Hello and welcome to Chess Hacks!

My name is Leo and I’m on a mission to give you simplified and actionable advice on chess improvement.

Chess Hacks was established with the goal to provide easy and actionable chess advice that makes a difference.

I have been frustrated for YEARS because too many chess sites fail to provide practical and actionable information to chess players who are interested in rapid improvement.

I wanted Chess Hacks to be different, and I made a commitment to making sure our advice can be followed by regular players with busy lives who don’t have much time to spend on chess.

My Story

I started playing chess when I was six years old.

With the help of a couple of chess books for beginners, I started to immerse myself into the beautiful world of chess and got chess books to study.

But after I started beating my father and my siblings, I was left with nobody to play against!

You see, there were neither personal computers nor the Internet at the time.

There were no chess clubs in my home town and no strong opponents to play against regularly.

Without adequate stimuli, I gradually lost my interest in chess.

During my studies at university, I took up playing chess again.

I was living in a bigger city at the time and had a lot of like-minded friends.

I discovered chess on the Internet and spent countless nights playing blitz.

(Those were the good old days!)

I re-started the process of accumulating chess books, and I was taking part in chess tournaments.

I was spending some memorable evenings analyzing games with friends, and I was feeling great spending time on something I loved.

But something didn’t quite feel right…

I FELT I WASN’T REALLY IMPROVING IN CHESS

Although I was playing many rated games in chess tournaments, my rating stayed mostly the same.

And since I believe that real improvement in chess strength should be measurable by chess rating, I thought that –based on the amount of time I was investing in chess- I should be doing better.

My Elo rating should have been higher.

After all, it is only human nature to expect to evolve and become better, when you invest time and effort in any activity.

Since I could see no improvement, I started feeling demoralized.

I even found myself losing interest in the game.

It was a dear friend of mine that helped me get out of this ‘chess depression’.

He urged me to look more deeply into the subject of chess improvement, and he also gave me some useful tips to start me off.

Unfortunately, I was working full time by then, and I had little time to spare for chess.

Ι, therefore, started looking for ways to improve in the quickest and most efficient way.

My aim was to spend my precious training time most effectively.

In my quest for chess improvement, I read dozens of chess books.

I talked to many chess players and coaches.

I searched the internet for everything chess-related.

Given that there is so much information (and mis-information) out there with regards to chess training, I have set out some clear principles that I since strive to abide by.

Every time I would come across a chess tip/trick/strategy that seemed interesting, I would ask this simple question:

‘Does this require lots of time/effort?’

If the answer was ‘YES’, I wouldn’t move on.

Only if the answer was ‘NO’ would I give it a try.

You see, I did all the work, so YOU don’t have to do any! 🙂

To cut the long story short, it took a lot of trial and error to get where I am today, and I’m so grateful I have the chance to share my chess improvement insights with so many people.

And this is essentially how I gathered the best CHESS HACKS on this site that can help you skyrocket your rating with the least amount of effort.

This is so I can provide you with a single place to get the chess improvement advice, without all the confusion that you might find elsewhere.

If you’d like to get in touch with me or anyone in my team, please feel free to contact us.

I wish you the all the best on your chess journey.

Leo Xenos

Editor of Chess Hacks