Now on iPhone, iPad and Mac
Meet Nadia.
Your personal
chess coach.
She watches every move you play, explains what's really happening on the board, and helps you get better — game after game.
£6.99 £2.99 · launch price · yours forever
Your Anthropic key, your control. No subscription, no ads, no tracking.
N
Nadia
"That bishop's looking lonely on h7..."
Other apps shout "BLUNDER" at you.
Notation does what a real coach does —
analyses the position, spots the patterns,
then explains it all in words you can actually use.
How Nadia coaches you
A coach who actually watches your games.
👁
She watches
Every move, every game. On your phone, your iPad, or your physical board. Nadia is there from move one to checkmate.
💬
She explains
Stockfish evaluates. Fifteen hand-tuned classifiers detect the patterns, tactics, and positional themes that human coaches have taught for centuries. Nadia's only job is to put what they found into plain English, calibrated to your level.
🧠
She remembers
Nadia spots the patterns in how you play across games. Not just one-off mistakes — the recurring habits that are quietly holding you back.
How it actually works
The chess is never generated.
It's explained.
01
Stockfish evaluates
Every position, every move. Engine-grade precision from the strongest chess engine in the world.
02
Classifiers detect
Fifteen on-device analysers spot patterns, tactics, weaknesses, and positional themes. The same principles human coaches have used for centuries.
03
Nadia explains
A language model translates the analysis into plain English. She never evaluates. She never guesses. She explains.
Lots of apps have tried piping Stockfish output into a language model. Most produce hallucinated nonsense. Notation is different because the coaching layer — the classifiers, the pattern detection, the positional analysis — does the real work before the language model ever sees it. The LLM's only job is the last mile: putting rigorous analysis into words a human can use.
Meet Shadow
Your chess twin.
Shadow learns how you play. Every game, every habit, every blind spot. Then plays you back to yourself.
🪞
Plays like you do
Shadow studies your moves, your style, your tendencies — and becomes a mirror you can spar with. Beat Shadow and you have genuinely beaten yourself.
📅
Saves checkpoints
Shadow remembers who you were last month, six months ago, a year ago. Play the version of you from before you learned that opening. See how far you have come.
👥
Calibrate to your rivals
Coming soon
Import a friend's games and Shadow learns their style too. Practise against your club rival before your next match. Train for the opponent you will actually face.
Everything else
Built for how players actually study and play.
Coaching that grows with you
Beginner-friendly explanations that get more sophisticated as you do. Nadia talks to a 1200 differently than to a 1800.
A roster of opponents
Named characters with real personalities to play against. Each one a different challenge, each one teaches you something.
Plays your physical board
Pair with Chessnut Air, Pro, Go, Air+ and Move. Notation tracks every move you make on real wood.
Three engines under the hood
From gentle and human-feeling at the beginner end, all the way up to Stockfish 18 at full strength.
Post-game review
Nadia walks you through your game move by move. The turning points, the misses, the moments you played well.
Generative ambient music
A Brian Eno-inspired score that evolves with the game. Tense middlegames, resolved endgames, and blissful silence if you'd rather. It's chess, not a yoga app.
Whoever you are, wherever you're at.
Just starting out?
Nadia explains every move in plain English. No jargon, no judgement. The friendliest way to learn the game.
Want to improve?
She finds the patterns in your play that are quietly holding you back — and shows you how to break them.
Serious player?
Top-tier Stockfish 18 analysis with a coach who explains the engine's thinking in language you can use.
Questions.
How much does Notation cost? +
A one-off £6.99 — currently £2.99 for launch. Buy it once, it's yours forever. No subscription, no in-app purchases, no ads, no tracking. The optional cloud AI features use your own Anthropic API key — your data, your account, your spending in your control.
What devices does it run on? +
iPhone, iPad and Mac. The iPad version is where Notation really shines, but the iPhone version is full-featured and the Mac version is in active development.
Do I need a physical chess board? +
No — everything works perfectly on screen. But if you have a Chessnut Air, Pro, Go, Air+ or Move, Notation pairs over Bluetooth and tracks your moves on real wood while Nadia coaches.
Which chess engine does it use? +
Three of them, depending on what you're doing. Maia for human-feeling play at the beginner end, Fairy-Stockfish for the named opponents in the middle, and Stockfish 18 at full strength for analysis and the toughest opponents.
How does Nadia work? Is my data sent anywhere? +
Every chess evaluation comes from Stockfish 18. Every pattern, weakness, and tactical motif is detected by hand-tuned on-device classifiers built on the same principles human coaches have used for centuries. The language model's only job is the last step: explaining what the analysis found, in plain English, like a coach sitting next to you. The chess is never generated — it's explained. Optional richer commentary uses cloud AI from Anthropic on a bring-your-own-key basis — your key, your account, your control. Leave it blank and Notation works fully without it.
I have feedback or found a bug. +
Brilliant, please get in touch — hello@notationchesscoach.app. Solo developer, every email is read.
Your next game
deserves a coach.