Help & FAQ

Shahmat is a chess analytics platform that analyses your games at grandmaster depth using Stockfish. We extract 164 data points from every move you play, then build detailed performance reports that show you exactly where you’re strong, where you’re losing rating points, and what to work on next. Think of it as the FBref of chess — deep statistical analysis that goes far beyond a basic game review.

Shahmat is designed for serious improvers rated roughly 1000–2200. Whether you’re a club player trying to break 1500 or an aspiring expert pushing toward 2000, the reports are calibrated to give you actionable insights at your level. We compare your play against peer benchmarks from players in your rating band, so the advice is always relative to where you are now.

No. Shahmat uses one-time credit purchases, not subscriptions. Buy credits when you need them, use them whenever you want. No recurring charges, no expiry dates.

Go to the Import page, select the Chess.com tab, and enter your Chess.com username. You can filter by date range and time control. Click Import and we’ll pull your games directly from the Chess.com API. It typically takes a few seconds for a few hundred games.

Go to the Import page, select the Lichess tab, and connect your Lichess account via OAuth. This gives us secure read-only access to your games. You can filter by date range and time control, then import. Lichess imports may take slightly longer for large game histories.

Yes. The Import page has a PGN Upload tab. You can upload .pgn files containing one or multiple games. This is useful if you play on a platform we don’t directly support yet, or if you have over-the-board games recorded in PGN format.

There’s no limit on importing. You can import your entire game history from Chess.com or Lichess. Importing is free — credits are only used when you submit games for analysis.

After importing, go to your Game Library and select the games you want analysed. Click Analyse and confirm. Each game is run through Stockfish at depth 20 with MultiPV 2 — grandmaster-level depth that shows you the engine’s top two candidate moves for every position. We extract 164 data points per move, covering everything from tactical accuracy to time management to pawn structure quality. Analysis typically processes several hundred games per hour.

Stockfish depth refers to how many moves ahead the engine calculates. Depth 20 means the engine looks 20 moves into the future from every position. This is significantly deeper than the quick analysis you get from a free game review (typically depth 12–15). We also use MultiPV 2, meaning the engine finds the best two candidate moves for every position — so you can see not just the best move, but the next-best alternative.

Analysis speed depends on the queue, but typically several hundred games per hour. A batch of 100 games usually completes within 30 minutes. You don’t need to keep the page open — analysis runs in the background and your games will be ready when you come back.

One credit analyses one game. Credits never expire. Your first 10 analyses are free. After that, you can purchase credit packages from the Pricing page. Larger packages offer better value per game.

Your reports are organised into 9 tabs covering every aspect of your play: Summary (overall performance and personality), Opening Prep (your repertoire and preparation depth), Tactical Sharpness (pattern recognition and calculation), Positional Play (pawn structures, piece activity, space control), Middlegame (strategic planning and transitions), Endgame (conversion and technique), Time Management (how you use the clock), Decision Quality (move quality patterns and blunder analysis), and Resilience (how you handle adversity and pressure).

Your pillar scores rate your performance on a 0–100 scale across each area of your game. They’re calculated from your analysed games and compared against peer benchmarks — players in your rating band. A score of 75 in Tactical Sharpness means you’re performing better than 75% of players at your level in tactical situations.

Your Chess Personality is computed from your actual playing data using a two-axis framework: Tactical vs Positional and Aggressive vs Solid. This places you into one of four archetypes — Activist, Strategist, Pragmatist, or Reflector — with modifiers based on your distinctive strengths. It’s not a quiz — it’s measured from how you actually play.

We require a minimum of 3 analysed games to generate any reports. However, the more games you analyse, the more reliable the insights become. We recommend at least 50–100 games for meaningful trends and pattern detection. The reports include data confidence indicators so you can see how reliable each insight is based on your sample size.

The game viewer shows your game move-by-move with the engine’s top 2 candidate moves for each position. For mistakes and blunders, it shows exactly what you played versus the best move and the cost in centipawns. You’ll also see the position complexity, game phase, tactical themes, and time spent per move. There’s also an AI Coach that can explain positions in natural language — it focuses on chess principles and patterns, not raw engine numbers.

The AI Coach uses advanced AI to review your games and explain what happened in plain language. Unlike an engine that says “this move lost 1.5 pawns”, the AI Coach explains why — “trading queens released the pressure on Black’s king; when you have an attacking position, keep your strongest pieces on the board.” It gives actionable advice tailored to your rating level. AI coaching uses AI credits, which are included in all credit packages or available as separate top-ups.

The first message in every AI coaching conversation is a structured Game Review. We send your complete game data — move evaluations, tactical patterns, time usage, and positional metrics — to the AI with a specially crafted prompt designed to extract the most useful coaching insights. This gives the AI the full picture of your game before you start asking questions. After the review, you can chat freely — ask about specific moves, positions, or patterns. The AI remembers the entire conversation, so you can dive as deep as you want.

Chess.com, Lichess, and direct PGN upload. We plan to add support for additional platforms based on user demand.

Yes. All data is processed on Google Cloud Platform with encryption at rest and in transit. We never share your data with third parties. See our Privacy Policy for full details.

Report sharing via link is on our roadmap. For now, you can screenshot or screen-share your reports during coaching sessions.

Email us at support@shahmat.io or join our Discord server. We aim to respond within 24 hours.