One of the most effective ways to learn to play chess better is to analyze your own games. The legendary world chess champion Mikhail Moiseevich Botvinnik emphasized the importance of this lesson and even encouraged the masters to publish analyzes of their games in the media..
But there is one tiny problem: most players don't know how to do this. The game is over - you are a little tired and worried about the next game, so why aggravate the situation by remembering the defeat? Oh sorry, did you win? "Why watch a game you won?" - the person thinks. It sounds funny, but many chess players really do this.
Therefore, as a continuation of the article about the best chess applications , I made a selection of applications for the analysis of chess games. I suggest that you test each of them, choose one or two and check your past games in them on a regular basis..
DecodeChess.com
Sometimes a simple answer is not enough. Remember how the Deep Thought computer in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy figured out the answer to the central question of life and the universe? He replied: 42. The problem is that “42” requires further explanation. And also with chess analyzers.
DecodeChess not only shows the correct move, but also explains it in human language (and in Russian), unlike other competing programs. The service is based on artificial intelligence that runs on the Stockfish 12 engine. On the site you can not only analyze games, but also play with an AI that will adapt to your level of play in order to give you at least some chance to beat it..
Position analysis can be carried out directly during the game. For each position, DecodeChess shows several areas of interest in chess analysis: the opponent's threats and what remains of them if the best move is made, shows the best moves in descending order, reveals important positional and tactical motives.
DecodeChess was created for players who want to understand the reasons behind every chess move. If you are a chess player with an ELO rating of up to 2000 and use other applications for analyzing games, but cannot understand the essence of the recommendations, then DecodeChess is what you need.
In free mode, only 2 transcripts are available per day. If this is not enough for you, then you can pay for an annual subscription for only 15 dollars, then the number of available decryptions will increase to 60.
Aimchess
Aimchess is a great app for learning and improving chess. In it, you will go through new lessons every day, learn new strategies, thereby earning points for which you can get access to new lessons.
Two of the most popular free online chess sites are Chess.com and Lichess . Aimchess works with both of them to provide AI analysis of your playstyle. Just enter your username and the app will generate a report that analyzes your recent games and points out your strengths and weaknesses, as well as gives tips on how to improve the game. If you do not speak English well, use the built-in translator in Google Chrome to translate the recommendations into Russian.
In addition, you will have access to daily lessons, sharpened specifically for your style of play. At times, the app will review the games you have played and analyze them for you.
The free version provides nine free lessons per day, analyzes up to 40 recent games, and the number of reports is limited to three. The paid version for $ 8 a month will provide unlimited lessons, analysis of up to 1000 games, and up to 10 reports.
Available for Android / iPhone / Online .
Listudy
To become a good chess player, you need to master the basic openings and endgames, which you must know by heart and be able to apply at the right time. The Listudy service will teach you exactly this.
It uses a spaced repetition technique that dramatically improves memorization: you repeat the same action after a set amount of time, which gives amazing results with due diligence.
With Listudy, you will master basic chess openings such as King's Gambit, Indian Defense, Evans' Gambit and many more. You will also master the variations of each tactic, which is also important for a successful debut.
In the app, you also practice endgame, i.e. the final stage of the party. This is a very important skill, because at the end of the game the clock starts counting down the last minutes and it is important to be able to make the right decisions quickly.
Listudy also has a large collection of different tactics, which will give you the opportunity to try your hand: the program will give you a random position and ask you to find the best move in this situation. There are no restrictions here, you can exercise as much as you like.
Chess Vision
Chess Vision is an amazing set of AI-powered chess tools. It consists of three parts; the extension for the Chrome or Firefox browser is enough for ordinary users .
After installing the Chess Vision extension, it will be able to analyze chessboards right from your monitor. For example, if you are puzzling over an online game or watching a stream of a chess match, just launch the extension: in a minute or two it will scan the board and suggest the best moves and combinations. In general, this is a great way to learn how to analyze your own mistakes.
The second component of Chess Vision is a YouTube search engine geared towards chess. The search engine filter includes starting positions, game phases, position opening and pawn structure. You can search on general topics like pawn gambits and castling. Just specify the required parameters and the service will immediately give you a list of all suitable videos on YouTube.
The last part is an AI e-book reader that turns ordinary chess textbooks into interactive pages: you can immediately play any game you find in the book. This feature has limitations for free users, so you will have to pay extra for full access.
Stockfish
Stockfish is probably the most powerful open source chess engine, capable of using up to 512 CPU cores on multiprocessor systems. At the same time, it is distributed free of charge and is available for both desktop (Windows, Linux) and mobile platforms.
Among its features, it is worth noting support for the alpha-beta clipping algorithm , bitboards, greater depth of search due to more aggressive trimming and shortening of moves, as well as support for Chess960 and much more.
Stockfish is much stronger than the best grandmasters. Unlike most chess engines, it is open source (GPL licensed), so you can read the code, modify it, and use it in your own projects.
Available for Android / iPhone and PC (from the link above).
