What is Human Chess
Ordinary chess programs, when you lower the level, play perfect moves mixed with random blunders: they never feel like a person. Human Chess uses Maia-3, a neural network trained on millions of real Lichess games, to pick the moves a player of the chosen level would really make, mistakes included. Stockfish, one of the strongest engines in the world, stands guard against the blunders that player would notice. Everything runs in your browser, free and without sign-up, on your phone too.
What you can do
- Play the bot at seven levels, from beginner (~1100) to FIDE master (~2300), with different styles and time controls from bullet to classical.
- Learn with Grandpa, a coach who explains threats, plans and tactics in plain words after your moves, and gives you a report card with an estimate of your level at the end.
- Talk to Grandpa: ask "what should I do?", "why was that a mistake?", "can I castle?". An AI answers starting from Stockfish's analysis and from a library of 141 verified cards on openings, tactics, strategy, endgames, rules and chess history; first you get a hint, the move only if you insist.
- Follow Grandpa's course: 9 units and 75 steps in order, from the rules to tactics, mates, openings and endgames. Grandpa also comments on the bot's moves ("careful, it threatens…"), can speak aloud, and your mistakes come back for review over the next days until you have learned them.
- Take your first steps if you have never played: how each piece moves (collecting stars), the names of the squares and basic endgames against Stockfish.
- Solve tactics puzzles: over 120,000 puzzles from the Lichess archive, rated 400 to 2900, also by theme (fork, pin, mate in 2…), with a puzzle rating that starts from your own rating (the “My level” button), a daily puzzle and the share of players at your level who find the first move.
- Learn from the champions: 55 famous games, from Morphy and Anderssen to Fischer, Kasparov and Carlsen, with Grandpa's comments; 14 are Capablanca games with his own notes. Replay them move by move, or play the champion's side and guess the moves.
- Grandpa's middlegame plan: five steps on your own position (the kings, threats, your worst piece, the opponent's weaknesses, the plan) with arrows and coloured squares. Every suggested move is checked by Stockfish.
- Opponents inspired by the champions: Morphy, Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tal and Petrosian, with the openings from their real games and their style, at the level you choose.
- Review the game move by move: evaluation graph, labels on your moves (book, brilliant, missed opportunity), mistakes explained and a “See why” button that previews how your opponent exploits the mistake, best moves shown with arrows and the story of the game. You can also try your own lines by moving the pieces: Grandpa comments on them.
- Review your Chess.com and Lichess games: type your username and Grandpa comments on them.
- Learn openings (Italian, Ruy Lopez, Sicilian, French and more) by studying and practising against the replies humans really play.
- Train your board vision: short exercises to spot undefended pieces, alignments (discovered attacks, pins, skewers), remember a position and choose candidate moves, with 12-minute sessions, review and a test. Solutions are computed and checked with Stockfish.
- Challenge a friend online: send a link and play, with clock, draw offers and rematch.
- Run a tournament with friends: a round-robin for your WhatsApp group or club (3 to 10 players), with online games played in rounds, pairings, standings and ready-made messages to send. You join with a nickname, no sign-up.
- Install it as an app on your phone or computer: against the bot it works offline too.
- See how a human at your level plays: in review a second blue curve shows how a player with your rating sees the position (Maia-3), with win, draw and loss percentages; Grandpa says when a position is winning but hard, and the report card flags wasted advantages. In the options there is also a heat map: touch a piece and the squares are coloured by how often players at your level choose them, with the engine's verdict (✓ among the best, ✗ a mistake).
- Play with a real board and the camera: put your phone or computer above the board, tap its four corners once and your moves on the table are read; the bot answers by voice and on screen, and you play its move on the table. Grandpa speaks with a male voice: he comments on your moves and warns you when the opponent threatens something. You can choose the camera (including the rear or wide-angle one of a phone) and the zoom. The video stays on your device, it works with any board and only the text of the comments goes to the server to be read aloud.
- Customise animations and pieces: animations off, subtle or lively (fading captures, check, mate, promotion) and six piece designs to choose from.
- Use the board with a keyboard and a screen reader: arrow keys, Enter and Space to move, moves announced aloud, labelled promotion choices.
- Track your progress: level over time, best and worst openings, 22 achievements to unlock. And share a position as an image or a game as a link, play with premoves, move confirmation, typed moves or blindfold.
- Set up a position by hand to study it, save your games, export them as PGN, play in 2D or 3D and connect the Chessnut Air electronic board.
Frequently asked questions
Is it free? Yes, with no ads and no account.
How strong is the bot? You choose the level: each level is tuned to play and blunder like a human player of that rating: the tuning was measured on real Lichess games from each rating band, compared with bot games at the same level.
Does it work on my phone? Yes, in any modern browser (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge) on computers, tablets and smartphones. You can also install it as an app with the "📱 Install the app" button (on iPhone: Share → "Add to Home Screen").
Does it work offline? Yes, against the bot, after your first visit: the neural networks and the engine run on your device. Only the Grandpa chat, online games and the Chess.com/Lichess import need internet.
Do my games go to a server? No: games against the bot and your archive stay in your browser, unless you choose to turn on the online copy from the "Backup" window. Online games go through our server and are deleted after 3 days; chat questions go through an AI service (privacy).