1Getting started

Everything lives behind the ☰ menu (top-right) and the move bar beneath the board. The board is always full-screen; overlays and panels float above it and can be moved, resized, or slid aside.

• Open the ☰ menu to reach search, analysis, play, your library, and settings.
• The move bar under the board holds play controls, the move scrubber, game info, notation, and the ☕ support button.
• No sign-in is needed to explore. Sign in (just your email) only when you want to save games, favorites and history across devices.
• The ☕ count at the top is an approximate running total of games in the library.

2Finding games

What it does: locates games from the library by player, opening, ECO code, year, result, rating, and more — or hands you a random one.

• Open 🔎 Search Games. Tap a featured player chip for an instant search.
• Type into Player 1 and (optionally) Player 2 to find their encounters; pick from the dropdown or type freely in lastname,firstinitial form (e.g. carlsen,m). Set P1 colour to White or Black to fix which side they played.
• Choose an opening from the dropdown (Sicilian, Queen’s Indian, Ruy Lopez…) — or enter a specific ECO code (e.g. B90). The opening filter and ECO field are alternates.
• Narrow further by year, result, and minimum rating. Tick Only resignations to see only decisive games that ended without a checkmate on the board.
• Results stream in as you scroll; tap any game to load it. Tap the ☆ star on a result to save it to Favorites.
• 🎲 Random game loads a surprise (any game, or a random one by Player 1 if a name is filled). ↻ Another by this player keeps rolling for the current player.
• Every loaded game has a shareable link chess.solutions/coachcrow/g/<id> — copy it from the address bar to send to a friend; it opens that exact game.

3Millions of Champions’ Positions — the chess slot machine

What it does: a slot-machine-style picker over the library’s already-analyzed positions. Three reels — the White player, a position thumbnail, the Black player — always stop on one coherent real game. Open it with the 🎰 button on the move bar, from 💡 Links, or from the menu.

• Spin three equivalent ways: press the Spin plunger, pull the side handle down, or fling a reel vertically. The reels blur, stop left to right with a little bounce, and the gold payline arrows blink on the winning row.
• Browse after landing: scroll the mouse wheel over the drum, drag the reels, or press ↑ ↓ — the reels move in sync through the whole result list, more positions load in as you go, and the list wraps around at both ends.
• The → lock sliders under the side reels hold a player in place: lock one to spin only that player’s games (either colour), lock both to spin only games those two played against each other. Locked reels stand still; the rest spin.
• Load position (the right plunger) closes the machine, puts the landed position on the board inside its real game, and starts the full analysis immediately — arrows appear and, if Audio is on, the narration begins as soon as it’s ready. The 🔍 Start analyzing button under the board gives a little shake as your cue to open the written analysis.
• Results come from positions whose analysis is already cached, so everything opens instantly. While the machine is on screen, toasts and prompts stay out of the way. The red Exit button closes it.

4Moving through a game

What it does: steps through the moves, plays them automatically, or lets you branch off into your own lines.

• Use the on-board ◀ / ▶ arrows, the move scrubber to jump anywhere, or your keyboard ← →.
• In Moves & Controls: jump to Start / End, Flip the board, and tap any move in the move list to go straight there.
• Auto-play: press auto in the move bar to step through hands-free. Set the gap between moves (5s–10min) in Moves & Controls; click the countdown to pause or stop.
• Explore (branch): drag any piece to a legal square to leave the game line and try your own idea — a New thread banner appears. Press ↩ Return to game move to snap back to the real game.
• Probable finish: when a game ended by resignation, a prompt offers to play out the likely finish against the engine.
• Analyze game (in Moves & Controls) runs the engine over the whole game and marks blunders, mistakes and inaccuracies in the move list.

5Analyzing a position — the analysis panel

What it does: for any position, the browser’s Stockfish engine finds the best moves and Coach Crow explains them in clear language. Everything lives in one panel with two tabs.

Open it with 🔍 Ask Coach Crow (menu) or 🔍 Start analyzing on the win-chance bar under the board. On the untouched starting position it first asks to confirm.

Header controls

• 🔊 Read — reads the analysis (and chat) aloud; becomes ❚❚ Pause / ▶ Resume, with a separate ■ Stop. A pulsing 🔊 on the Analysis tab shows narration is still playing even while you look at other tabs.
• Language dropdown — get the write-up and narration in Hindi, Russian, Spanish, Tamil and 30+ more; your choice follows your account across devices. English (British) is a true text variant — colour, centre, analyse — read in a British voice. The first view of a new language takes a few extra seconds; after that it’s instant.
• ⤢ Maximize (desktop) — expand the panel to fill the screen; click again to restore. The panel is also draggable (title bar) and resizable (corner).

