# A free AI chess coach that explains why

> Chess Coach is a free AI chess coach for Claude and ChatGPT: Stockfish checks your Chess.com and Lichess games and your assistant explains each key moment.

- URL: https://thechesscoach.netlify.app/features/ai-chess-coach/
- Updated: 2026-11-04
- Author: Ignacio Soler

Chess Coach is a **free AI chess coach** that works inside Claude and ChatGPT. Every day it reviews one of your finished Chess.com or Lichess games in depth at no cost: Stockfish checks every move, and your assistant explains the two or three moments that matter most in plain words, on a board you can explore. For the first 14 days you also get everything in Pro: more reviews, a profile of your play in five areas and drills built from your own mistakes, over up to 30 games or a whole period. After that, paid plans keep those.

## What an AI chess coach should do for a beginner

An engine already knows the best move. What a beginner is missing is the *why*. A useful AI chess tutor turns the engine's verdict into something you can remember in your next game:

- **Pick the few moments that matter.** A long game can contain many small slips. A coach shows you two or three, not all of them.
- **Say what the pieces did.** "Your knight attacked their queen, but the queen simply stepped away" is a lesson. A number on a bar is not.
- **Explain each idea the first time it shows up.** For example: a double attack is one move that threatens two things at once, so your opponent can only save one of them.
- **Make you find the move.** Replaying your own mistakes and choosing the better move yourself is active practice, not reading.
- **Never make things up.** A language model on its own is not a reliable chess engine. An LLM chess coach should explain analysis an engine has checked. We look at this in [Can Claude analyze chess games?](/answers/can-claude-analyze-chess-games/) and [Can ChatGPT analyze chess games?](/answers/can-chatgpt-analyze-chess-games/).

If you have ever finished a review and still not understood a single move, you are not alone; we wrote about it in [Chess.com Game Review not explaining moves](/answers/chess-com-game-review-not-explaining-moves/).

## The same moment, from an engine and from a coach

Here is a position with black to move. Black's knight sits in the middle of the board and has several squares to choose from. Imagine you moved it forward to attack the queen (the red arrow).

> **Attacking the queen looks strong, but attacking the rook is better**
> Position (FEN): `r2q1rk1/p1pbppbp/3p2p1/3P4/PN2n3/1P1QBN2/5PPP/1R3RK1 b - - 3 15`
> Played: Nc5 — Knight to c5 attacks the queen
> Better: Nc3 — Knight to c3 attacks the rook

**What an engine shows you:** a ranked list along the lines of `Nc3 −1.5 … Nc5 −0.8`. That is accurate, and for a beginner it says almost nothing. (Rounded numbers from Stockfish on our server; they move a little from run to run.)

**What a coach tells you:** you moved your knight to attack their queen. It feels strong, but the queen simply steps away and attacks your knight back, so the threat is over in one move. Your knight had a better square, the one where it attacks their rook instead (the green arrow). In every check we ran, Stockfish ranked that rook attack first, and after the queen attack black's edge shrinks to half or less. The lesson to keep: before you make a threat, look at how your opponent can answer it. A threat they can meet with a useful move gains you nothing.

That is the whole job of an AI chess coach: the same engine facts, turned into one idea you can use.

## What Chess Coach does as your AI chess coach

- **Explained game reviews.** Pick any finished game and your assistant walks you through it, without notation or numbers unless you ask for them.
- **Key moments ①②③.** The two or three most instructive moments are numbered on the interactive board, in the same order as the explanation below it. Tap a number to jump there.
- **Practice mistakes.** The positions where you went wrong come back so you can find the better move yourself.
- **Ask "why?" at any point.** The "Why?" buttons on the board send your question about the position on screen to your assistant, and you can drag pieces to test your own ideas.
- **Opening report.** How you score with each opening as white and as black, which lines cost you points, and how to prepare for a specific opponent.
- **Five-area profile** (free trial, Plus and Pro). Scores your recent games from 0 to 100 in blunders, tactics, clock, converting won positions and openings, weakest first, with examples.
- **Drills from your own mistakes** (free trial, Plus and Pro). Your errors become puzzles, one at a time, and the ones you miss come back at the end.
- **Your level.** Beginner explanations are the default. Say "explain it more technically" and it switches to notation and numbers, and remembers it.

