I Finished Duolingo’s Chess Course. It’s Useless for Non-Beginners (2026 Review)

Updated October 2026. I’ve now finished the entire course, and Duolingo has added game review, player vs. player matches, games against friends, and playing with Black since I first wrote this. Here’s what changed, and what didn’t.

Obviously, if you’re a high-level chess player, then Duolingo’s chess course is not for you. That’d be like a native speaker doing Duolingo for their own language.

But I don’t consider myself a high-level chess player (I’m around 1480 on Chess.com), so when the chess course popped up as an announcement on my Duolingo app, I thought it’d be a good chance for me to improve or stay sharp.

However, even at my still unimpressive level, the Duolingo chess course wasn’t that helpful. At least, it was much less helpful than other free resources available.

This was true even after I skipped ahead to puzzles at roughly my level.

Since I first wrote this review, I kept going. I finished the whole course, all the way up to the 1500 Elo ceiling. My verdict hasn’t changed. If anything, it’s firmer.

And when I say non-beginners, I don’t mean “serious players.” I mean anyone who’s past the beginner stage. I’m trash, relatively speaking.

In this article, I’ll share my thoughts on the course after finishing it, who it is and isn’t for, and where to go instead.

I have a 1,700+ day streak on Duolingo, across many courses. I’ve been a premium (and now Max) user for several years. I’ve finished entire courses on Duolingo. (You can read my reviews of the Catalan course and Duolingo Max.) And I’ve had the chess bug for years. Let’s get to the chess.

What’s Changed Since I First Reviewed It

When I first wrote this in August 2025, you could only play with White, only against Oscar, and you couldn’t look back at a single move you made. Duolingo has been busy since then.

• Playing with Black, added in October 2025
• Play a Person, Duolingo’s player vs. player mode, which came to iOS in late 2025 and Android in February 2026
• Games against friends
• Chess on the web, not only in the app
• Game Review, added in August 2026, which saves your matches so you can replay them, with Oscar flagging good moves, missed opportunities, and mistakes
• Opening lessons, endgame mini-matches, and tougher sections for more advanced players

Credit where it’s due. These are real improvements, and a few of them fix my biggest complaints from the first version of this review.

But I keep coming back to the same question. Every one of these features already exists on Chess.com and Lichess, and they’re better there. If you’re even a hobbyist player like me, what are you doing playing chess on Duolingo? Go to a chess app.

I Finished the Whole Course. Did It Make Me Better?

I made it all the way to 1500. Going back and forth between chess and French, it took me about a year.

I’ll give it this. The course helped me understand queen and knight checkmate patterns. There were a few smothered mate lessons, and I think the smothered mate is finally baked into my subconscious.

Those pattern-repetition lessons were the best part of the course for me. Seeing the same idea over and over is how a pattern sticks. The random “mate in 5” and “middle-game practice” lessons did much less for me.

But did finishing the course make me a better chess player overall? No, I don’t think so. At least, not as much as if I’d spent the time doing lessons on a chess app.

Since I skipped ahead, most of the course was easy for me. It was only in the last section, Section 7, that the puzzles started to challenge me. And that’s exactly where the format started to fall apart.

Chess Puzzles and Duolingo Don’t Really Go Together

Duolingo works for languages because you learn bit by bit. I can do a French lesson for two or three minutes and walk away with something, a new word, a verb ending, a phrase.

Chess doesn’t work like that. A puzzle that makes me better is a puzzle that I have to spend a few minutes on. Anything less, and by definition it wasn’t a hard puzzle for me.

Every lesson usually has four to six puzzles. In Section 7, a real puzzle took me a few minutes to work through properly. Say a lesson has five, and each takes me two minutes. That’s 10 minutes for one lesson. Even if only a couple of them are hard, I’m still over five minutes.

That’s not how Duolingo is built. Everything about the app (the XP, the streaks, the quests) rewards you for clearing lessons fast. So the incentive is to rush through five puzzles, not to slow down and think. And when you get stuck, Oscar is right there with a hint.

