Learn Chess With an AI Coach
That Plays Real Games With You
Guided Play puts IM John Bartholomew's coach at your side while you play real games against 1,100+ human-like bots. Every move is color-graded by an engine — from best (green) to blunder (red) — with hints when you want them and a blunder guard when you need it. And the coach reads both sides of the board: your moves and the bot's replies alike.
Three Levels of Help — You Choose
Guided Play meets you where you are. Start with full assistance, then dial it down as the patterns stick. The goal is always the same: playing strong moves on your own.
Full Help
Every legal move is color-graded on the board, all the time, with an eval bar tracking who's better. See instantly which moves are strong, which are shaky, and which lose material — and learn why before you commit.
Peek
The colors are hidden while you think. Not sure about a move? Hold a piece for half a second and its grades reveal themselves. The eval bar stays on, so you check your instincts without leaning on the coach for every move.
Hint Only
No colors, no eval bar — you play on your own, and ask for a hint only when you're stuck. This is the level where you prove you're ready for rated games.
A Coach in the Corner, Not a Backseat Driver
The coach is built from IM John Bartholomew's teaching style: make you think first, and only give away as much as you need.
The 4-Step Hint Ladder
Hints escalate one step at a time: a threat check, then a nudge in the right direction, then which piece to look at, and only then the move itself. You stop at the step that unlocks the position for you.
Blunder Guard
About to hang your queen? The coach steps in before the blunder lands, points out what you missed, and hands the move back to you. You learn from the mistake without losing the game to it.
Both Sides Commented
John doesn't only grade your moves. He reads the bot's replies too — crediting the strong ones, flagging the mistakes you can punish, naming the opening as it forms, and calling out a hung piece with a nudge to go find it yourself.
Eval Bar & Move Grading
An engine watches every position. On Full help and Peek an eval bar shows who's better, and every move you play is graded from best (green) to blunder (red) — so the feedback loop is instant, not post-game. On Hint only the board stays clean until you ask.
Savable Lessons
Hit a position worth remembering? Save it as a lesson — a bookmark with John's comment attached. Your collection becomes a personal course built from your own games.
Spar With the Bot, Not Just Against It
A guided game doesn't have to be a one-way street. Rewind it, ask the bot to think again, try the line that got away — then take the whole thing home as a study file.
Take Back the Bot's Move
The takeback button asks who you mean: your move, or the bot's. Rewind its reply and you can make a move for it yourself on the board, or let it choose again — and sometimes it thinks it over and sticks with the move anyway.
Chase the What-Ifs
Every line you abandon is kept. Rewound continuations show up as branches in the move list beside the moves they came from, so you can click back through the game that almost happened and then return to the live one.
Download the Training PGN
One file, the whole session: the game you played plus every branch you explored, written as a standard PGN with variations. It opens in any PGN viewer, so the position you struggled with is still there tomorrow.
Bot takebacks live in guided games and unrated casual play. Switch on Allow bot takebacks in settings — or from the gear inside a game — to turn them on.
Graduate to Rated Play
Guided Play isn't meant to be forever — it's a ramp. The coach tracks your progress toward being rated-ready. The bar:
- 3× Three Hint-only games in a row
- 0 Blunder-free — guard saves count too
- 80% At least 80% strong moves per game
- ≤2 At most 2 hints per game
Clear it, and you've shown you can play clean chess without help — time to put a rating on the line.
Turn Opening Theory Into Opening Practice
Our library of 500+ opening guides pairs directly with Guided Play. Read the guide, then start a coached game in that exact opening — the bot plays the line from move one and keeps following it for as long as you do.
The bot plays your line
Pick an opening and the bot answers with the book move, not its own preference. A counter tracks how deep into the line you are, and John tells you when the book runs out and the rest is up to you and the position.
A nudge when you drift
Play something sound but off-line and John steps in once: that works in general play, but here the line goes elsewhere — take it back? Say yes and you're back in the book, or play on and the normal coaching resumes.
Hints in book language
Stuck on a theory move? The hint ladder switches from engine talk to opening talk — how many moves are playable here, which piece the book moves, what most players choose — before it names the move.
Having the bot play a chosen opening from move one is a Premium feature, and those games are always casual. Every opening guide is free to read.
Browse All Opening Guides
500+ openings organized by ECO code — main lines, plans, stats by rating, and the bots that play each line.
Italian Game
The classical starting point. A perfect first opening to practice with the coach.
Sicilian Defence
Sharp and counter-attacking — exactly the kind of opening where a blunder guard earns its keep.
Queen's Gambit
Classical, positional chess. Learn the plans, then let John grade how well you execute them.
Ready for Your First Coached Game?
Guided games are always unrated and casual — no rating anxiety, no pressure, just you, an opponent that plays like a human, and a coach who wants you to find the move yourself.
Start Guided PlayQuestions first? See the Guided Play FAQ.