Analyzing your chess games is one of the most important things you can do to improve at chess. Going over your own games allows you to understand where you made mistakes, find weaknesses in your play, and come up with ideas for how to play better next time. In this article we talk about How to Analyze Your Own Chess Games In 2024.
In this comprehensive guide, I will walk you through the entire process of analyzing your own chess games, step-by-step. From setting up a board to replay your game, to identifying key positions, to evaluating mistakes and coming up with training techniques – this guide covers everything you need to know.
By systematically reviewing your own chess games, you will rapidly increase your chess understanding and rating. So let’s get started!
Step 1: Record Your Games
The first step is to record the moves from your games. Nowadays this is easy – most chess sites and apps will save a computer readable file (known as a PGN file) of your games which you can access.
If you are playing casual games with a real board, you should get into the habit of writing down all the moves. Writing down your game by hand forces you to think more about each move, and already starts the self-analysis process during the game itself.
Later on you can enter these moves into a PGN file yourself if you want to analyze it with computer assistance.
Step 2: Set Up a Board to Replay the Game
Next, you need to replay your game move by move on a board. This can be a real chess board or an online/computer board.
The key is that you can see the position in front of you, and move the pieces as you go through each move of the game. Seeing and moving the positions will make the analysis much more natural and intuitive.
If you recorded your game electronically in PGN format, you can easily import it into any chess software or website that can display a board. Then you can step through each position automatically.
However, you may still want to set up a real board too, to have the tactile experience of moving the pieces. This engages more of your spatial thinking.
Step 3: Go Through the Game Without Computer Analysis
Before turning on computer analysis, go through the entire game at least once on your own without assistance.
Try to remember what you were thinking during the real game, and analyze the critical moments. At each position, ask yourself questions like:
- Why did I choose this move? Was there another good option?
- Did I miss any of my opponent’s threats?
- Was there a key tactic or strategic idea I missed?
- When did the game start going bad – and why?
- Was my move evaluation consistent with the resulting position?
This initial self-reflection will help you practice your own analytical thinking, rather than just relying on computer assessments. Review the game from both sides’ perspectives.
Make notes on a sheet of paper whenever you realize there was a mistake or something to improve for next time.
Step 4: Turn On Engine Analysis
The next phase is to turn on the chess engine analysis to identify mistakes more objectively, confirm your suspicions, and reveal things you might have missed.
Most chess software will give evaluations and best move suggestions at each turn. Pay special attention when your move evaluations differ greatly from the engine, as this likely indicates mistakes.
You can usually configure the engine strength and analysis depth to higher settings for more accuracy. But be careful not to become over-reliant on engine assessments – always think first before seeing the computer evaluation.
As you go through each position again, compare your initial thoughts to the main lines suggested by the engine. Wherever there are discrepancies, try to understand why. Look for gaps in your positional assessments or tactic vision.
Use the engine to double check your conclusions about where the game was won or lost. The computer can help pinpoint the first inaccurate move or misevaluation of a critical position.
Step 5: Identify Your Key Mistakes and Learn From Them
Now comes the most important learning phase. Based on your self-analysis and the engine evaluations, determine 1-3 key mistakes or areas for improvement from your game.
For example, perhaps you consistently missed your opponent’s tactical threats involving a key diagonal. Or maybe most of your inaccuracies stemmed from improper pawn structures and imbalances.
Try to categorize your main mistakes into strategic themes like:
- Tactics/Missing Threats
- Calculating Variations
- Positional Evaluations
- Opening Theory
- Time Management
- Emotional Control
Once you identify key mistakes:
- Note exactly why better moves should have been considered and how they would have changed the evaluation.
- Come up with training techniques to improve in this area. For example, doing puzzle rush on tactical motifs you commonly miss, researching opening improvements through books/videos, or performing deep calculation practice on key variations from your games.
Be specific in targeting your training to fix the recurrent issues revealed in your games – this is how you can maximize improvement efficiently.
Step 6: Review the Game a Few Days Later
After identifying lessons learned, revisit the game again a few days or a week later. Going over it again with a fresh look will help strengthen your understanding.
You may find new ideas and considerations when replaying the game again later, after your knowledge has deepened in between. You can augment your previous notes with any new findings.
Our brains and chess understanding grow in the time between training sessions by consolidating our experiences. Reviewing games multiple times over longer intervals leverages this consolidation process.
Step 7: Compare with Stronger Player Insights
To take your analysis to an even higher level, you can have stronger players review your game as well.
Sharing your game with a coach or more experienced club players will provide additional objective feedback you can learn from. They may point out alternative ideas, nuances you glossed over, or help explain engine assessments better.
The key is to compare their thoughts with your own self-analysis first, rather than just believing whatever the stronger player says! This trains your judgment and understanding of why moves or positions are good or bad.
Discussing games with stronger players also helps develop your verbal chess communication abilities. Explaining your thought process and understanding during the game analysis is great practice.
Conclusion
Analyzing your games does take some time and focus, but it provides incredibly high value training for serious chess improvement. Using the step-by-step methodology outlined here will ensure you extract all possible lessons from your games.
The more games you can analyze with this diligent process, the more rapidly you will progress as a player. So set aside time to review each of your games, and your understanding of chess strategy and patterns will compound to bring your rating up.
When you make game analysis a regular habit, you’ll notice the quality of your move decisions and overall play get better week after week. You’ll experience fewer “chess blindspots”, find good moves more intuitively, and lose fewer games from the same mistakes. Just remember – having an effective game analysis framework is the key. I sincerely hope you find this “How to Analyze Your Own Chess Games In 2024-A Step-by-Step Guide” article helpful.