How to Think in Chess
Stop guessing your moves and start playing with intention. Learn to spot hidden threats, coordinate your pieces, and formulate clear plans that turn everyday games into deliberate victories.
Like Duolingo, but for How to Think in Chess. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
A short one: 11 levels across 2 sections, about 22 minutes end to end, roughly 4 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Playing with Purpose and Finding the Winning Plan. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in How to Think in Chess
- Every move your opponent makes changes the board and usually creates a new threat or purpose
- Looking for the opponent's threat before planning your own attack catches attacks on loose pieces and stops blunders
- Rushing straight to your own offensive plans ignores what the opponent just prepared
- A piece is undefended or 'loose' when no friendly piece can recapture if an enemy takes it
- Loose pieces sitting on contested or forward squares are the number-one reason beginner games are decided by sudden piece losses
- Pieces defended by pawns or other pieces are generally safe from simple one-move captures
- Forcing moves (checks, captures, and direct threats) narrow the opponent's options down to a few urgent defensive replies
- A check legally obliges the opponent to respond to save their king
- Quiet developing or pawn moves leave the opponent total freedom to initiate their own attack
- Visualizing the opponent's most obvious response before letting go of a piece prevents reactive, one-move blunders
- Exciting forward moves often leave the moving piece vulnerable or leave an important square behind undefended
- Impulsive moves happen when players only look at what their piece attacks, not what can attack it in return
- Pieces placed or pointed toward the four central squares can easily swing to either side of the board
- Pawn pushes in the center immediately free pathways for bishops and the queen
- Edge pawns only control squares near the board's rim, leaving the center open for the opponent
- A queen brought out too early becomes an easy target for cheaper enemy pieces
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives How to Think in Chess the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
Your opponent just made their move. What is the very first thing to check?
Get it right to open this lesson and 10 more in the app.
Where How to Think in Chess takes you
- 1
Playing with Purpose
- The Pre-Move Safety Routine
- Controlling the Board from Move One
- 2
Finding the Winning Plan
- Attacking with Tactical Patterns
- Converting an Advantage into a Win
2 sections · 4 units · 11 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
How to Think in Chess is taught in the Bestie style: your friend who just gets it. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start How to Think in Chess today.
Download Tomo, search How to Think in Chess, and play your first lesson in under a minute.