Train the chess skills other apps quietly skip.
Pawnther Chess is a focused trainer for players who want real board vision, sharp calculation, and a human-like opponent. Theory and puzzles are the easy part. The hard part is seeing the board. That's the work we built around.
Built by a small independent chess-software team for adult improvers first. Kids mode comes later.
Chess apps overfeed theory and underfeed sight.
Most platforms drown you in puzzles and openings while quietly avoiding the skills that actually decide club games: seeing the board, calculating two or three moves clean, and not blundering a piece on move 18.
- Endless rated puzzles you solve by pattern recognition
- Opening trees that demand 40 moves of memorised theory
- Bots that play unrealistically — too perfect or too random
- Analysis that says "−1.2" and goes quiet
- Drills for board vision, notation, and mental geometry
- Opening Improver: practical lines opponents actually play
- Maia: a human-like opponent that blunders like a real human
- Review that turns mistakes into the next useful drill
Six modules. One ladder.
Each exercise builds the next. Square colour and tap-the-square feed visualisation; visualisation and notation feed blind tactics; blind tactics feed blindfold.
Square Color
Name the colour of any square instantly. The geometry of the board, internalised.
Tap the Square
Hear a coordinate, find the square. Fastest path to fluent board coordinates.
Visualization
Move a piece in your head, then answer questions about where it landed. Hold positions mentally.
Notation
Read a game in algebraic. Hear "Nf3 e5 Bc4" and see the board without flipping pieces.
Blind Tactics
Solve a tactic from a position you only saw briefly. Calculation under pressure.
Blindfold
Play a full game without seeing the pieces. The end-state of visualisation.
A human-like opponent that blunders like a human.
Maia is trained on millions of human games. She plays the moves a player at your ELO would actually play — including the mistakes. Beat her and you've beaten a believable opponent, not an engine pretending to be one.
- Adjustable Maia 2 from beginner ratings through 2000+
- Free play now; line-based play and memory drills in the Pro roadmap
- Post-game review designed to feed the next training set
Learn the lines you actually face.
Pawnther shows opponent move frequency by your ELO, not the GM database. Anti-Sicilians at 1400 look nothing like the main-line theory you've been memorising.
Practical move frequency
For every position, see what opponents at your rating actually play, ranked by frequency. The Stockfish eval is there too, but it's not the headline.
Remember the Line
Roadmap mode for opening sequences. Drill a line until you can produce it cold, then bring it back before it slips.
Post-game feedback that names what you did wrong.
Load your last game from PGN or paste a FEN. Pawnther runs Stockfish, classifies moves, and detects recurring patterns — then queues the right drill.
Eval bar + engine lines
Stockfish-backed review with top lines, depth, and a readable evaluation graph. Cloud depth is a launch infrastructure target.
Move classification
Brilliant · good · inaccuracy · mistake · blunder. With a one-line reason, not a "−0.7" mystery.
Pattern notes
Early review focuses on recurring mistake types and the drill they should feed next. Deeper habit detection is a Pro roadmap item.
Free is real. Paid is honest.
Free tier covers all six training exercises with explicit caps and unranked Maia 2 sparring. Pro removes caps and funds the heavier review features.
Trainer
- Daily caps: 3 beginner sets, 2 intermediate sets, 1 advanced set
- Maia 2 sparring with adjustable rating
- Opening tree (read-only)
- Basic analysis on last 3 games
Pawnther Pro
- Everything in Trainer, unlimited
- Maia 2 line play and memory modes as they land
- Opening Improver + Remember-the-Line roadmap
- Deeper Stockfish review and pattern notes
- Cloud sync across devices
Join the adult MVP waitlist.
Android first — iOS coming after launch. Add your email and we'll let you know the moment it's live, along with one free Pro month if you join early.