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Hi all, CM Geordie Derraugh here (co-founder of Pub Chess Toronto, former GTA tournament organizer etc), super excited to share something my friend Stephen Papadatos and I have been building for you, a chess website that solves the pain points all of us face while trying to improve at chess as adults. Check it out at ChessFlow.org (currently optimized for Desktop only)
Our goal is to build a comprehensive chess training website that provides the following:
1. More efficient training for all areas of the game than existing online tools
2. The learning experience tailored exactly to your level, adapting to your progress
3. Keeping the learning fun, and keeping users in flow state as much as possible.
4. Keeping prices low
5. Eliminate all the obstacles to your chess improvement.
What we have so far:
a) An openings platform that adapts the learning to: your level, learning speed, and mental state, offering repertoire courses with annotations that you can read and then drill the moves. We’re testing out many new features. (currently have courses on the French by IM Mike Ivanov, the Gurgenidze by IM Mark Plotkin, and e4 e5 for black by IM Arthur de Winter). Let us know which features you like and dislike!
b) A timed tactics trainer that adapts to your level. See our innovative features in the list below. We’ve also created a new OneTouchTM feature to warm up on simple patterns before using other tools on the site, which has been very popular (there's a fierce battle at the top right now between puzzle experts IM Liam Putnam, IM Anthony Atanasov, and IM Tani Adewumi)
c) Mistake flashcards which are generated from games against the computer on the platform. We’ll be adding more capabilities to this feature soon.
How you can get involved:
i. Tell us what painpoints you have when it comes to chess studying, if you don’t see them in the appendix below. We want our site to be made by the people, not just for the people!
ii. Try out our tools and let us know what aspects or features of the site you dislike, which tools you think could be used in a different way, or if you face any bugs or crashes. No complaint is too small! Our discord is the best option for feedback: https://discord.gg/YtQnGs3Knp
iii. Tell us if there are tools or features we are missing that you enjoy using on other sites (especially if you find them very helpful for improvement)
iv. We would greatly appreciate your support! There are just two of us working on this project part time. You can help support us by:
1) Buying the Openings Courses on our platform, and testing them out (note: first 20 study sessions can be tried for free)
2) Volunteering with us if you have expertise you feel we could use.
3) Donations
4) Discussions with potential investors are also always welcome!
5) Selling your pgn repertoires on our website
6) Spreading the word
Appendix: ChessFlow solutions to painpoints
Openings:
Players have different learning speeds. Also they may be more or less mentally focused based on time of day or distractions.
ChessFlow adapts the learning load to user's rating, learning speed, and current mental state.
After learning an opening, players often face new moves over the board that were not in their course and forget if that move was covered in their repertoire.
ChessFlow requires actively training both user and opponent's moves, so it will be actively remembered which moves are covered and which are not, and the whole course is actively retained.
Players often don't have a good idea of exactly how far they are in a course, how well they know the course, where they're struggling etc
ChessFlow provides a course tree heat map with various toggles to show how well user has learned and retained their course
Click drag or click click wastes a fraction of a second which compounded over thousands or tens of thousands of moves is a lot of wasted time.
ChessFlow allows clicking just the destination square which saves a lot of time
Tactics:
In Puzzle Rush, all the easy puzzles can be done very quickly by stronger players, so click dragging or click click wastes time.
ChessFlow introduces a OneTouchTM mode where you only click the destination square. This saves a lot of time compared to click drag or click click and therefore player reinforces more easy patterns in the same amount of time
In Puzzle Rush, stronger players waste time solving easy mate in 1 and bank rank for at least half the allotted time
ChessFlow has a few easy warm up puzzles before increasing quickly to be more suitable to user's level
In Puzzle Rush, players often may be surprised by a puzzle they got correct and want to check it later, but at the end of the session they don't remember which puzzle it was.
ChessFlow has the option to "flag last puzzle" so you can review it when you finish your session.
In Puzzle Rush, there's no option to filter by theme. This exists in some normal puzzle modes but some people may want the gamification aspect of puzzle rush while honing in on a certain weakness.
ChessFlow has the option to do timed puzzle sessions by theme
Mistake flashcards:
It's often hard to justify hiring a coach when there's so many free or cheap resources available.
