Checkmate Mind Academy
An academy that remembers.
Most chess platforms remember your games. Checkmate Mind remembers your learning. What you were taught, what you practised, what keeps going wrong, and whether it is actually getting better.
It works however you play. Learn in a self-paced circle, in lessons with a coach, or straight from the tournament games on your paper scoresheet.
Then our sparring bot plays you whole games built from your record. It adapts to your strengths and your weaknesses, steering into the opening you keep stumbling in or the endgame that got away last tournament. What it finds becomes your practice, and the cycle turns again, self-paced or with your coach. See the sparring bot.
Twelve positions, about six minutes, and no payment. Already have an account? Sign in.
She missed a couple of forks at the tournament last week. So this game, let me leave one and see if she finds this fork.
I will keep a lookout for new weaknesses and strengths. Otherwise I play my honest 1200.
How this differs
What happens between the lessons
Most of what a chess student does happens when nobody is watching. The games, the puzzles, the losses nobody explained. Here is what we do with all of that, next to how it usually works.
How it works
One continuous loop, not disconnected lessons
Most academies give you a lesson, a coach, and occasional homework. Checkmate Mind wraps an intelligent layer around the whole journey, so nothing a student does is wasted and every lesson starts with the coach already knowing what happened since the last one.
Learn
A live class or 1:1 lesson with a coach who knows exactly where you are.
Play
Online games, club games, tournaments, even a handwritten scoresheet.
Analyse
Every game reviewed for tactics, structure, and the decisions behind the moves.
Practice
Your mistakes become your puzzles. Then a training game quietly checks the fix holds.
Improve
Progress feeds the next lesson plan, for you, your coach, and your parents.
Sparring
The bot plays into your weakness. On purpose.
A puzzle tells you there is something to find before you even start looking. A real game gives no warning. So when practice says a weakness is fixed, the last step is a game that quietly tests it.
- 1We spot the pattern. Say you keep missing knight forks in puzzles, in your online games, and on tournament scoresheets.
- 2You are told one thing. Play. The game opens in a position where the idea is alive, and the bot plays on like any opponent.
- 3It gives you a chance, on purpose. Every few moves it plays a slightly worse move, without telling you, so the fork is there to be found.
- 4Seen or missed, it counts. The same detector that reviews your games judges the moment, and the result goes to your record and your coach.
Trainers that serve puzzles at your weaknesses exist, and they are good. We have not found another one whose bot plays a whole game and concedes, unannounced, to make the weakness appear. A strong coach does this over the board. That is who we learned it from. How sparring works, for parents →
Why it works
Human coaching plus your own chess data
The AI is not here to replace a coach. It is here to give the coach better information and give the student better practice between lessons.
Explained at your level
A beginner is told to check what can be captured for free. A 1900 is shown the overloaded queen. Same engine, different teaching.
Mistakes become puzzles
The tactic you missed on Tuesday is the position you drill on Thursday. From your game, not a database.
Patterns, not one-offs
The system remembers. Recurring weaknesses surface on their own, whether that is knight forks, rook endgames, or moving too fast when winning.
Parents can actually tell
No evaluations, no notation. Plain language about what your child learned, what they are working on, and whether it is improving.
Circles
The shared space where the work actually happens
A circle is where the work lives, and it comes in two kinds. A private space for self-paced work, where a parent or a coach can look in, or a group you share with, where friends and classmates play and compete together.
- 1Upload anything. A PGN, a photo of a handwritten scoresheet, a page of class notes, a past paper. It gets read, reconstructed, and made useful.
- 2Record what you were thinking. Note your reasoning move by move, so the review can coach the gap between your plan and the position.
- 3Get quizzed on your own material. Not a generic question bank. The actual content you uploaded, at three levels of difficulty.
- 4Coaches and parents read and guide. They see the roll-up and what to work on next. They are never on the leaderboard.
One record
Your learning history belongs to you, not to your coach.
A chess education usually lives in pieces. A coach's notebook, two chess websites, a drawer of scoresheets, a parent's memory of what the last coach said. Change coaches and most of it is gone. Here, the coach and the AI write to the same student record, and the record moves with the student.
- ✓Everything lands in one place. Lessons, placement, per-move notes in the student's own words, the AI coach's recaps, every game from every source.
- ✓Coached or self-paced, it keeps going. Pause coaching for a summer, study alone, come back. The record never noticed you left.
- ✓A new coach inherits understanding, not a rating. They open the record and see what was taught, what stuck, and what kept coming back.
The software
The things a coach cannot do at 11pm
Coaches teach. The software does the parts that are tedious, repetitive, or need to happen between lessons. A few of these are heavy enough to be Pro.
Photograph a scoresheet. Get the game.
Tournament games live on paper, in a child's handwriting, half of it wrong. Take a photo and we read it, then work out what the moves must have been by testing them against the position. A misspelt move that is illegal has only one legal neighbour, and that is the one you played.
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6
Every move it corrected is shown as "you wrote B94, read as Ba4", so nothing is quietly changed behind your back. Validated on real tournament scoresheets.
Full game review
Every move checked, mistakes classified, and a write-up that reads your own notes on what you were thinking at the time.
Quizzes from your own pages
Upload class notes or a past paper and get questions from that exact material, at three levels of difficulty.
Cheatsheets
A one-page revision sheet built from what you uploaded, not from a generic syllabus.
Ask Appa
A tutor that already knows your circles, your games, and the things you keep getting wrong.
Who it's for
Built for the student, the parent, and the coach
Students
You should always know what to do next.
- ·What to practise today
- ·What you got wrong and why
- ·Whether you are actually improving
Parents
You should not need to play chess to follow along.
- ·Progress in plain language
- ·Visibility into coaching and communication
- ·Safety built into how accounts work
Coaches
You should walk into a lesson already prepared.
- ·Every student's recent games and mistakes
- ·Assign puzzles, studies, and homework
- ·Lesson notes that carry forward
The academy
Three programs, small groups, and limited 1:1
Coaching is chess-only and taught by Iniya and a small number of vetted coaches. Every program runs on the same loop. The difference is where you start.
Beginner
For students learning how the game works and building good habits from the start.
- Rules, piece movement, and safe play
- Basic tactics and checkmate patterns
- Opening principles over memorisation
- The habits that stick. Check what is hanging, slow down
Intermediate
For students who know how to play and now need to know why their games go wrong.
- Tactical calculation and pattern recognition
- Positional concepts and pawn structure
- A first opening repertoire
- Endgame technique that actually converts
Advanced & tournament
For competitive players preparing for rated events and chasing a rating goal.
- Game preparation and opponent scouting
- Deep analysis of your own games
- Recurring weaknesses, tracked over months
- Tournament routine and time management
A note from Iniya
I have played and studied chess for eight years. I built this because I kept losing the same way and nobody could tell me. My games were on paper, my lessons were in someone else's notebook, and the two never met. So I made the thing I wanted. A place where the games, the mistakes and the coaching all live together, and nothing gets forgotten between lessons.
I did not build it alone. Coaches told me what they need to see to teach well, and parents told me what they need to see to know it is working. Built by a student, for students, coaches and parents.
Get started
Your chess coach, between lessons
Create an account, find your level, and put in a request. We will come back to you when places open.