At the higher Elos, I’d rather see one puzzle per lesson. One real puzzle, without the hints. Make me sit with it. That’s a lesson I’d take something away from.

The Appeal of Duolingo’s Chess Course

I suppose their chess course is Duolingo doing what they’ve always done best, gamifying learning. In the chess course, they’ve done that.

Quick Lessons and Puzzles

Like their language learning courses, you’ll get quick lessons and puzzles you can do in just a few minutes. They won’t require you to be totally present or think too deeply. For a beginner, this will help you spot various chess patterns quickly over time.

There Does Seem to Be Variety and Progression

Like the language learning courses Duolingo has, my instinct is to be critical that there are lots of quick lessons without the appearance of a broader “program.” But I think this is part of Duolingo’s secret sauce. You learn and progress without feeling like you are.

Some lessons have endgame puzzles. Others are checkmate patterns. Others are random middle games with hanging pieces. I think the course gives a decent grasp of the types of patterns you see on the chessboard.

Guidance on the Basics

I will also give credit to Duolingo here for having “Oscar,” one of their mascots, provide tips and hints. At the start of some levels, he will guide you to the first move, allowing you to get a feel for the pattern.

Experience Points, Streaks, Quests… All the Duolingo Staples

Duolingo is the undisputed master of making learning feel like an addictive video game. With their streaks and quests, you may want to do this for how gamified it is. And that’s okay! Hey, if it gets you learning how to move the chess pieces and starting to understand the game, great.

Who the Course Is Good For: Beginners

If you don’t know how the pieces move, the Duolingo chess course is great.

My comments section has pushed back on this review. Many beginners chimed in to share how it has been helpful. That’s my point. It’s a beginner course.

Once you’re a decent chess player with some understanding of tactics and positions, the problems become obvious. And again, I’m nothing special. I played in high school with friends. But even I notice these flaws.

It’s Not Good if You’re Over ~1300 Elo

First, the course ends at around 1500 Elo. I know, because I got there. 1500 is still beginner-to-intermediate territory, but if you’re at that level, you’ve played a good amount of chess, and there’s nothing left for you here.

Even before that, I don’t think there’s a lot of value. The puzzles helped me a little bit, but if you’re beyond a beginner, you should look for other apps.

The Course Still Has Several Issues

Let’s get into the drawbacks. Some of my original complaints have been addressed, at least partly. Most haven’t.

Game Review Exists Now, but It’s No Chess.com

When I first wrote this, my biggest gripe was that you couldn’t review puzzles or games. You just had to keep going. It’s hard to improve when you can’t examine what you did right or wrong.

In August 2026, Duolingo added Game Review. Your matches now save to a history, you can replay them move by move, and Oscar points out your good moves, missed opportunities, and mistakes. Sometimes a missed opportunity becomes a quick exercise where you get to try the move again.

On paper, that’s a big step up from seeing nothing. I’ve used it. It just feels like Oscar being annoying again. Ten times out of ten, I’d rather play and review a game on Chess.com.

And Game Review is only for games. Puzzles still have no review. Get one wrong and you move on.

Compare that to Chess.com, where a puzzle comes with a computer teacher explaining the mistake, and you can “review” any puzzle and move the pieces around as you figure it out.

I’ve Made Peace With the Time Format

In my first review, I complained that you couldn’t change the time format, and that you could only play with the white pieces. Duolingo fixed the second one in October 2025, and now you can play real people and friends too.

You still can’t pick your own time control. Play a Person is 10 minutes per side, though Duolingo has been tweaking this. In their defense, anything shorter and it’s hard to really improve. So I don’t have an issue with it anymore.

Its Puzzles Are Still Mostly Tactics

Tactics are great. And important. But you can’t just do tactics.

To be fair, Duolingo has added opening lessons and endgame mini-matches since my first review, which is the direction I asked for. But to me, the mini-matches and opening lessons all feel the same. Having finished the course, it’s still mostly puzzles, and most of those puzzles are tactics.