## An AI chess coach for Chess.com and Lichess

1. [Add Chess Coach to Claude or ChatGPT](/connect/) as a connector and sign in with email or Google. That creates your free account.
2. Tell your assistant your username: "I'm your_username on Lichess. Show me my games." It searches your whole history and remembers you.
3. Pick a game (yesterday's or one from two years ago) and learn on the board.

It works the same with Chess.com and Lichess, and you can also paste a game link or a PGN. In Claude, Chess Coach runs on the web, the desktop app and mobile; in ChatGPT you install it from OpenAI’s plugin directory ([how it works in ChatGPT](/answers/can-chatgpt-analyze-chess-games/)). To see what a single review contains in detail, read about [AI chess analysis](/features/ai-chess-analysis/).

## Free vs paid

| Plan | Price | Game reviews | Also included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free trial | $0 for the first 14 days | Up to 20 a day | Everything in Pro, no card needed |
| Free | $0 | 1 in-depth review a day | Board, mistake practice, opening reports, 30 position checks a day |
| Plus | $3.99/month | 10 a day | Five-area player profile, drills from your mistakes |
| Pro | $7.99/month | Unlimited, fair use (up to 20 a day) | Everything in Plus |

Limits reset at midnight UTC. Your assistant does the talking on your own Claude or ChatGPT account, so Chess Coach only charges for the engine work. See [pricing](/#pricing); if you use ChatGPT, you manage your subscription on the website.

## Honest limits

- **One free in-depth review a day after the trial.** If you play ten games a day, the Free plan makes you choose which one to study. That is often a good habit, but it is a real limit.
- **Finished, public games only.** Chess Coach reads games with your username and never asks for your Chess.com or Lichess password. It will not look at a game in progress.
- **It lives in your AI assistant.** You need a Claude account (free or paid) or ChatGPT. Install it from your assistant’s directory ([how to connect](/connect/)). Chess Coach is available in [Claude’s directory](https://claude.ai/directory/chess-coach) and [OpenAI’s plugin directory](https://chatgpt.com/plugins/plugin_asdk_app_6ad9e00bd14481918e1bfc260a358e03). Open its listing, install it and sign in with your Chess Coach account.
- **It's not a human coach.** It doesn't watch you play or know your goals unless you tell it. On Plus or Pro, ask for a weekly training plan and it builds seven days of work around your two weakest areas.
- **The board is in English.** Your assistant answers in your language.

Chess Coach is an independent product, not affiliated with Chess.com, Lichess, Anthropic or OpenAI.

## FAQ

### Is there a free AI chess coach?

Yes. Every account starts with 14 days of full access at no cost and with no card. After that, Chess Coach's Free plan reviews one of your games in depth every day, with the interactive board, mistake practice, opening reports and 30 position checks a day. No card is needed.

### Is there an AI chess coach for Lichess?

Chess Coach works with Lichess the same way as with Chess.com: give Claude or ChatGPT your Lichess username, a game link or a PGN, and it reviews your public, finished games.

### Can an LLM be a good chess coach?

A language model on its own is not a chess engine, so its evaluations shouldn't be trusted unchecked. Chess Coach gives your assistant (Claude or ChatGPT) Stockfish and move descriptions computed from the rules, so it explains real analysis instead of guessing.

### Will the AI chess coach help me during a game?

No. Chess Coach only looks at finished games and never helps with a game in progress. Fair play matters.

### What do I get with Plus instead of Free?

Plus costs $3.99 a month and raises the limit from one in-depth review a day to ten. It also adds the five-area player profile and drills built from your own mistakes.

## Related

- [Free AI chess analysis of your games, explained](https://thechesscoach.netlify.app/features/ai-chess-analysis.md)
- [Chess MCP server for Claude and ChatGPT: Chess Coach](https://thechesscoach.netlify.app/connect.md)
- [Can Claude analyze chess games? Yes, with Stockfish](https://thechesscoach.netlify.app/answers/can-claude-analyze-chess-games.md)
- [Chess.com Game Review not explaining moves? Here's why](https://thechesscoach.netlify.app/answers/chess-com-game-review-not-explaining-moves.md)
- [Chess.com Game Review vs Chess Coach: an honest comparison](https://thechesscoach.netlify.app/vs/chess-com-game-review.md)