moments where it dropped is where the learning happens. Game after game, the habits that cost points become visible, and so does the improvement when they stop.
The score is not a rating. An ELO rating, like each rival's 600 to 2500, measures a player's overall strength from results over many games. The ChessLvl Score, from 1 to 1000, grades how well one game was played, move by move, whatever the result. A beginner can score 900 in a clean game, and a strong player can score 600 in a sloppy one.
The two work together. A rival's rating says how hard the opponent is; the score says how well the player handled them. Holding a strong score as the rivals' ratings climb is the clearest sign a player is getting better. The FAQ covers both in detail.
Scoring play rather than results gives players something a win-loss record can't: proof of improvement from one game to the next, even before the wins come.
Most people learn chess one of two ways: playing strangers and only finding out who won, or studying alone without ever testing it in a game. ChessLvl puts the two together. Every game is against an opponent chosen to be just beyond the player's current strength, every move is graded as it's played, and every loss comes with a score line showing exactly where it turned. Players get the feedback a coach would give, after every move, in every game.
Each rival's page shows a player's full head-to-head record: wins, losses and draws, average score, best game, a progress strip that grades every game in order, and a replay of each one. Player profiles list every rival played with the record and average grade, and the live leaderboard shows each player's average score with a filter by country.
Since its first games in May 2026, people in more than 50 countries have visited ChessLvl, and players have started over 300 games against its rivals.
"Most people who want to get better at chess don't need another opponent; they need the right next opponent," said Michael Szerencsy, founder of ChessLvl. "Every rival on ChessLvl is there to teach you something, and the score shows you whether you're actually playing better, not just whether you won. You play, you see why, and you come back. We're giving players around the world a clear path from their first move to real strength."
ChessLvl is available now at chesslvl.com in any modern browser on desktop, tablet or phone. The first game needs no account; after that, players sign in with Google or an email link, which saves their progress across devices and adds a public profile, a place on the leaderboard and daily puzzle streaks.
ChessLvl is a chess learning platform built around a ladder of 100 named rivals, from beginner to master, and a live 1000-point score for every game. It was founded by Michael Szerencsy to make chess improvement structured, motivating and open to everyone.
Media enquiries: chesslvl.com/contact