Free chess game review, and how to read one
A game review runs an engine over every move you played, labels the mistakes by how much evaluation they cost, and summarises the game with an accuracy figure. Chess.com limits free reviews per day, Lichess does not limit them, and both use the same underlying engine family.
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What the review is measuring
The engine evaluates the position before and after each move. The gap between the best available move and the one you played is the centipawn loss, and every label — inaccuracy, mistake, blunder — is just a threshold on that number.
Accuracy is a compression of those losses into one figure. It is useful for comparing your own games against each other and close to meaningless for comparing against someone else's, because a quiet positional game and a sharp tactical one produce very different numbers at the same strength.
- Inaccuracy — a small evaluation drop, often a plan you can defend
- Mistake — a real concession, usually a tempo or a pawn
- Blunder — a decisive change, most often a hanging piece or a missed tactic
What free tiers include
Lichess gives unlimited server-side analysis and is free without conditions. Chess.com caps free game reviews per day and reserves depth and some report features for paid accounts. Both run Stockfish, so the raw evaluations agree; what differs is depth, presentation and how much you get per day.
Depth matters less than people assume for the mistakes that actually cost club players games. A hanging knight is visible at depth 12; the positions where depth 30 disagrees with depth 18 are rarely the ones you lost.
How to use a review without wasting it
Reading the blunder list and moving on teaches very little, because you already knew those moves were bad the moment you saw the reply. The value is in the inaccuracies that repeat — the same pawn break mistimed, the same piece left passive — because those are decisions rather than oversights.
Look at three or four games together rather than one. A single game tells you what went wrong; a handful tells you what you do.
Frequently asked questions
Is chess game review free?
On Lichess, yes and without limits. On Chess.com the free plan includes a limited number of reviews per day, with deeper analysis on paid tiers.
What is a good accuracy score?
It depends heavily on the type of game. Compare your own games against each other rather than against a published benchmark.
Does higher engine depth give a better review?
Marginally, and rarely where it matters. The mistakes that decide club games are visible at shallow depth.