Rookies Learning Outcomes

The Rookies academy program is designed for players new to chess between 0 and 300 rating points.

By the end of the "Rookies" program you should expect to have learned:

Foundation

Foundation Principles

Understand and implement foundation principles for the whole game, the opening, middlegame and the endgame.

  • Introduction to Chess
  • How the Pieces Move
    • The Rook
    • The Knight
    • The Bishop
    • The Queen
    • The King
    • The Pawn
  • Special pawn moves (Promotion, En Passant)
  • Check
  • Check Mate
  • Stalemate
  • Castling
  • Touch-move rule
  • Fair play
  • The basic mates and stalemate
  • Creating the checkmate
  • Phases of the game
  • Starting the game right
    • Developing pieces - not pawns
    • Being safe - watching your opponents moves
    • First moves
  • Advanced strategies
    • When to check
    • Stop copying me!
    • Trading to win
    • When to trade pieces
  • Understanding the game
    • Bishop vs Knight
    • Learning to Count
    • Outposts
    • Strong and Weak pawns
    • Isolate pawns
  • Improving your Game
    • Checks, captures and threats
    • Good and Bad pieces
    • Using open files
    • When and how to open the game
  • All about the F-pawn
    • Think before you move that f-pawn
    • Bigger dangers of moving the f-pawn
    • Think again before your move that f-pawn
    • Extreme f-pawn disasters!
    • More Extreme f-pawn disasters!
    • Even bigger dangers of moving the f-pawn!

Lessons are reinforced through mini-games:

  • Rook Journeys
  • Knight Journeys
  • Bishop Journeys
  • Queen Journeys
  • King Mazes
  • Mini Pawn Wars
  • Mega Pawn Wars
  • Mixups
  • Mega Mixups
  • Queen vs King Checkmate
  • Rook+Rook vs King Checkmate
  • Mate in 1 puzzles
  • Queen mate
  • Rook roller mate
  • Yummy game
  • Taming the Dragon
  • Forks & Skewers
  • Magna Carta
  • Whole army vs the king
  • Rook vs Isolated pawns
  • Rook vs Connected pawns
  • Four Queens Chess
  • Electric fence heaven
  • My kingdom for a horse
  • Pawns vs knights
  • Scholars mate smash
  • Marching ants with bishop

Attacking

Powerful Attacks

Understand the following attacking ideas and use them in their own games to learn to attack their opponent:
  • Calculating tactics
  • Opening trap: Scholars mate part 1
  • Opening trap: Scholars mate part 2
  • Back rank mate!
  • Smash your opponents castle

Lessons are reinforced through mini-games:

  • Attacking position setups
  • Mate in 1 puzzles

Tactics

Tactical Motifs

Understand the following tactical motifs and use them in their own games to win pieces and checkmate their opponent:
  • Tactics Wiz 1
    • Pin
    • The Immortal Pin Game!
    • Fork
    • Skewer
  • Tactics Wiz 2
    • The discovered attack
    • Double attack
    • Discovered check
    • The devious discovery
  • Tactics Wiz 3
    • The devious discovery example game
    • The devious discovery capture and retreat
    • The devious discovery relative pin problem
    • The devious discovery windmill

Lessons are reinforced through mini-games:

  • Pin puzzles
  • Fork puzzles
  • Skewer puzzles
  • Discovered attack puzzles

Endgame

Endgames

Have a thorough practical understanding of basic chess endings:

  • Endgame coolness 1
    • King activity
    • Under promotion
    • Zugzwang
    • The great pawn race
  • Endgame coolness 2
    • Pawn breakthroughs on the wing
    • Advanced pawn breakthroughs
    • Opposition
    • Common rook endings

Lessons are reinforced through mini-games:

  • King Wars
  • Queen vs pawns
  • Smile game
  • Rook workout
  • Marching ants
  • Marching ants with knight
  • Queen vs pawns
  • Knight vs Knight+Pawn
  • Rook+2 pawns vs Knight+Bishop
  • Four queens chess
  • Mate with the queen
  • Mate with 1 rook
  • The smile game
  • Rook vs connected pawns

Heroes

Chess Heroes

Learn about the greatest players in Chess History:

  • Louis de la Bourdonnais
  • Howard Staunton
  • Adolf Anderssen
  • Paul Morphy
  • Wilhelm Steinitz
  • Emmanuel Lasker
  • José Raúl Capablanca
  • Alexander Alekhine
  • Mikhail Botvinnik
  • Vasily Smyslov
  • Mihail Tal
  • Tigran Petrosian
  • Boris Spassky
  • Anatoly Karpov
  • Garry Kasparov
  • Vladimir Kramnik
  • Viswanathan Anand
  • Magnus Carlsen
  • Nona Gaprinashvili
  • Maia Chiburdanidze
  • Xie Jun
  • The Polgar sisters
  • Hou Yifan
  • Ju Wenjun