ChessFlow provides a solution for coaches to give personalized feedback for the highest ROI, i.e. positional mistakes in the early middlegame after theory ends. These types of mistakes are likely to reoccur, so they are high ROI to fix.
Our goal is to build a comprehensive chess training website that provides the following:
1. More efficient training for all areas of the game than existing online tools
2. The learning experience tailored exactly to your level, adapting to your progress
3. Keeping the learning fun, and keeping users in flow state as much as possible.
4. Keeping prices low
5. Eliminate all the obstacles to your chess improvement.
What we have so far:
a) An openings platform that adapts the learning to: your level, learning speed, and mental state, offering repertoire courses with annotations that you can read and then drill the moves. We’re testing out many new features. (currently have courses on the French by IM Mike Ivanov, the Gurgenidze by IM Mark Plotkin, and e4 e5 for black by IM Arthur de Winter). Let us know which features you like and dislike!
b) A timed tactics trainer that adapts to your level. See our innovative features in the list below. We’ve also created a new OneTouchTM feature to warm up on simple patterns before using other tools on the site, which has been very popular (there's a fierce battle at the top right now between puzzle experts IM Liam Putnam, IM Anthony Atanasov, and IM Tani Adewumi)
c) Mistake flashcards which are generated from games against the computer on the platform. We’ll be adding more capabilities to this feature soon.
How you can get involved:
i. Tell us what painpoints you have when it comes to chess studying, if you don’t see them in the appendix below. We want our site to be made by the people, not just for the people!
ii. Try out our tools and let us know what aspects or features of the site you dislike, which tools you think could be used in a different way, or if you face any bugs or crashes. No complaint is too small! Our discord is the best option for feedback: https://discord.gg/YtQnGs3Knp
iii. Tell us if there are tools or features we are missing that you enjoy using on other sites (especially if you find them very helpful for improvement)
iv. We would greatly appreciate your support! There are just two of us working on this project part time. You can help support us by:
1) Buying the Openings Courses on our platform, and testing them out (note: first 20 study sessions can be tried for free)
2) Volunteering with us if you have expertise you feel we could use.
3) Donations
4) Discussions with potential investors are also always welcome!
5) Selling your pgn repertoires on our website
6) Spreading the word
Appendix: ChessFlow solutions to painpoints
Openings:
Players have different learning speeds. Also they may be more or less mentally focused based on time of day or distractions.
ChessFlow adapts the learning load to user's rating, learning speed, and current mental state.
After learning an opening, players often face new moves over the board that were not in their course and forget if that move was covered in their repertoire.
ChessFlow requires actively training both user and opponent's moves, so it will be actively remembered which moves are covered and which are not, and the whole course is actively retained.
Players often don't have a good idea of exactly how far they are in a course, how well they know the course, where they're struggling etc
ChessFlow provides a course tree heat map with various toggles to show how well user has learned and retained their course
Click drag or click click wastes a fraction of a second which compounded over thousands or tens of thousands of moves is a lot of wasted time.
ChessFlow allows clicking just the destination square which saves a lot of time
Tactics:
In Puzzle Rush, all the easy puzzles can be done very quickly by stronger players, so click dragging or click click wastes time.
ChessFlow introduces a OneTouchTM mode where you only click the destination square. This saves a lot of time compared to click drag or click click and therefore player reinforces more easy patterns in the same amount of time
In Puzzle Rush, stronger players waste time solving easy mate in 1 and bank rank for at least half the allotted time
ChessFlow has a few easy warm up puzzles before increasing quickly to be more suitable to user's level
In Puzzle Rush, players often may be surprised by a puzzle they got correct and want to check it later, but at the end of the session they don't remember which puzzle it was.
ChessFlow has the option to "flag last puzzle" so you can review it when you finish your session.
In Puzzle Rush, there's no option to filter by theme. This exists in some normal puzzle modes but some people may want the gamification aspect of puzzle rush while honing in on a certain weakness.
ChessFlow has the option to do timed puzzle sessions by theme
Mistake flashcards:
It's often hard to justify hiring a coach when there's so many free or cheap resources available.
ChessFlow provides a solution for coaches to give personalized feedback for the highest ROI, i.e. positional mistakes in the early middlegame after theory ends. These types of mistakes are likely to reoccur, so they are high ROI to fix.
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