About
A few words from the developer
ChessDocs is a chess knowledge base for serious amateur players.
The project was built by a Russian Candidate Master of Sport and former children's coach (FIDE profile, on Lichess: 2397 in rapid, 2322 in blitz, 2525 in puzzles). I am not a grandmaster and not a textbook author: ChessDocs is a set of notes on the classics that I put together for players at my own level.
Who this site is for
For amateurs who play seriously but hold no title:
- Your Lichess rating is roughly 1500–2500 in rapid.
- You know the notation, play long games, and go over them afterwards.
What problem the project solves
The internet is full of material on opening preparation, tactical puzzles, and playing online. Amateurs fetishize their openings, solve puzzles regularly, and spend hundreds of hours on blitz — but for a long time they see no progress.
Chess is a complex system that needs a comprehensive approach. Coaching showed me the main thing: an amateur gets stuck not because they know too little, but because everything they know is scattered. The outcome of a game is decided in the middlegame, yet hardly anyone studies typical schemes and plans deliberately.
ChessDocs fills that gap. There are no giant tables of opening variations here, no endless trainers, no dry computer analysis. It is one key concept at a time — checked against the classic books, explained in plain language, and shown on an interactive board.
Main topics
| Topic | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Strategy and plan | So you can build multi-move scenarios and use your opponent's possibilities properly. |
| Pawn structures | Knowing typical patterns helps you find the right plans in completely different positions and openings. |
| Middlegame | This is where most games are decided, and it is the layer of knowledge covered first. |
How the material is organized
The site is split into two independent formats:
- Glossary answers the question "what is this?": short reference articles of about a minute and a half, handy for looking a term up quickly.
- Learn answers the question "how do I play this?": walkthroughs of strategic plans, typical positions, and classic games. There is no rigid sequence of lessons — you can open any topic on its own.
Every article names the specific books and pages from the sources, so you can check any claim against the original. Games can be played through move by move right in the text on interactive boards. The site itself is available in English, Chinese, and Russian, and how to find your way around it all is on the Navigation page.
Free, with no ads
The project is entirely non-commercial: there is no registration and no paid sections. If you have found a mistake, want to suggest a topic, or want to submit an edit, there is an "Edit" link at the bottom of every page, or you can write directly to dragunovartem99@gmail.com. How the site works with chess literature, and what to do if you are a rightsholder, is on the Legal information page.