Chess Masti

Hi Friends!

Hope you’re doing well. Today I want to share an awesome initiative that my buddy Aayan Hetamsaria designed that I got to play with, ideate, and beta test a bit: ChessMasti.com! It started with a dream to provide valuable chess coaching and tips to anyone in the world with access to the internet, free of charge. It’s evolved into an amazing dynamic AI designed coach who personalizes the chess experience to exactly what you need and provides an accountability buddy to support you in your chess growth. Before getting to some features of the site, note that “masti” means fun, like lighthearted fun, hanging out, chilling, etc., in Hindi, and that’s what I love about this site. It’s relaxed, full of joy, and a super helpful, personalized chess support system designed just for you.

For decades, chess players have tried to learn with chess engines. The challenge is engines often speak a different language that goes way over our heads. Not literally, but from a thinking standpoint. Any great chess coach will talk about “engine moves” versus “human moves” and how certain “best moves” are almost impossible for a human to find in real time. Masti, that cute little monkey you see on your screen, is your translator.

Masti explains why a move is suboptimal in simple terms, what to do about it in the future, and provides you tools and resources and support systems for how to do it, addressing the root learning themes and ideas you need to work on to play better in the future. Masti does a beautiful job picking the lowest hanging fruit to improve your chess game with daily goals, lesson plans, and clear learning paths to help you understand when to do what you need to do. As for who, it’s all about you and your learning and your time, but it can also help you scout your competition! As for where, that’s the beauty of it, anywhere works!

Here are some of the fantastic features of the site:

Game Analysis

Probably the best feature on this thing. You can ask the AI bot anything about the position and it will answer as the game goes on. Masti will walk through the entire game, and there are real engine lines and a masters game database as well.

Goal

Once you’ve completed the initial assessment and shared some games, Masti will let you come up with a goal. It could be a rating on Chess com or Lichess and highlight how much time you want to devote to chess, as much or as little as you like. Based on this, it’ll create a plan and provide daily goals and exercises to help you meet your broader goal!

Learning Path

Your learning path features a clear list of your lowest hanging fruit, namely the areas for growth in your game that can be addressed most easily. For example, it might start with “Stop hanging pieces” with a bunch of exercises to help on that. Then perhaps “Forks”, “Pins”, “Skewers”, etc. or maybe “Checkmate patterns” or perhaps “Discovered attacks”. Whatever your challenges might be, Masti will help ID them and train you to improve!

Play

You can play actual games on Chess Masti by linking your Lichess account with it. Then you can analyze afterwards using the AI. You can also insert your or others' Chess com username to get their games, then you pick one and the AI walks you through it.

Practice

The Practice tab on Chess Masti contains five modes that will sharpen your game and should be your main training. Puzzles are basically the same thing as usual, rated custom puzzles where the AI bot explains every miss. Puzzle Rush is just like the one from Chess com; you solve as many puzzles as you can but you're racing against the clock; options are 3 min, 5 min and survival with 3 lives. Pattern Training, my personal favorite, is where you can only see a position for a few seconds then it goes away and you try to memorize it to find the move. This one is really good for your pattern recognition. Coordinate Trainer helps your board vision; it gives you a square then you have to find it on the board as fast as you can. Finally, Guess the Move puts you right into a master game where you guess the move the master plays before it is revealed.

Learn

This one is cool. First, it asks you how much theory you want to learn. No theory, a small amount, a large amount, whatever. Then, it asks what the goal is. Attack, defend, positional, squeezing, etc. Then you can choose openings that fit that style. For Black, on my prompts, it gave me the Scandinavian Defense, the QGD, and for White the London. Then, you can start learning the repertoire. You can also pick and choose from its 43 unique opening courses.

Scout

If you are playing an opponent and you know what their online account is in a real tournament, this is going to be the x factor. Enter in your opponents' username in your choice of time window, and then you can prep for their lines. Masti identifies strengths and weaknesses, and you can even play an AI bot that plays like that person to practice!

Profile

This is where you can track your progress, see your stats, and reflect upon all you’ve learned. It’s an awesome hub for learning and reflection and a nice one stop shop to assess your chess.

Donate

One of my favorite parts of this site is that it’s free and users are encouraged to donate funds to a noble cause, namely the Akanksha Education Fund. A few months ago, Aayan ran an OTB tournament with the goal of raising a lot of money for Akanksha. Vivaan, Dad, and I all volunteered and together we helped raise several thousand dollars for this amazing organization. The goal of Akanksha is to provide access to students from underserved communities in India.

Overall, this site has it all! It’s built intentionally and thoughtfully with your best chess interests at heart, leveraging the power of technology, both Stockfish and AI, to differentiate your learning to meet your needs and help you on your chess journey! It’s free, fun, and helpful, and a great supplement to whatever you’re already doing in chess! Be sure to give it a try! Bravo Aayan! Go to ChessMasti.com to get your free account and get started today!

That’s all for today! See y’all next time! Sarang out.