Stop Guessing. Start Tracking Your Chess Progress.

You've been playing chess for a year. You feel like you've improved. But have you?

You don't actually know. You have no baseline. No comparison. No evidence.

This is where most chess players fail. They grind games endlessly but never actually measure improvement. They plateau for months wondering what's wrong.

What Gets Measured Gets Managed

This isn't my quote—it's a business principle that applies perfectly to chess.

The players who improve fastest aren't the ones playing the most games. They're the ones tracking their progress systematically and adjusting based on data.

The Four Numbers That Matter

1. Total Games Played

This one seems obvious, but it's important baseline data. It tells you how much experience you actually have. 100 games is different from 1000 games, even at the same rating.

2. Win Rate by Format

Here's where most players get surprised. You might be 1800 in Rapid and 1600 in Blitz. That's not a coincidence—it's a signal.

High Rapid, low Blitz? You need to work on pattern recognition and calculation speed. High Blitz, low Rapid? You might be rushing in longer time controls when you should slow down.

3. Rating Progression Over Time

Not your current rating. Your rating trend. Are you going up? Down? Stuck?

Plot your rating over the last 3 months. If it's flat, something needs to change. If it's going up, keep doing what you're doing.

4. Time Invested

This is underrated. How many hours have you actually put in?

If you've played 500 games in 2 weeks, that's unsustainable grinding. If you've played 500 games over a year, that's casual play. Context matters.

Using Elomerge to Find Your Actual Progress

Because you play on multiple platforms, your progress is fragmented across Chess.com and Lichess. Elomerge combines these and gives you real clarity:

• •Your true combined rating
• •Your average win rate across all platforms
• •Time spent by format
• •Format-specific strengths and weaknesses

This unified view is where actual insight happens.

The Two-Month Challenge

Pick any two time controls. Track your combined stats for two months using Elomerge. Check in every week.

You'll see patterns emerge: - Which time control you're improving in - Whether your win rate is going up or down - How your FIDE estimate is changing - Where your improvement is actually coming from

That's not guessing. That's data-driven improvement.

Start tracking. The numbers will tell you exactly where to focus.