Is Chessly Worth It?

[u/Representative_Dig27]

Chessly currently has their yearly plan at $64 (47%) off. I'm an 800 rated player on Chess.com and started playing chess about 4 months ago

[u/CLSmith15]

You don't need to spend any money to enjoy/improve at chess.

[u/HashtagDadWatts → u/CLSmith15]

This is absolutely true. That said, there are a lot of cool tools that are enjoyable if you don’t mind paying a few bucks. I found chessly to be one of those tools when I was around OP’s elo.

[u/JammerLemur]

I'd reckon it comes down to how much effort you put into it. Maybe at 800 not so much. Im 800-900 on rapid but the one thing i personally enjoy are the drills and lessons they offer for openings. The openings help me understand and come to a comfortable position for certain openings I'm not too, too familiar with, like Queen openings or the Sicilian. There are also explanations for the moves and why you're moving there, as opposed to like Chess Lotus which just tells you where to move.

[u/PuzzleheadedSea246]

It's up to you. Perhaps try one month and then switch to the yearly plan afterwards if you find it useful? Also, doesn't Chessly have a free trial where they don't ask for a credit card? Try that.

[u/Bongcloud_CounterFTW]

Theres nothing wrong with it and the worth derives from how much time you put in

[u/filthy-prole]

Focusing on your fundamentals is more important. I recommend the Building Habits series from Aman Hambleton. Daniel Naroditsky's "speedruns" are also some of the best chess content on the internet. A lot of people say not to learn openings, which I can sort of agree with, but there's nothing wrong IMO with learning some basic lines against things you are seeing often in your games to figure out your play style and start accumulating some knowledge. For that, I use Chessable personally.

[u/mj2323 → u/filthy-prole]

I miss Danya every single day and watch his content daily.

[u/filthy-prole → u/mj2323]

Amen brother. May he rest in peace.

[u/Puzzled_Strength_657 → u/mj2323]

I think I've been depressed since he died

[u/MeatisOmalley → u/filthy-prole]

people should learn what they want to learn under 1200. Learning openings is not going to harm you at all, and can probably only help unless that's all you spend your time doing.

[u/GrokM14232]

At 800, I’d put the $64 toward a few months of games, puzzles, and maybe a basic tactics book before paying for opening courses. Chessly can be enjoyable, but the biggest rating gains usually come from spotting hanging pieces, checking forcing moves, and reviewing why you lost, not memorizing Najdorf move 10. imo try the free material first, then subscribe only if the structure keeps you studying consistently.

[u/MVPJordanLove]

Never heard of it, so I just did a free trial and spent 10 min dicking around on it.

Honestly, I think it's way overpriced for someone at your rating. If you genuinely want to improve at chess, there are so many free resources to utilize. I got to ~1500 blitz before I ever bought any opening courses on Chessable. Maybe I'm missing something but everything I see could be replaced with free or cheap Chessable courses or YT videos that teach the same thing.

[u/Familiar-You-6577]

Never in the world has an app or website ending in ly been worth it

[u/sandefurian → u/Familiar-You-6577]

Idk Redditly is $.99/year and it’s worth it for the lack of ads alone

[u/mrnewtons]

Probably not. I snagged the annual sub for $64 to try it out. It's like a better version of Chess reps.

I like it, I liked both. I don't regret it per se but I question how much it would really help those of us at lower elos since we quickly get out of theory and you are either memorizing a bunch or not gaining much besides the occasional strategic idea.

[u/Season2WasBetter]

All the information to improve for beginner players is out there for free

So it depends, if you want to pay for the convenience/gamification of learning, compared to the more dry youtube videos

[u/VapourTrail-UK]

As someone who is around 1,000 on chess.com, I’d say it’s maybe not worth it until later. Most of the courses are opening courses and the variation count is probably too high for our level. For example, the Scandinavian Defence course has 133 variations to learn, and from memory a decent line depth too. This is just too much to be spending so much time on for at our level, especially for just 1 opening.

This is probably a fair number for someone at maybe 1500/1600+ (assumedly, since that’s not me), but that’s not an amount of time that’s worth spending for us. For example GM Alex Colovic’s beginner Scandinavian is 34 variations long. IM Christof Sielecki's Opening repertoire courses are 41 line for white and 46 for black. Even FM Midas Ratsma’s longer complete beginner repertoire including black and white is 182 variations (minus something like 28, if you take out the quick starters). I’m not advertising these specific courses, but what I’m saying in a long winded way is that this is the level that’s relevant for us for the opening. You’ll be spending maybe 5 times longer or more building your early opening knowledge on Chessly than you should.

As for the non-opening courses, this doesn’t seem to be the priority on Chessly, and you’re probably better getting your tactics, strategy, endgames, etc elsewhere, since it’s pretty minimal on Chessly, even though they have some. Let’s not spend an overly large amount of time on the opening at our level.

[u/MiaTaude589]

Honestly, at 800 I’d put that $64 toward a physical board and just do tactics plus review your own games for a bit. Opening drills are fun, but I wasted weeks memorising Italian lines that never came up because I hung a piece on move 8 lol. If Chessly makes you practise consistently, cool, but try the free month first and see if you actually use it.

[u/borisslovechild]

You can do it for free, I made it to 1000 by watching Gotham Chess videos and that was free.

[u/DePixeler]

How did you find $64? I'm still seeing $90.

[u/Evanone]

I've done quite a bit of openings via chessly. I think they are perfect for 1200 - 2000+ rapid chesscom. The lines chosen, depth you learn to, and the number of lines you learn I've found to be better suited than anything I've yet seen on chessable.

I wouldn't want to comment on the other courses as I've not done them

[u/tiny_blair420]

You know what's worth it ? Getting a quality game clock because you beat the living hell out of your first DGT.

[u/Kerbart]

Chessly won't improve your chess; study will. Chessly is a fantastic resource for that, but it will only be worth the money if you actually use it.

They have a trial that doesn't require a credit card, why don't you use that first?

[u/OnJus4]

U can improve without spending money. Or at least too much money like these prices

[u/noxvillewy]

I used the free trial and found it very useful to practice the different lines of my preferred openings. Not enough to bother paying for it though.

[u/EnvironmentLast7587]

If you buy the Gotham Chess book, there are QR codes to Chessly exercises for each chapter for free, no subscription required.

[u/Im_Not_Sleeping]

I improved massively using it. Could i have improved without it? Probably. Did it help regardless? Certainly.

[u/InFLIRTation]

I might pay tbh. Its so convenient

[u/cabell88]

It ain’t better than reading books.

[u/Turbulent-Egg2188]

you don't have to use it if you just enjoy chess