Category
Engine & Software Reviews
How to Use Engine Analysis Without Ruining Your Own Thinking
Engine analysis is one of the best training tools ever made available to club players, but used carelessly it can quietly erode your own calculation skills — here's how to get the benefits without the downsides.
Hardik Ranpariya · October 13, 2026
Building a Chess Database for Study
How a well-organized personal game database transforms scattered study into a genuinely searchable, cumulative resource — and the practical habits that make one actually worth maintaining.
Hardik Ranpariya · October 9, 2026
AlphaZero and Leela Chess Zero Explained
How neural network engines that learn chess purely through self-play, rather than hand-coded evaluation rules, changed how the game's top players understand strategy.
Hardik Ranpariya · October 4, 2026
How Neural Network Engines Changed Chess
How AlphaZero and its successors introduced a fundamentally different approach to computer chess — learning through self-play rather than traditional, hand-crafted evaluation rules.
Hardik Ranpariya · September 30, 2026
Cloud Analysis vs Local Engines: Pros and Cons
Weighing the tradeoffs between free, convenient cloud-based engine analysis and the added depth and control of running an engine locally on your own machine.
Hardik Ranpariya · September 26, 2026
Using Opening Explorers Effectively
How opening explorer tools work, what the statistics they show actually mean, and how to use them productively for repertoire building without misreading the numbers.
Hardik Ranpariya · September 22, 2026
How to Set Up a Local Chess Engine
A practical walkthrough of installing and running a chess engine like Stockfish locally, and why it's often worth the small setup effort over relying purely on a website's built-in analysis.
Hardik Ranpariya · September 18, 2026
Understanding Engine Evaluation Numbers
What the +0.4 or -2.1 next to an engine's analysis actually means, how to read it correctly, and the common mistakes players make when interpreting it.
Hardik Ranpariya · September 14, 2026
Lichess vs Chess.com: Comparing Analysis Tools
A practical comparison of the analysis features on chess's two largest online platforms — what each offers for free, and where the meaningful differences actually are.
Hardik Ranpariya · September 9, 2026
How to Use ChessBase for Game Analysis
A practical introduction to ChessBase — the standard database software serious players use to store, search, and analyze games.
Hardik Ranpariya · September 5, 2026