Strategy & improvement
Reviewing your games is the highest-return habit in chess. You already played the moves; the lessons are sitting there for free.
Replay the game from memory and note where you felt unsure, where the position turned, and what you were thinking. This trains your judgement — the engine can't do that for you.
Most games hinge on two or three moves: a blunder, a missed tactic, or a strategic turning point. Identify them rather than annotating every move.
Now run an analysis. For each big evaluation swing, ask why? — what did you miss, and what pattern would have caught it? Use our blunder analyzer to flag the moves that cost the most.
"I should have played Nf3" is forgettable. "I attacked before developing and got punished" is a rule you can carry into the next game.
If you keep losing the same way (early queen raids, time trouble, bad endgames), that's your study list. Fix the most frequent leak first.
Review every serious loss, and the occasional win. Ten focused minutes per game beats an hour of passive engine-scrolling.
Play, then review — that loop is how ratings go up. Start a game.
Yes, but review the game yourself first to train your judgement, then use the engine to check the critical moments and understand why a move was good or bad.
About 10 focused minutes per game is plenty for most players: find the two or three moves that decided it, understand why, and write down the lesson.