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Show HN: I built a chess explorer that explains strategy instead of just stats

I built this because I got tired of Stockfish giving me evaluations (+0.5) without explaining the actual plan. Most opening explorers focus on statistics (Win/Loss/Draw). I wanted a tool that explains the strategic intent behind the moves (e.g., "White plays c4 to clamp down on d5" vs just "White plays c4"). The Project: Comprehensive Database: I’ve mapped and annotated over 3,500 named opening variations. It covers everything from main lines (Ruy Lopez, Sicilian) to deep sidelines. Strategic Visualization: The UI highlights key squares and draws arrows based on the textual explanation, linking the logic to the board state dynamically. Hybrid Architecture: For the 3,500+ core lines, it serves my proprietary strategic data. For anything deeper/rarer, it seamlessly falls back to the Lichess Master API so the explorer remains functional 20 moves deep. Stack: Next.js (App Router), MongoDB Atlas for the graph data, and Arcjet for security/rate-limiting. It is currently in Beta. I am working on expanding the annotated coverage, but the main theoretical landscape is mapped. Feedback on the UI/UX or the data structure is welcome.

It would be nice to see more than 2 opening moves before getting login blocked.

a day agogeooff_

I could not even see 1 opening move. Clicking on one from the home page shows me the login.

a day agosntran

Thanks for the feedback, since it's in BETA, there are some bugs with it that I'm working on right now, feel free to check out later when I fix the issues

a day agoAhmad_shuja

Thanks for your feedback, I'll work on it, you can try again after some time, it might be then helpful for you

a day agoAhmad_shuja

Cool. I wanted to build something exactly like this!