The curriculum

From first moves
to verified strength.

AccelaStudy® AI Chess is being built as one path from learning how the pieces move to showing your strength in a named rating pool.
Here is the plan, and which parts are still only a plan.

In development. Everything on this page is planned unless it says otherwise.

The paths

10 paths, one ladder.

Each path is a curriculum target, not a rating we hand you.
A number in a path’s name refers to a named rating pool, and the first pool we are building toward is Lichess rapid.

Learn to play

Main emphasis: The board and its coordinates, how each piece moves, check, checkmate and stalemate, castling, en passant, promotion, draws, and basic notation.
Demonstrated beyond recall: Plays complete, legal games and explains checks and legal escapes.

Toward 800

Main emphasis: Board vision, loose pieces, one-move threats, simple mating patterns, and opening principles.
Demonstrated beyond recall: Prevents immediate material losses in unfamiliar positions and games.

Toward 1,000

Main emphasis: Forks, pins, skewers, simple combinations, and elementary king-and-pawn and rook endings.
Demonstrated beyond recall: Recognizes the opponent’s threat and applies a pattern without a theme label to lean on.

Toward 1,200

Main emphasis: Candidate moves, forcing lines, basic calculation, exchanges, and coherent development.
Demonstrated beyond recall: Compares plausible moves, checks the opponent’s reply, and converts an advantage.

Toward 1,400

Main emphasis: Defense, tactical resistance, pawn structures, a basic repertoire, and game review.
Demonstrated beyond recall: Finds resources in unfamiliar positions and explains opening plans.

Toward 1,600

Main emphasis: Calculation discipline, positional plans, practical endings, time management, and repertoire understanding.
Demonstrated beyond recall: Carries opening ideas into the middlegame and corrects recurring mistakes in later games.

Toward 1,800

Main emphasis: Deeper calculation, prophylaxis, imbalances, endgame technique, and broad repertoire coverage.
Demonstrated beyond recall: Chooses and justifies plans against varied defenses under time pressure.

Toward 2,000

Main emphasis: Strategic flexibility, difficult defense, conversion, preparation, and precision.
Demonstrated beyond recall: Adapts to deviations and keeps decision quality up over complete games.

Toward 2,200

Main emphasis: Advanced practical judgment, technical endings, critical-position analysis, and opponent preparation.
Demonstrated beyond recall: Solves difficult, novel positions and sustains competitive performance.

Toward 2,400

Main emphasis: Individual weaknesses, demanding calculation, advanced preparation, and competitive refinement.
Demonstrated beyond recall: Meets a separately validated advanced-performance curriculum and an external target.

The upper paths need an expert’s review first. They are product scope, not a claim that expert-level content or calibration is finished. Before they are released, qualified chess experts will review the material and we will need evidence that it works. A path’s number is a target in a named pool, never a title or a promise.

Placement

Skip what you already show.

Planned: you will not be asked to repeat material you can already demonstrate.

A short placement assessment will be resumable, and you will be able to skip it and pick a starting path yourself.
Placement can pass you over what you show you know. Instruction inside a path still follows the gaps you actually have.
If you already play above a path’s target, you can demonstrate its prerequisites with placement and unseen positions instead of working through every lesson.
The same skill returns at greater depth and under less familiar, less scaffolded conditions as you move up.
Self-selecting a different topic is always allowed, and it is recorded as your choice, not as AVIAN’s recommendation.

How it is organized

One chess corpus.
Many ways to study it.

A course is a view onto shared chess knowledge, not a separate pile of questions for every rating.

One place for the chess itself

Goals, explanations, positions, opening graphs, historical games, exercises, rubrics, and assessments all live in one chess corpus. A fork you meet in a lesson, a puzzle, and a game review is the same goal in the same place.

Courses select and order

Each path picks goals from the corpus and sets their prerequisites and assessments. Nothing is written twice for a different rating, so a fix to a goal reaches every path that uses it.

Checked before it counts

New material is planned to pass mechanical validation, legal-move checks, and independent judgment, with the evidence kept, before it is certified. A claim about a position has to match the legal board.

A puzzle score is not a verdict

Puzzle accuracy alone does not show that you understand an opening, judge a position, or finish an ending. Those need their own evidence, and an opening idea does not get credit just because a tactic happened to appear in one.

The teaching loop

How AVIAN teaches an idea.

AVIAN is AccelaStudy AI’s adaptive learning engine.
It places you, works out what has to come first, and decides what to practice next, counting mistakes and the help you used as well as right answers.

Explanation
The idea in plain words, tied to the legal board.
Guided example
A worked position with the reasoning shown.
Independent attempt
You try it on your own, with no scaffold.
Feedback
What worked, what did not, and why, grounded in the position.
Delayed retrieval
The idea comes back after a gap, when forgetting has started.
Transfer
The same idea in a position that does not look familiar.

AVIAN can change the order when your evidence supports it, and every recommendation will come with a reason in plain language. If the evidence behind a reason is not there, the reason is not shown.

Honest status

Where this stands.

The curriculum is a design, and parts of the clients are real.

Built in the development clients

The ten paths are loaded by both the web and iOS development clients.
A saved training target, and bounded puzzle practice that matches it.
Local puzzle practice, solution review, and saved progress.

Planned, not built

The lessons, the opening activities, and the game activities.
AVIAN placement and adaptive planning for chess.
Any rating estimate or verified graduation.

Read how a target is verified on the rating targets page, or see the puzzle library that practice draws on.

We will tell you when there is something to try

AccelaStudy AI Chess is in development. Join the waitlist and we will let you know as it takes shape.

Join the waitlist

From first movesto verified strength.