Tab 1 — Analysis

• The main read-out: an Assessment (who’s better and why), the top candidate moves as coloured arrows with evaluations, and traps to avoid.
• Chat: ask follow-up questions in the box at the bottom (“why not take the knight?”). Common answers are cached and load instantly; each answer has its own 🔊 Read button.
• The White win chance bar under the board shows the live engine evaluation (toggle the engine in Moves & Controls). Written commentary comes from a language model; if it’s unavailable the app falls back to a Stockfish-only read-out so analysis still works.
• Two-part lesson: analysis of a fresh position arrives in two acts. While the deep engine calculates, Coach Crow first talks through the moves human players are drawn to (drawn as indigo pen-stroke curves, from the Maia human-move research). When the verdict lands, the engine’s best moves take the board alone for a minute (straight colored arrows with evaluations), then all arrows show together for the rest of the lesson.
• Numbers you can trust: every tempting human move carries how often real players choose it and the engine’s measured evaluation after that move — the same numbers the narration quotes. On desktop, a compact Human Moves | Best Moves panel beneath the 🔍 Show analysis button lists them at a glance.

6Tab 2 — Quick answers

What it does: a dropdown of quick questions whose answers appear in this second tab without stopping the narration playing in Tab 1 — so you can keep listening to the main analysis while you peek at any of these. Board arrows are remembered per tab. The matching menu items and the two move-bar buttons below the board (details & notation) all open here too.

• ★ What is the best move? — the engine’s objectively strongest move.
• ♟ What is the best human move? — the move a strong human is most likely to play (inspired by the Maia chess research), which often differs from the cold engine pick.
• ♞ What would a champion play? — pick a champion from the list and see the move they would most likely choose, with the strategic why.
• 🔎 A specific player’s moves here — type any player’s name to see the moves they have actually played from this exact position in real games, with score percentages (a book drawn from the library). If they have no games here, it predicts from their style.
• ⓘ Game details & players — the players, event, date, opening, ECO and length, with a spoiler-safe Show result button.
• Ⓜ Game notation — the full PGN with Download .pgn, Print, and Email to me.
• ▧ Analyze the full game (move by move) — every move with a detailed (~40-word) description of its purpose, plan and key points. Press 🔊 Read to hear the whole game narrated. The first run takes several seconds (it works through the game in the background); after that it loads instantly (each game’s analysis and audio are cached), and it’s available in your chosen language.

Two conveniences: if you switch to the Analysis tab and it’s still empty, an 🔍 Start analyzing button there runs the full position analysis; and 🔊 Read always narrates whichever tab you’re viewing.

7Play & puzzles

What it does: play a full game against a human-like machine, solve real mate puzzles, or set up a free board.

• 🤖 Play the human-inspired machine: choose Beginner / Intermediate / Advanced and your colour. It plays like a real club player, not a cold engine — and drops naturally to Stockfish if needed. Resign, start a new game, or exit anytime.
• ♛ Spot the checkmate: loads a real game positioned a few moves before a forced mate in 2 or 3 — find the finish, then step forward to check yourself.
• ♟ Free board: a clean starting position where you play moves for both sides at will and analyze anything you reach — nothing is saved or replaced.
• Signed-in games against the machine are saved to My games and can be resumed on any device.

8Listening — spoken narration

What it does: reads the analysis, chat answers, and a short game intro aloud — hands-free study.

• Press 🔊 Read in the analysis panel. It first names the players and event, then reads the assessment, with ❚❚ Pause / ▶ Resume and ■ Stop controls. Each chat answer has its own Read button too.
• The Audio switch (near Links) turns narration on or off for everything.
• Narration matches your chosen analysis language. A natural premium voice is used where available; otherwise your device’s built-in voice is used. If a device can’t speak a language, switch back to English.
• On mobile, when narration starts, the panel slides aside so you can watch the board while you listen.
• Switching the Audio toggle off during narration pauses it (nothing is lost); pressing play again offers to switch audio back on and resume. While narration plays, the screen stays awake on mobile.

9Your library — account, favorites, games & history

What it does: keeps the games you like, the games you play, and the games you view — synced to your account.

• Sign in with just your email: we send a one-time code, no password. Add multiple emails, set a primary, and edit your name under Profile & account.
• ★ Favorites: star any database game (search results or the move bar) and find them under Show Favorites, searchable and re-sortable by date, players, or ECO.
• ♟ My games: your games against the machine, with filters by result, colour and type. Delete moves a game to Trash (restore or permanently delete from there).
• 🕔 History: a searchable log of games you’ve opened on this device; signing in keeps your full history everywhere.

10Notation — print, download, email

What it does: turns the current game into standard PGN you can keep or share.

