Better Move Training

How Better Move Training Works

Better Move Training is a chess game against Stockfish 19 with a referee added. A second copy of the engine, running at full strength in your browser, looks at every move you make and asks one question: was there something clearly better?

1. Choose your mode. Relaxed, Standard or Strict sets how much a move can give up before it is taken back. Pick one, then press Begin.
2. You move. Tap or drag a piece exactly as you would in any game against the computer.
3. Stockfish checks it. Your move is compared with the best one available in the position, at the same search depth every time.
4. A slip is taken back. If a clearly better move existed, your piece slides straight back, an error sounds and a red arrow shows the move you tried. Nothing else is revealed.
5. Find something better. Play a new move. It only stands if it beats your first attempt. It does not have to be the best move, only a better one. Otherwise the error sounds again and you go again.
6. The game carries on. Once a move stands, Stockfish replies at the level you chose and the next move is checked in turn.

Why train with take-backs?

Most games at club level are decided by a single careless move, and the usual cure is to review the game afterwards. By then the moment has gone: you are looking at a position you no longer have to decide anything about. Here the feedback arrives while the position is still in front of you, at the point where a habit is actually formed. Every time a piece comes back you are made to stop and ask what your move left undefended, what it allowed, and what you missed.

That question is the whole skill of a blunder check, and it is only built by asking it a few hundred times. Better Move Training asks it for you until you start asking it yourself.

Choose how picky Stockfish is

The setting decides how much a move has to give up before it is taken back. The figures are differences in Stockfish’s own evaluation, where 1.00 is roughly the value of a pawn.

Hints and the scorecard

Stuck? The Hint button draws Stockfish’s favourite move on the board. It is counted on your scorecard, which also tracks how often your first move was good enough, how many moves were taken back and how many tries it took to fix them. When the game is over press Analyze game and the whole game goes to the chess game analyzer.

More on the site: for an ordinary game with clocks, try Play Stockfish. Sharpen your tactics with chess puzzles, get AI chess coaching while you play, or take a Stockfish Elo estimate. New to the game? Start with the rules of chess.