Yes. Chess Blues has a free plan that includes AI coaching, opening lessons, tactics puzzles, and Stockfish engine analysis. Premium unlocks full game reviews and voice coaching.

Can beginners use Chess Blues?

Absolutely. The Beginner School walks you through the board, every piece, check, special moves, and opening principles from zero — no experience needed.

How does Chess Blues analyse my games?

Import any game from Chess.com or Lichess, or paste a PGN. Chess Blues runs Stockfish analysis on every move and adds AI coaching commentary to explain mistakes and missed opportunities.

What chess openings does Chess Blues teach?

Chess Blues covers the Italian Game, Ruy Lopez, Queen's Gambit, Sicilian Defence, King's Indian, and many more — with interactive board lessons and AI coaching on every line.

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 24 June 2026

This page is a working draft. The data-controller name, registered address, governing country, and contact email below are marked [TO CONFIRM] and must be completed before launch.

This Privacy Policy explains how [TO CONFIRM: legal entity name] ("Chess Blues", "we", "us") collects, uses, and protects your personal information when you use chessblues.com and our related services (the "Service"). We aim to comply with the EU/UK GDPR and South Africa's POPIA; where they differ, we apply the stricter standard.

1. Information we collect

Account data — your email address, full name, and (optionally) a username and avatar.
Authentication data — a securely hashed password (we never store it in plain text).
Usage & profile data — your chess rating, lesson/puzzle progress, games you import or paste, and coaching interactions.
Voice data — if you use the voice coach, the audio you record is sent to our speech provider for transcription. We do not retain raw audio after processing.
Payment data — your subscription status and plan. Card details are entered on our payment provider's secure pages and are never seen or stored by us.
Technical data — basic product analytics (e.g. via Google Analytics and PostHog), device/browser information, and a login token stored in your browser.

2. How we use your information

To provide and operate the Service (accounts, coaching, analysis, lessons, puzzles).
To process subscriptions and payments.
To generate AI coaching commentary on your moves and positions.
To improve the Service and understand usage (aggregated analytics).
To communicate with you about your account, security, and support.

3. Third-party processors

We share limited data with service providers strictly to operate the Service:

Provider	Purpose	Data shared
OpenAI	AI coaching text, transcription & voice narration	Chess positions/moves and, for voice, recorded audio. No account identifiers are sent.
PayFast	Payment processing	Handled directly by PayFast; card data never reaches us.
Lichess & Chess.com	Game import, opening & evaluation data	Public game/position data you choose to import.
Railway	Application hosting	All Service data, as our infrastructure host.
Google Analytics	Usage analytics	Anonymised/technical usage data.
PostHog	Product analytics	Pageviews and feature-usage events; for signed-in users, an account identifier is included.

4. Legal bases (GDPR)

We process your data to perform our contract with you (providing the Service), on the basis of your consent (e.g. voice recording, optional analytics), and for our legitimate interests in securing and improving the Service.

5. Data retention

We keep account data for as long as your account is active. When you delete your account we remove your personal data within a reasonable period, except where we must retain limited records for legal or accounting purposes.

6. Your rights

Subject to applicable law, you may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal data, object to or restrict certain processing, and request a copy of your data. To exercise these rights, contact us at [TO CONFIRM: privacy@chessblues.com].

7. Children

The Service is not directed at children under 13 (or the minimum age in your country). We do not knowingly collect data from children below that age.

8. Security

We use industry-standard measures (encryption in transit, hashed passwords, access controls). No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your data.

9. Changes

We may update this policy; material changes will be reflected by the date above.

10. Contact

Data controller: [TO CONFIRM: entity, address, country]. Questions: [TO CONFIRM: contact email].