How to get better at chess for free

Chess is one of the few serious pursuits where almost everything you need is free. The strongest engine in the world is open source. Millions of puzzles, whole opening databases and centuries of master games are free to use. What has usually cost money is the guidance: someone to tell you what to work on, and why your moves went wrong.

That part can be free now too. Here is a complete routine for improving without spending anything, and the free resources worth knowing.

The four ingredients

Whatever your level, improvement comes from four things, in roughly this order of importance for club players and below:

Tactics. Most games under 1500 are decided by a piece left hanging or a two-move combination missed. Puzzles train you to see them.
Playing with feedback. Games teach most when you find out, soon after, which decisions were good and which weren't.
Reviewing your own games. Your mistakes repeat. Finding the pattern is worth more than any opening line.
A little study. Endgame basics, the ideas of your openings, and a few classic games.

A free weekly routine

About twenty to thirty minutes a day is plenty. With Walnut Chess, which is completely free, it looks like this:

Most days: ten puzzles. Rated to your level and aimed at the themes you miss. When you get one wrong, ask the coach what the idea was.
Two or three times a week: a guided game. Play the Chess AI at the strength your plan suggests, with the coach beside the board. Keep Think first on: choose your move, then tap to compare. See guided play without autopilot.
After each game: a short review. Walk through the moments that decided it and write down one sentence you want to remember. Our twenty-minute review routine has the details.
Once or twice a week: one lesson. An endgame, an opening idea or a famous game, from wherever your plan says. Drill one opening line until you know it. See how to study openings without memorising everything.
Once a week: ask your coach what's next. It has your games, puzzles and drills to go on.

If you're brand new, spend your first week on the first-week plan instead.

Games against people count too

A guided game against the Chess AI is the best place to learn, because you can get help and the opponent is set to your level. But chess is also a game against people, with the clock, nerves and swindles that come with that. Mix in games against humans:

Lichess is free and open source, with no paid tier, and has rated games at every time control.
A local chess club is often the cheapest and most enjoyable way to improve. Many are free or charge a few pounds or dollars a night, and you'll meet players who will happily look at your games.

Play slower time controls when you can. Games of fifteen minutes or more give you time to use the habits you're building; one-minute games mostly train your mouse hand.

Other free resources worth knowing

Lichess puzzles, studies and analysis board. Free, with no account needed for much of it.
Your public library. Classic chess books are widely stocked. Endgame and tactics books age especially well.
Master games. Play through a famous game a week, guessing each move before you see it. Walnut Chess has an annotated collection; free databases online have millions more.
Stockfish itself. Free to download and run. Use it after you've reviewed a game yourself, not before; see why a coach beats a raw engine line.

What free resources usually lack

None of the above tells you what to work on next, or explains a mistake in words at your level. That gap is exactly why coaching has mattered so much, and why it used to be what you paid for. It's also why we built Walnut Chess as a free guided AI coach, and why it will stay free. Here's what that means.

The one thing that matters most

Consistency beats intensity. Twenty focused minutes most days, with feedback, will take you further than a weekend binge of blitz. Pick the routine above, or any routine, and keep it for a month. Then ask your coach how it went.