Chessreps review: Five months after the backlash
In May 2026, GM Noël Studer's criticism put Chessreps under the spotlight for thin courses and inflated rating claims. Five months on, the platform has been substantially rebuilt. Here is how it holds up.
Background
In May 2026, grandmaster Noël Studer published a video criticising the chess learning platform Chessreps. His main points were that many of its courses were lazily put together, with move explanations that left users with more questions than answers, and that the site made exaggerated claims about how much rating users would gain.
Many of those criticisms were fair. Chessreps had drifted in a poor direction, and after Studer's video I spent around four hours on a call with founder Ethan, going through what I felt needed to change.
This review looks at where the platform stands in October 2026, and whether the issues raised in May have been addressed. It covers three areas: courses, user interface and learning features.
Clearing up some misconceptions
Pricing
Studer's video showed the price of a Chessreps subscription without making clear that it was the annual price. It remains US$35 a year. Monthly access costs US$5 after a seven-day free trial, or roughly US$3 a month when paid annually.
At that price, cost has never been the main issue. Even judged on the old courses alone, it was hard to justify at higher levels, but the custom course builder, covered below, was always worth it.
The old courses that drew most of the criticism have now been replaced almost entirely, with new courses from titled players including Andrey Esipenko, Wei Yi and Boris Gelfand.
Who runs it
Chessreps is a one-person operation. Ethan runs it alone, with no employees. It is not a large company earning millions, and most of its revenue goes back into advertising through creators on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. The narrative that the community took down a dominant giant does not match reality.
Courses: 7/10
The most significant change is the course library. Opening Chessreps in October 2026 shows a completely different selection from May.
The standout is Esipenko's Ruy Lopez course. There are also courses on the London System, Vienna Gambit, Kan Sicilian, Fried Liver, Scandinavian, Réti and more, each written by a titled player. Several come from CM Azel Chua, known on YouTube as Advice Cabinet, and these are excellent too.
Depth varies. Esipenko's Ruy Lopez runs to 124 lines, while Mitrabha Guha's London System has just 62.
They are not comparable with full-scale Chessable courses, but that is the point. Chessreps works as a cheaper entry point to an opening, at a time when Chessable courses keep getting more expensive. For a player who knows nothing about an opening, a 500-line course is daunting, and most of it will not be remembered anyway. As long as the subscription stays cheap, Chessreps is a strong place to start.
The Vienna Gambit course leans towards beginner lines, which suits an opening that grandmasters rarely recommend at the top level. To test whether the courses scale up, I worked through a more serious opening: the Catalan, by Polish IM Mieszko Miś.
The coverage is good and the explanations are strong. In one position against a Slav-style setup, Miś explains why ...Bd6 is usually worse than it looks:
"A common square for the bishop which might seem more active than e7. I think it's usually actually worse for two reasons: the bishop blocks the d-file and is biting on granite on g3 anyways. Once we play e2-e4, a knight might appear there hitting the bishop and causing it to lose more time. A great thing is that our plans remain more or less the same."
I reached almost exactly this position in a recent classical game against YouTuber iwantcheckmate, and the course gives the explanation I would have given, then goes a step further by pointing out that the bishop blocks the d-file.
A little later, the course recommends Bf4 to trade bishops, followed by c5 with tempo on the queen, locking in Black's remaining bishop. I faced the same idea from the black side in a recent blitz simul against IM Gauri.
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1–0grandmastergauri wins
The Catalan course runs a little thin, but the opening is complex enough that even a course with several hundred lines would feel thin. The key point is that the lines do get more advanced as the opening does.
The custom course builder
For players who want more depth, the custom course builder is the platform's best feature. Users can start from scratch, build on an existing course or import a Lichess study.
Importing a Trompowsky study I had put together, the builder produced a coverage score showing meaningful lines missing from it, along with how rare each missing move is and how often it appears in games. A low score does not make a course bad. It means the course is narrower than it could be. Using "Build on Existing Course", any of the site's courses can be extended in the same way.
Community courses made with the builder sit at the bottom of the course page. They are a welcome bonus, but they are not counted in this rating.
Verdict
Access to a wide range of titled courses for US$5 a month is excellent value. Some courses are thin, and more marquee courses on the level of Esipenko's would help, however more are reportedly on the way.
The courses are not sold as a complete guide to any opening. They build a solid foundation, and for stronger players the course builder becomes the more important tool. The old courses would have scored around 4/10. The new ones earn a 7.
User interface: 8/10
The interface is simple, clear and effective.
All of the graphics promising users a specific rating gain have been removed. Nowhere on the site are those claims still made.
The colour scheme is basic but works, and the simplicity keeps everything clear. The homepage lists courses as you scroll, each showing its author and a short description. Author profiles show FIDE rating, a biography and a link to the player's FIDE profile.
Community courses now have a shortcut button at the top of the page. Their coverage scores are colour-coded from green, meaning broad coverage, to red, meaning minimal.
Inside a course, the Learn and Practice modes sit front and centre, with everything visible without scrolling. Arrows showing plans during lessons are a genuine help. Visuals tend to teach more efficiently than text.
There is room to improve. Titled courses should allow star ratings once completed, so users can judge quality before starting. The emoji used around the site look lazy, and a platform of this profile should have its own graphics. A settings menu covers the evaluation bar, sounds, piece set and board colours.
The interface earns an 8, but its simplicity means it carries less weight in the overall score. Comparing a focused course site with a feature-heavy platform like Chess.com is not entirely fair either way.
Learning features: 8/10
The learning features have improved substantially, and include one that course sites have long been missing.
Most course platforms, including Chessable, Chessly and ChessMood, move straight from one line to the next without testing whether the user can play it. Chessreps' Arena mode does. It starts from the initial position and asks the user to play their line in a real game, continuing until the opening ends or a good position is reached.
Crucially, playing a wrong move does not end the exercise. The user plays on, then reviews the game afterwards with an engine to see why the move was a mistake. Many course sites simply reject a wrong move with little explanation. Explaining every bad move in a course is unrealistic, so this is a strong middle ground: users make mistakes, deal with the consequences and then learn from them. Chessreps is the first platform I have seen offer it.
Each course also has puzzles, which now come from positions in that opening and match its pawn structures. A timed mode asks users to play their lines within a time limit. It is not essential, but it will suit the many players who mostly play blitz and bullet. It is not counted in the score.
The features are engaging and gamified, which makes them more likely to be used. The main missing piece is integration with Lichess and Chess.com accounts. Tracking when a user deviates from their course lines in real games, with a weekly recap, would help keep repertoires sharp long after the course is finished.
Against a low industry standard for course sites, Chessreps' learning features are well ahead of its competitors. They earn an 8.
Verdict: 8/10
The courses are a dramatic improvement, with titled authors across the board and players such as Esipenko and Wei Yi at the front of the site. With a wider selection, the course score could reach 8 within six months.
The interface is clean and minimal, which suits learning far better than cluttered alternatives. The learning features, especially Arena mode, are ahead of the competition. All of this comes at US$3–5 a month.
Strictly, the scores average just under 8, rounded up here. Five months ago, the platform would have been closer to a 4.
One part of the process is worth noting. When Ethan saw an earlier draft of this review, which originally scored the platform 7.5, he fixed around half of the criticisms within a few weeks. That kind of responsiveness is rare in a market dominated by one major platform, where there is little pressure to innovate.
If Chessreps keeps acting on feedback at that pace, the next few months should bring further improvement.
