These Chess Academies are arguably the most useful for cultivating growth and development in one’s chess skills – whether starting off, improving in tournament chess, and forming connections with fellow chessplayers and coaches. Academies offer a wide range of services: online camps, coach guidance, and many more. An additional benefit is that the recommended chess academies are local, and affordable. These academies is arguably the most helpful resource that is offered locally: chess4life is the go-to for people in Sammamish, but you may consider checking out the other recommended ones.
These websites are used for assessing your playing strength, and others as well. For more detailed ratings information, please refer to ‘What is a Chess Rating?.’
These websites are great for playing online chess, keeping up to date on current chess news, finding chess coaches, and more: all at no additional cost.
chess.com: Arguably the best Chess website out there. Jam-packed with useful features, fun chess games, latest updates on all the chess news, and more. If you could only use one chess website, this would be my recommendation.
lichess.org: Another premier Chess website. A perk that lichess has over chess.com is its infinite puzzles without any sort of premium. Overall, lichess is probably the second best chess website after chess.com: I would recommend using both to play chess.
chess24.com: Another great chess website, if not nearly as feature-packed as the former two.
Chess Databases
Databases are generally useful for stronger players (I would recommend a 1400+ rating), but are an excellent resource to find things such as master games, new openings, and more.
Chess engines are excellent for going over games when a human partner is not available: they may spot tactics that you’ve missed (which oftentimes in amateur chess is the aspect that dictates the game). Going over a game with the engine and checking your own analysis along with its analysis is a great way to spot errors in your thinking, missed tactical opportunities, etc. However, as strong as these engines are, I would recommend NOT using them at a lower level than 1500 to check your games, as over-reliance on these silicon beasts can actually act as a crutch, and hinder your chess performance.