10/11/2021 – What if you could get an estimate of your Elo rating just by doing a single test, as opposed to playing a couple of dozen games at long time controls? It isn’t an exaggeration to say this sounds like one of those inane personality ‘quizzes’ you see in supermarket magazines. But this proposal was the subject of a university study to do just that. Try it yourself!

8/22/2020 – On August 10, Praggnanandhaa turned 15 years old. On that day he received a message by IM Sagar Shah: "Would you like to test yourself today?" Without hesitation Pragg agreed. Normal 15-year-old kids would prefer to have a party or spend time with their friends on their birthday. But Pragg is different. He is ready to give up all that if he can spend some time learning a new trick or two on the chessboard. And, so the test began! Fifteen positions were solved in less than an hour. It turned out to be a tremendous test — give it a go! | Photo: Leon Masters website

7/20/2020 – Tell me who you are, and I tell you which opening you should learn. I once made a similar personality study in my chess course on Skillshare and received a lot of nice comments about how fun it was. What better day to share a similar test than International Chess Day? Keep in mind, the whole test shouldn't be taken too seriously. It should be fun to think about yourself and what kind of openings you prefer to play, that's all. | Photos: Pixabay

7/8/2020 – This provoking title has some truth in it. Humanbenchmark.com specializes in measuring human brain abilities with games and cognitive tests. One of their exercises states that chimpanzees consistently outperform humans — the Chimpanzee Test. Interestingly enough, some games are strongly related to chess. For pattern recognition, the “Visual Memory Test” is helpful, while for online chess purposes the “Aim Trainer” might do the trick.