Why Post-Game Analysis Is Irreplaceable
Club players often spend most of their training time playing games and very little analysing them. Players who improve quickly do the opposite. Post-game analysis fulfils several irreplaceable functions:
- Identifying the turning points: every game has a precise moment where the result tipped. Finding it is strategically valuable information
- Understanding your error patterns: if you often lose at the same stage (leaving the opening, the transition to the endgame), that is an identified area for work
- Correcting faulty calculation: you thought something was winning and it wasn't. Understanding why teaches more than any exercise
- Memorising typical positions: the positions you have played are in your memory. Analysis anchors patterns far more durably than studying abstract positions
Phase 1: Analysis Without an Engine (30 to 45 minutes)
This phase is the most important and the one most often skipped. The classic mistake is to open Stockfish straight away and look at what it says. The problem: when the engine tells you the right move was Nf5, you have done no work — you did not try to find the move yourself, and so you will not have learned it.
The 4-step method (without an engine)
- Replay the whole game quickly to pick up the general thread. No comments yet — just rebuild the chronology in your head.
- Identify the moments of doubt: the moves where you were unsure during the game, the moves that surprised you from your opponent, the moves you regret. Mark them.
- Analyse each marked moment: at each problem position, ask yourself “what was the right move here, and why?” Try to find the answer before consulting the engine.
- Assess the opening: at what move did your opponent deviate from known theory? Was it improvisation or preparation?
Practical tip
Use a physical board for this phase. Handling the pieces activates different areas of the brain from screen work and helps memorisation. Write your variations down on paper before checking them with the engine.
Phase 2: Checking Against the Engine (20 to 30 minutes)
Now that you have done your own analysis, open Stockfish (free on Lichess.org) or ChessBase. This phase is for correcting your analytical mistakes, not for replacing your own thinking.
How to use the engine intelligently
Don't look at every move. Go straight to the positions you marked in phase 1. Check whether your assessment was correct. If the engine suggests a different move from yours, try to understand why that move is better before moving on to the next.
The “evaluation bar” trap: many players look at the evaluation bar and are content to note “I was doing well here, I was worse there”. That information is useless. What matters is understanding the mechanism of the error. Ask yourself: “what was this move trying to do? What concrete threat does it create?”
The 7 Questions to Ask at Every Critical Position
1. What was my plan?
Did you have a conscious plan? Was it the right one? Or were you playing move by move without direction?
2. Did I check the threats?
Did you look at what your opponent could do before playing your move?
3. What was the exact calculation?
How many moves ahead did you calculate? Where did your calculation stop, and why?
4. Was there a candidate move I ignored?
The engine often suggests a “counter-intuitive” move that you did not consider. Understanding why you ignored it is more valuable than the move itself.
- 5. Is this a recurring mistake? — have you made this mistake in another game before? If so, it is a pattern to work on specifically
- 6. Which pieces were inactive? — often a rook or a knight took no part in anything for 15 moves. Why? How could it have been improved?
- 7. When did you “give up” mentally? — if you lost, was there a move where you mentally accepted defeat and played mechanically afterwards? That moment is often revealing.
Keeping a Game Journal: the Investment That Changes Everything
Professional coaches universally recommend keeping a “game journal” — a document (paper or digital) in which you summarise each game you analyse. The ideal format contains:
- Date, opponent (Elo if possible), result, time control
- The “turning point”: the move or decision that changed the result
- The nature of the error: tactical, positional, a planning error, or psychological (haste, mental surrender, overconfidence)
- The concrete lesson you draw from it: “memorise the Philidor position”, “stop playing ..g5 without having calculated Nxg5”, and so on
After 50 games analysed this way, you will have a precise picture of your recurring weaknesses — information that no book or tutorial can give you, because it is specific to your game.
Analysing the Opening Specifically
Opening analysis deserves particular attention. After each game, check in your database (lichess.org/opening offers free statistics) whether the moves played match theory, and above all where your opponent deviated. If the deviation was an unpleasant surprise for you, it is a “hole” in your repertoire that needs filling.
“Analysing a lost game is five times more useful than analysing a won one. In victories, we learn that we played well. In defeats, we learn why we played badly.” — An analysis principle of the Soviet coaches