Questions, answered straight.
Common questions about Pawnther, Maia, Stockfish, and the subscription. If yours isn't here, email hello@pawnther.chess — a real person reads them.
Is Pawnther for beginners?
Yes, beginners can start at Square Color and Tap the Square — those are deliberately gentle. But Pawnther's real sweet spot is the intermediate player (roughly 1000–1800) who's stalled and needs to fix board vision and calculation rather than pile on more theory.
Is this a chess theory / opening app?
Partly. The Opening Improver is one of our six modules. But theory is the cherry, not the cake. The training system is built around the skills theory relies on: seeing the board, calculating cleanly, and recognising patterns at a glance.
Is this like Chessable?
Chessable is excellent for memorising opening lines. Pawnther overlaps on the Remember-the-Line drill, but the rest of the product — board vision exercises, blind tactics, blindfold play, Maia sparring — is in a different category. You can use both happily.
Is Maia an engine?
Maia 2 is a unified neural network trained on millions of human games, released as open research from the University of Toronto-led Maia project. She's not a Stockfish-style engine; she plays the moves a human at a given rating would actually play, mistakes included. The released model groups ratings into sub-1100, 100-point bands from 1100 to 1999, and one 2000+ band.
Why a subscription?
Three real costs: Stockfish analysis runs in the cloud (compute), Maia checkpoints serve from our servers (more compute), and cloud sync means your progress survives a phone wipe. The free tier covers everything you need to evaluate the product. Pro covers the ongoing infrastructure.
Is there a real free tier?
Yes. All six training exercises, adjustable Maia 2 sparring, the opening tree (read-only), and Stockfish analysis on your last 3 games. No ads. No timer-based nags. We rely on enough people upgrading because they want unlimited drills, line-based Maia modes, and deeper review.
When does the iOS app come out?
Android first, because that's where Mohamed (the founder) and the bulk of our early waitlist live. iOS follows within 3 months of Android launch, assuming nothing on fire. A responsive web version is permanent and works on iPad today.
Can I import PGNs?
Yes. Drop a PGN file or paste it directly into the Analysis page. We parse it, run Stockfish, classify every move, and add detected patterns to your drill queue. Same flow for FEN positions.
Does Pawnther work with my Lichess account?
We're working on a Lichess login + automatic game import. For now you can paste PGNs from Lichess or Chess.com manually. Full OAuth integration is on the post-launch roadmap.
Does Stockfish run locally on my device?
No, Stockfish runs in our cloud at depth 22+. Local Stockfish is fine for casual analysis but burns battery and runs at lower depth on a phone. Cloud lets us be both faster and stronger — and means your laptop fan stays quiet.