• Open Ⓜ Show Game Notation (menu or move bar) for the full game details and move text.
• 🖨 Print a clean copy, ⬇ Download a .pgn file for any chess program, or ✉ Email it to yourself (signed-in) with the PGN attached.

11Links & quick ideas

What it does: quick ways in when you’re not sure where to start.

• 🎲 Random (on the main page, next to the Audio switch) — instantly lands a position from a real game, already analyzed, and starts the narration immediately: no questions, no waiting. Press it again for another; it avoids repeating recent ones.
• 💡 Quick Links (popular) in the ☰ menu opens the curated chooser below.

• 🎲 A random real-game position, analyzed and narrated for you.
• 🎰 Millions of Champions’ Positions — the chess slot machine (its own chapter above).
• 🤖 Jump straight into a game against the intermediate machine.
• ♛ A real mate-in-2 / 3 to solve.
• ♟ A free board to explore your own ideas.
• 🏆 Watch a full real game by a top player, auto-playing from move one.
• ☰ A pointer to the menu for the full feature set.

12Make it yours — board designs, colors & calm mode

What it does: restyle the board and pieces, recolor the whole site, and let the screen settle into a distraction-free view while you listen.

Board designs (📐)

• The 📐 button on the move bar (also Pieces Design in the ☰ menu) cycles through 12 looks: six styles — Default, Wooden, Marble, Clay Made, Premium (bold piece shadows) and Maharaja (a gilded, Indian-royal treatment) — each in two framings: Inline (file/rank letters inside the squares, as usual) or Bordered (large coordinates outside the board).
• Each press names the design in a small toast; your choice is remembered. Designs layer on top of whatever color theme you use — mix freely.

Color themes (🎨)

• The 🎨 button on the move bar cycles the 8 color themes (Classic Wood, Tournament Green, Coach Jeff’s Deep Blue …), naming each. Color themes in the ☰ menu opens the full picker with square-color swatches.

Calm mode (mobile)

• Leave the screen untouched for 6 seconds (or press and hold anywhere for ~2 seconds) and everything fades away except the board with its arrows, the Coach Crow header, the bottom audio bar, and a small Human Moves | Best Moves panel under the board. Narration keeps playing, and analysis keeps updating live — arrows still change as the lesson progresses.
• Touch anywhere to bring everything back exactly as it was (the waking touch itself never presses a hidden button). If the written analysis is open and visible, the fade politely stays off. While narration plays, the phone screen stays awake, like a video.

13Tips & keyboard shortcuts

• ← / → — previous / next move.
• Drag a piece — branch into your own line; Return to game move to come back.
• Player names and status auto-hide after a few seconds; move the mouse or tap to bring them back.
• Panels are draggable (by their title bar) and resizable (bottom-right corner) on desktop. On mobile they’re full-screen; drag the reveal handle (or press Show analysis) to peek at the board.
• The ⛶ fullscreen button fills the frame like a video.
• 🎨 Color themes (menu) — eight looks for the board and the slot machine, from Classic Wood to Jeff’s Deep Blue; your pick is saved on this device.
• Stuck sign-in? ↻ Fix/Reset session clears stored tokens and reloads.

14Privacy, cookies & your data

• Essential cookies keep you signed in and your session secure — always on.
• Preference and analytics cookies are optional and off until you enable them. Change your choice anytime via 🍪 Cookie settings.
• Your saved games, favorites and history are tied to your account and reachable only by you. Sign out anytime from the menu or Profile & account.

15Disclaimer

Game data is aggregated from publicly available sources and is provided as-is, without warranty of accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any purpose. Names, ratings, dates and results may contain errors from the original sources. Obsolete or duplicate games are periodically removed and new ones added; the game counter shown is an approximate figure, not an exact database size.

Various games come from open database releases published under CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication), which explicitly permits commercial use with no attribution required and no permission needed.

Written analysis, position explanations, chat answers and the “human-inspired” and “machine” move picks are generated by large language models (LLMs) and can be wrong, incomplete, or misleading — treat them as study aids, not authoritative judgements, and verify anything important. Move percentages describe typical play at each level and are statistical estimates; evaluations are engine measurements at fixed depth and can differ from deeper analysis. If an LLM is unavailable (for example, service limits are reached), the app automatically falls back to the Stockfish chess engine, which provides the evaluation and a generic, engine-only description in place of the written commentary.

This site is for study and entertainment only and is not affiliated with any player, federation, or the sources of the underlying games.

Support

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Credits

Stockfish (GPL) — move calculation and evaluation, in the browser and as the analysis fallback. · chess.js and chessboard.js — game logic and the board. · The Maia Chess research inspires the human-style move model. · Piece images: Wikimedia Commons.