I’d like to see more full endgames that you play to the end, not just the next one or two moves. How about more “puzzles” where the best move is something subtle or positional? There’s much more to chess improvement than spotting mates-in-2, or tactics that win a piece.

Oscar Is Extremely Annoying

Every time you do a puzzle, Oscar says something. Sometimes he says something that’s a hint for the puzzle. (Which often gives the puzzles away.)

Those hints matter more than you’d think. If Oscar tells you where the queen goes, the puzzle is over before you’ve done the thinking that makes you better.

Other times, he rotates between the same 10 or so irrelevant phrases. It gets annoying after a few rounds. I now turn the volume off when I do a lesson because Oscar annoys me.

He’s inconsistent as an opponent too. One reader, Ed, noticed Oscar turning into “a raging chess monster” once his Elo reached the 900s, then easing up again once he dropped back to the 800s. Getting crushed with no explanation isn’t a lesson.

If You Know How the Pieces Move Already, Head to Chess.com or Lichess

This is not meant to be an ad for Chess.com at all. I’m not a member and have no affiliation. You can use Lichess too, which is completely free. I’m going to talk about Chess.com because I’ve used it more. These are companies that know how to teach chess. It’s what they do. And they do it in bite-sized app formats like Duolingo.

The free version of these chess apps is better than the paid version of Duolingo. If you really want to improve your chess, then the paid version of Chess.com will be your best option.

Their Lessons Are Much Better

The lessons on these real apps are fully-fledged lessons, with explanations on each move and a clear progression that shows how they connect.

Their Options for Playing Games Are Broader

Duolingo now lets you play real people and friends, but that’s where it stops. On Chess.com, you can play the computer at all kinds of difficulty levels, or face off against real people from around the world, and you set the time controls. Rapid, blitz, bullet, or even correspondence games that last days.

Puzzles, Analysis, and Feedback

The puzzle feature on Chess.com is light-years ahead of Duolingo’s.

After you solve (or fail) a puzzle, you can analyze the position with a computer, see the correct sequence of moves, and play out alternative lines to understand why your choice was wrong. You can filter puzzles by themes (forks, pins, endgames, checkmates) and track your puzzle rating over time. And you can do one hard puzzle and sit with it as long as you need, which is exactly what Duolingo’s format discourages.

Full games are just as well-supported. Duolingo’s new Game Review is a start, but Chess.com’s automated analysis of every move, blunders, mistakes, and brilliant moves alike, is still on another level. More feedback = more improvement.

Maybe Stick With Languages?

There’s an assumption that chess is good for our brains. I can speak to my experience. I’ve written before about how lessons from chess help me think in other areas.

Yet, there are other instances of creative thinkers “losing themselves” in chess. I’ve felt this too. It can be addictive and distract you from what matters more in life. Maybe you’re better off continuing to learn languages on Duolingo? (Or ditching the apps altogether.)

Duolingo Chess FAQ

Does Duolingo chess have game review?

Yes, since August 2026, but only for games, not puzzles. Your matches save to a history where you can replay them, and Oscar flags good moves, missed opportunities, and mistakes. I’ve used it, and I’d still rather review a game on Chess.com every time.

How high does the Duolingo chess course go?

It’s designed to take you from zero to around 1500 Elo. I finished it in about a year. Once you’re near the top, there isn’t much left for you on Duolingo.

Can you play against friends or real people on Duolingo chess?

Yes. Play a Person matches you with someone at a similar skill level, and you can also play friends. You can play as White or Black now too. Games against people are 10 minutes per side, which Duolingo has been tweaking.

Is Duolingo chess free?

Yes. The chess course isn’t locked behind Super or Max. Paying gets you the usual perks like no ads, not extra chess content. Then again, Lichess is completely free too, and much better for anyone past the basics.

Is Duolingo chess worth it?

If you’re an absolute beginner, yes. It’s a fun, low-pressure way to learn how the pieces move and pick up basic patterns. If you already know the basics, no. Go to a real chess app.

Anyway, those are my thoughts, now with the whole course behind me. Have you tried the Duolingo chess course? Chime in with your experience down in the comments.