Who this is for: you are an expert or national-master level player and want to reach titled strength.
Goals
- A deep repertoire with White and Black: 20 moves or more in your main lines, with novelties and answers to sidelines.
- Calculation you can trust: two or three candidate lines, to the end, with the evaluation.
- Endgame mastery: most theoretical endings, and the technique to win a pawn up or to hold a pawn down.
- Preparation against a specific opponent and training of your own weak spots.
Weekly plan (10 to 15 hours)
- Courses: Endgame 9: Queen against rook, rook against minor piece, Middlegame 9: Master calculation, then Endgame 10 and Middlegame 10 (see 2400 and above).
- Openings: keep a daily lines review. Use the opening explorer to find where strong players deviate and to prepare an improvement.
- Prep: before a tournament round, run opponent prep. Read their openings, their endgame record and their time habits, then prepare 2 to 3 lines.
- Analysis: analyse every serious game yourself first, without the engine, and then with the analysis board and a deep review. Note where your judgement and the engine disagree.
- Calculation: 30 minutes a day of hard puzzles, with no moving the pieces: calculate the full line, then check.
- Games: slow games (30 minutes or more) as the main diet. A few blitz games only to relax.
- Ladder: the strongest chess.com bots (2000 to 2500) are a good test of technique.
How to measure progress
- Rapid rating 2200 or more, classical results in real tournaments.
- Review accuracy 88 percent or more in slow games.
- You win your “won” positions: convert at least nine in ten.
- You stay calm in time trouble because you saved time earlier.
Common mistakes at this level
- Preparing deep lines but not understanding the middlegames that come from them.
- Over-trusting the engine and missing the human plan.
- Tilt: playing the next game right after a loss.
- Time management: too much on the opening, too little on the critical moment.
Tip: the biggest jumps at this level come from ending technique and from avoiding “one-move” collapses in good positions. Train both on purpose.
Previous: 1600 to 2000. Next: 2400 and above.
Open in the app: https://chessgm.net/train/prep
Open this in chessGM (opens in a new tab)
chessGM is not affiliated with Chess.com, Lichess or Stockfish; they are named only to say what the app can read or compare with.