Join Cohort One of the Sia Founder Lab
Become the best version of the chess player you already are.
Sia uses your own games to reveal the hidden patterns in your chess DNA — then helps you train the habits that bring your best game out more often.
I’m building a different model of chess improvement: less shame, less engine worship, and a more path to self-mastery.
If you’re an adult improver who knows your results don’t reflect your true ability, this is for you.
I’ve been struggling for years as an adult improver. I’ve had a YouTube channel since 2019, run a chess training club, bought courses, made courses, paid coaches, studied openings, drilled tactics, and spent countless hours watching stronger players explain their thinking.
And yes, I improved. But slowly. Unevenly. I’d gain rating, then lose it again. Sometimes a lot. Frankly, it annoyed the hell out of me.
What was I missing? Why wasn’t all that effort translating into steadier progress?
So in 2025 I decided to figure out what was really going on. Seven months of trial and error. Four versions of the app. Thousands of real amateur games analysed.
That work became Sia: a data-driven self-mastery system that helps adult improvers understand their own chess patterns and train the habits that let their real ability show up more often.
This changes everything
The engine is a brilliant tool. It makes a terrible god.
For too many adult improvers, Game Review becomes a loop of mistake, blunder, missed win, impossible engine line, and shame.
Sia starts from a different belief: your mistakes are data, not evidence against you.
As adult improvers we already know we should check threats, slow down in critical positions, calculate candidates, stay objective when winning, and keep fighting when worse.
The hard part is remembering to do those things when the position gets tense, emotional, messy, or deceptively comfortable.
Under pressure, some players rush. Some freeze. Some relax too early. Some panic when attacked. Some play the board that existed one move ago.
Sia looks across your actual games to find those recurring dispositions, then turns them into focused work-ons you can train.
The issue is often less about knowledge, and more about access: bringing out the chess player you already are.
Pattern-based self-mastery
Most tools show you what happened after the water has already leaked out. Sia is designed to show the patterns underneath: the moments where your best chess disappears.
Your lowest holes may be fast blunders, missed threats, loose pieces, thrown endgames, premature resignations, or something more personal: relaxing when better, panicking when attacked, or rushing after your opponent moves quickly.
Once you see the pattern clearly, training gets simpler. Work on one habit. Keep attention there. Then move to the next one.
totally focused trainer
Normal analysis tells you the move was bad. Sia is built to show the habit behind the mistake — whether you rushed, missed a threat, skipped the candidate move process, or repeated a pattern that keeps showing up in your games.
Sia ranks your most important work-ons and gives you one serious focus at a time. The current challenge on the right turns a vague weakness into a concrete training target.
Coached games
A normal game review tells you what you got wrong. Sia adds the missing layer: was it rushed, did you ignore a threat, did you skip the candidate move process, or did one of your known habits show up again?
That matters because you can only train the real cause once you can see the patterns clearly.
Other tools only care about what you did wrong. Sia cares about why!
Drill mode
Drill mode turns a repeated pattern into a training habit. Instead of abstract content, you practise exactly the kind of moment where your process tends to disappear.
Drill Mode doesn't just test whether you can find good moves, it proves to you that you can do it repeatedly… when you take the time!
Insight reports
Sia explains the pattern, shows the impact, gives a practical tip, and uses charts to reveal whether the habit is linked to speed, game phase, evaluation context, or other danger zones in your play.
The 52-week Founder Lab
You give me your chess.com or Lichess username. I import your games, run the analysis, build your baseline, and help you use Sia to decode your chess DNA.
Cohort One
I’m looking for a small group of serious adult improvers to work closely with me over 12 months as we replace shame-based chess improvement with pattern-based self-mastery.
Keep the software as it grows beyond the Founder phase.
A personal baseline built around your games, your patterns, and your danger zones.
Zoom, email, and WhatsApp support from Ben to help you get the best from the system.
Regular group sessions with a small cohort of serious adult improvers.
Your usage and feedback help shape the product while it is still young.
Less noise. More attention on the habits that help your real ability show up.
Bold guarantee
If you engage fully with the 12-month Founder Lab and do not honestly feel that you understand your chess more deeply, know what to work on, and feel more confident and resilient as a player, I’ll refund you in full.
To qualify, you’ll need to complete onboarding, train regularly, play enough games for patterns to show, and stay in contact so I can help you get the best from Sia.
July Founder cohort
Founder Access is for serious adult improvers who want to enjoy chess again, understand their own patterns, and help create a more humane, truthful way to improve.