ABOUTASCENDCHESS

ASCENDCHESS exists for one person: the serious improver who plays often, studies inconsistently, and has been stuck at the same rating longer than they want to admit.

Who we build for

You play on Lichess or Chess.com a few times a week. You solve puzzles. You own books you have half-read and courses you started and forgot by Tuesday. You would benefit enormously from a coach, and you know it. But regular coaching costs more than most improvers can spend every week, so you improvise, you browse, and your rating drifts.

That is who ASCENDCHESS is for. Not the aspiring titled player. Not the club champion. The serious improver rated somewhere between 800 and 1800 who has plenty of content and no one connecting it into a coherent path forward.

What we promise

Every time you open ASCENDCHESS, someone should already know you. They know what you worked on yesterday. They know where you are losing points. They have picked something for you to do today. You do not have to figure it out. You just have to show up.

That is the whole product: a coaching platform that knows your games, your books, and your weaknesses, and tells you exactly what to work on today. No silver bullets. Just the right work, every day.

Who builds it

ASCENDCHESS is built by Joe Hungerman, a serious improver who got tired of platforms that were not built for him. Joe is the target customer: he studies the books, plays the rated games, runs a chess club, and built the coaching platform he could not find anywhere else. Every feature ships because it survived his own training first.

What finally clicked came from his day job. Joe spent eighteen years in continuous improvement before founding SEE/EYE, a continuous improvement and change management platform, and he realized every chess tool he owned was a separate room he was walking between, with none of them talking to each other. ASCENDCHESS is what connects them. The longer story, the podcast moment that set it off and why he would rather be the one who tried, is on his Substack: Why I Built ASCENDCHESS.

What we will never claim

ASCENDCHESS does not replace a human coach. A human coach brings relationship, accountability, tournament wisdom, and emotional support that software cannot replicate. Our promise is that a player who cannot afford a human coach gets as close to that experience as software can honestly provide. And when you are ready for a human coach, the platform helps you find one. That handoff is not a utility buried in a menu. It is how we prove the coaching worked.

Where we are today

ASCENDCHESS is live. We built it with a small group of club players and coaches before opening the doors, and we would still rather earn trust than launch loud. Create your account and see what it does with your games.