Build your opening tree by playing the moves, then drill it with FSRS-5 spaced repetition. When you slip, Stockfish shows you why — right on the board. Stop forgetting on move 8.
Free. Forever. No card required.
You buy a Chessable course. You read a 400-page book. You annotate variations in PGN files scattered across folders you never reopen.
Then the game happens. Move 8. The position you studied three times, by heart. And the move — the right move — isn't there.
The problem isn't the study. It's that you're not studying well.
Smart Drill with FSRS-5: for each variation it computes your forgetting curve and shows you the position at the right moment. You don't review what you already know.
Automatic blunder review from your chess.com account
The latest generation of spaced repetition, calibrated to you
Known positions come from Lichess cloud eval; novel ones run on local Stockfish 17
No cap on repertoires or the number of lines in them
Full-strength Stockfish 17 with NNUE, right on the page via WebAssembly. Zero install, no remote servers. It checks Lichess's deep cloud eval first, so positions you've likely seen are instant — and novel ones compute locally.
Build, train, play, refine. The study cycle of serious players, finally without friction.
Start on the board or import a Lichess study. Play a move and a new branch appears; the tree lays itself out and transpositions merge on their own. Annotate as you go.
Smart Drill shows you a position that's coming due, you find the move. FSRS-5 decides what to review and when — and when you're wrong, Stockfish plays the punishment before showing you the right answer.
Connect Chess.com and we replay your games through Stockfish, worst blunders first, with the move you should have played at each one.
Add the positions you got wrong to your repertoire in one click — they join the FSRS queue and come back until they stick.
"Memory is choice. Every forgotten variation is a game lost before the eighth move."
Your repertoire is a visual tree you grow by playing moves on a board — no manual node wiring. Lines that transpose merge into one node, so you map it once. Pan, zoom, annotate every position.
A real FSRS-5 scheduler quizzes you only on the positions you're about to forget — not the ones you already know. Keep two replies to a move and it accepts either one.
Full-strength Stockfish 17 (NNUE) runs locally via WebAssembly — no install, no server. It asks Lichess's deep cloud eval first, so known positions evaluate instantly.
Search Lichess's most popular studies by name and turn any of them into a drillable tree in two clicks — every variation, comment and sideline intact. Generic PGN import works too.
Connect your Chess.com username and we replay your games through Stockfish to surface your worst real blunders, worst-first — with the move you should have played. Add any to your repertoire in one click.
29 trophies (including opening-specific ones like Najdorf Master), streaks with freeze tokens to protect a hot run, and a combo XP multiplier. Study becomes a daily habit.
ChessNotes helps you build your own. Free, no compromises, with the right tools from day one.
Full comparison table→| Feature | ChessNotes | Chessable |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, forever | $20-80 per course |
| Spaced repetition algorithm | FSRS-5 (latest generation) | Proprietary MoveTrainer |
| Visual tree editor | Build it by playing moves | Limited to purchased courses |
| Wrong-move refutation | Stockfish punishes it on the board | Not available |
| Analysis engine | Stockfish 17 in-browser | Not included |
A solid repertoire starts with a few main lines picked to match your style. On ChessNotes you build a visual tree: each branch is a variation, each node a move. Add annotations, alternatives, strategic ideas. The point isn't covering everything, it's knowing what you actually play cold. Aim for 3-4 openings with white and 2-3 systems with black, then expand only when the basics are solid.
Passive repetition doesn't work. You need active spaced repetition: see the position, find the move, get feedback. ChessNotes uses FSRS-5, the most advanced spaced repetition algorithm available, to show you the right variations at the right time. Study 10-15 minutes a day and you'll retain more than you did in hours of book work. No paper flashcards, no manual Anki — everything in one flow.
Yes — ChessNotes is free forever, no credit card, no cap on variations. Chessable is great but most courses are paid and the personal repertoire feature is an afterthought. ChessNotes was built for people who want to build and train their own repertoire, not follow someone else's. Import free Lichess studies, analyze with built-in Stockfish 17, and run FSRS-5 drills without a subscription.
Every time you answer a position, the algorithm estimates how hard that move is for you and schedules the next review. Miss it, and it comes back soon. Nail it with confidence, and you won't see it for days or weeks. The result: you memorize hundreds of moves with minimal effort. ChessNotes implements FSRS-5, the same algorithm used by serious study apps, tuned for the chess domain.
FSRS (Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler) is the next-generation algorithm that replaced Anki's SM-2. It models your personal forgetting curve instead of applying a flat schedule. For chess this matters: variations have wildly different difficulties and FSRS-5 adapts to that. Result: fewer pointless reviews, better long-term retention. ChessNotes is one of the first chess platforms to use it natively.
We won't ask for a card. We won't ask for your cat's name. Just an email, and you're in.