Privacy policy

Your account uses your email address and display name. Authentication also uses ordinary security information such as session cookies, IP address, and browser details to protect sign-ins and prevent abuse.

When you save a review, Chess Confessions stores the original PGN, extracted game details, your selected critical moments, at most the position for each moment, and the reflections and patterns you record.

The original PGN is stored only when you save a review, including any names, ratings, comments, annotations, and variations it contains. If you search by Chess.com or Lichess username or provide a game link, the request passes through Chess Confessions to retrieve public game data. Browsing or analyzing a game without saving a review does not store its PGN in the database.

Reviews saved before PGN storage was introduced do not have an original PGN, so Chess Confessions does not offer a PGN download for those reviews.

When you are signed in, Stockfish analysis, including better moves for moves you add, and Maia’s choice among equally strong moves run on Chess Confessions’ own engine server, also for imported games that already include analysis; otherwise, or if that server is unavailable, it runs in your browser. The server receives the game’s moves only for the length of the analysis and does not store or log them. The resulting critical-moment data is stored only if you choose to save the review.

When you are signed in, Practice stores whether you solved each puzzle on the first try, how often you have tried and missed it, and when you last tried it, so missed puzzles can come back later. These results are not included in coach links, and deleting a game deletes them.

Explain is available only to accounts given early access. When you use it, the position before your move, the move you played, the evaluation before and after it, and the better move’s line are sent, with lines from Chess Confessions’ own engine server, to an AI provider that writes the explanation. Your name, email address, PGN, and reflections are not sent. The explanation is saved with that moment (for a review you haven’t saved yet, when you save it) and appears in your journal and Practice, and in Coach View, labelled as AI, if you share a coach link. Deleting the game deletes it. A temporary copy used to deliver it to your page is kept for about a day.

Your journal is private by default. If you create a coach link, anyone with that link can read the shared journal. Coach access is read-only, and you can edit or revoke the link at any time. Coach pages are marked so search engines should not index them, but the link should still be treated as shareable rather than as a password.

Coach access also includes the machine-readable journal API and PGN downloads. Share these links only with coaches or AI services you want to access this data. Revoking the link prevents further access through it, but cannot erase copies already downloaded or remove public games from Chess.com or Lichess.

Resend delivers passwordless sign-in codes and transactional email. Feedback and bug reports are sent by email and are not saved in the application database. If you attach the current PGN to a bug report, it is included in that email.

You can delete individual games from your journal; deleting a game also deletes its stored PGN from the application database. Settings lets you export all of your data as a file, import it again, and permanently delete your account with everything it saved. To ask a privacy question, email feedback@chessconfessions.com.

Chess Confessions does not display ads, use third-party analytics or advertising trackers, sell personal information, or send marketing email. Email is used only for requested sign-in codes, necessary account or service messages, and replies to feedback you send.

This does not prevent the limited session cookies and security information described above from being used to operate and protect the service. This policy will be updated if the service’s data practices materially change.