I am always impressed to see the new and innovative online learning programs sprouting up on a weekly basis.

There are niche training programs for languages, learning how to code, industry professions (like CPAs, realtors, marketers, etc), and even for games – such as chess!

For those that may not be aware, in chess there are three recognized parts to a game:

1. The opening
2. The middle-game
3. The end-game

The idea is to do well in the opening so that you reach a favorable middle-game, which in turn can give you an advantage in the end-game.

The thing is that learning all the possible chess openings takes a considerable amount of study.

That’s where Chessable comes in.

Chessable is a free online learning program designed to help amateur and professional chess players become better at the opening phase of the game. They leverage repetition training along with gamification elements to motivate their learners in a similar way that you see with Duolingo.

The program itself is free to join. Once inside you are presented with various openings that you can study. There are free options but many of them range from $10 to $20. The opening repertoires that are created by highly rated chess players like Grandmasters and International Masters are the most expensive.

You can earn points along your journey, interactive with people in forums, and even converse with the repertoire author.

This training method works. As a coffee house chess player myself I started to use Chessable and began to see a difference in my openings. I have significantly limited my blunders in the opening phase now that I have a better idea of “what I am doing” (now if only I could eliminate my blunders in the middle-game, maybe I’d win a little more 🙂 ).

Chessable is a perfect example of how you too can create an online learning program by finding a niche. Until Chessable came about most people studied openings in books and videos. They have made this tedious learning process more interactive and engaging.