How to Play Chess by Yourself (and Actually Improve)

Playing yourself isn't a substitute for a real opponent — it's a training tool that only works if you stop your brain from rooting for both sides. Here's how I do it

Some of my sharpest weeks with the board happened alone at a kitchen table, no one across from me, the light going gold in the late afternoon. I'd set the pieces up and play both sides until my tea went cold.

People hear that and their faces do a small, sad thing. Playing chess by yourself sounds like the loneliest hobby in the world.

It isn't. It's the closest thing I have to a private studio — a place to try a look nobody's watching, tear it apart, and try it again. But it only works if I'm honest about the one way solo chess quietly lies to you. I'll get to that, because it's the whole point.

Why I still set up a board when there's no one across from me

When you play another person, you're managing two things at once: the position and them. Their clock, their nerves, the way they lean in when they think they've got you. That pressure is real training, and nothing replaces it.

But it also hides things. You win a game and never learn why — maybe your plan was sound, or maybe they simply missed the refutation. The board doesn't tell you which.

Alone, there's no one to miss anything. Every idea gets tested against the best reply I can find, because I'm the one finding it. That's the trade: I lose the pressure, I gain the honesty. If you're still learning how the pieces move and coordinate, solo work is where those shapes stop being rules and start being instinct.

The honest version: turning the board and playing both sides for real

Here's how I actually do it. I pick a starting position — an opening I want to understand, or a middlegame that's been troubling me — and I play White's move. Then I physically turn the board around so Black's position faces me, and I play Black's move as if I want White to lose.

The Endgame Journal collects our writing on openings, tactics, endgames, and the habits that separate players who improve from players who plateau. Every article is written by people who teach chess, not by a content farm.

How to Play Chess by Yourself and Actually Improve | Endgame Society