Integration
Chess.com integration for chess academies
Link a student’s public username and, on Pro and Enterprise, ChessCore imports their public Chess.com games about every hour. Import, engine analysis and explanation are three separate steps: a coach picks the games for Stockfish to analyse, the AI drafts an explanation of the engine’s findings, and the coach approves each explanation before it can be shared.
Chess.com is a large public chess platform with public game archives and standard PGN export. ChessCore reads a student’s public games from it so coaches never chase screenshots or hand-upload move lists. This page explains exactly how that pipeline works inside ChessCore.
Sync to review
How the Chess.com integration works
Chess.com archive import coaching software reads the Chess.com account’s public game archives once a student’s Chess.com username sits on their ChessCore profile, and brings the games in as PGN, the standard chess game format, so students do not send each game by hand. New games appear against the right student automatically, attached to the same record that already holds their batch, attendance, and fees.
From there, the coach picks the games worth a closer look. Stockfish, the open-source engine ChessCore runs on its servers, evaluates each picked game and flags every inaccuracy, mistake and blunder with the better move. Each game shows its own analysis status, Pending, Analysing, Done or Error. Done means the engine has finished; it does not mean a coach has reviewed the game or approved an explanation of it. The coach opens a game already triaged, instead of replaying it move by move to find the teachable position.
hana_k_moves sits on Hana’s ChessCore profile. The family’s consent is recorded first, and no Chess.com password is involved.
Her public games are read about every hour. The import is read-only and leaves the Chess.com account untouched.
Coach Elena picked the 13 October game. Stockfish marked the missed fork, an inaccuracy and a mistake, with the better move.
The AI explains the fork in plain words. The draft waits for Coach Elena to edit and approve it before it can be shared.
Illustrative screen from a made-up demo academy.
Four steps
The flow, step by step
1. Link
Staff add the student’s public Chess.com username to their ChessCore profile, with the family’s consent. No password is involved.2. Import
ChessCore pulls the account’s public games through the Chess.com public API about every hour, as standard PGN.3. Analyse
The coach picks which games to analyse. Stockfish then flags the inaccuracies, mistakes and blunders in those games.4. Review
The AI explains the engine’s findings in plain words, and the coach approves each per-move explanation before it can be shared.
Link and sync
What ChessCore reads, and how often
ChessCore needs only the student's public Chess.com username. Your staff add it to the student's profile, and the link is accepted only once the family has given consent for it in ChessCore. Games come from the Chess.com public API, so there is no Chess.com sign-in step and no password.
On the first sync, ChessCore imports the student's games from the past 12 months. After that, the account syncs about every hour, and staff can sync one account on demand with Sync now (once every five minutes per account). Each sync imports every game the account returns with its moves, and records the time control. There is no filter by time control or rated status, so bullet, blitz, rapid and daily games all come in.
The same game is never imported twice, and later syncs fetch only games newer than the last one imported. If the family withdraws consent, the next sync fetches nothing and stores nothing. Staff can also import a single game from a chess.com link, or upload a PGN file of up to 200 games, with player names hidden by default.
Unlinking a Chess.com username stops future syncs and retains the games already imported into the student's ChessCore record. It does not erase that coaching history or delete anything on Chess.com. If a family wants its stored data erased, use the separate family erasure process described on the security page.
Last checked against the product: 11 October 2026.
Read-only
What data flows in, and what does not
ChessCore imports public game data by username: the moves, the result, the time control, and the date. It reads from Chess.com’s public archives, so a student never shares a password, and ChessCore never plays or resigns on their behalf. The import is read-only. ChessCore takes a copy of finished games for coaching and leaves the Chess.com account untouched. Because games arrive as PGN, the same analysis works whether a student played a rapid game online or you uploaded a tournament score sheet.
Where ChessCore handles a student’s data, it does so under the same controls as the rest of the platform. See how we treat academy and student data on the security page.
Coach in the loop
From imported game to coach-reviewed feedback
The point of importing games is not a wall of engine numbers. It is faster, better-evidenced coaching. ChessCore’s AI reads the Stockfish output of a game the coach chose to analyse and explains it in plain words. Per-move explanations start as drafts, and the coach edits and approves each one before it can be shared. Parents see their child’s recent game results and ratings in the parent portal. Automatic monthly progress reports carry game counts and ratings for the month, with no AI-written text and no engine analysis.
This sits alongside the rest of the platform rather than bolting on. Game import is one of the jobs covered in the in-depth chess academy management software guide. Automatic sync ships on Pro and Enterprise, and PGN upload is on every plan described on the features page.
Setting it up
Setup is per student and takes seconds: record the family's consent, open the student’s profile, add their Chess.com username, and their public games start importing. Automatic sync is on Pro and Enterprise; on other plans, upload a PGN file instead. There is no plugin to install, and the student configures nothing on the Chess.com side unless your academy asks for the optional ownership check. For academies whose students also play on Lichess, the same flow runs in parallel: see the Lichess integration, or the full list on the integrations page. When you are ready to compare plans, see ChessCore pricing.
Frequently asked questions
- How does ChessCore get a student’s Chess.com games?
- Academy staff add the student’s public Chess.com username to their ChessCore profile, with the family’s consent. ChessCore then reads that account’s public games through the Chess.com public API and imports new games about every hour, so nobody uploads PGN files by hand.
- Do students need to share their Chess.com password?
- No. ChessCore imports public game data by username from Chess.com’s public archives. It never asks for or stores a Chess.com password, and it does not play moves on the student’s behalf.
- Does the Chess.com integration cost extra?
- There is no add-on fee. Automatic sync from Chess.com and Lichess is on Pro and Enterprise; PGN upload, Stockfish analysis and AI review drafts are on every plan. There is a Free plan, and paid plans run from $69 to $149 a month billed annually. See the pricing page.
- Can a coach review the games before parents see anything?
- Yes. Imported games are not analysed until a coach picks them. AI explanations of a game start as drafts, and the coach approves each per-move explanation before it can be shared. Automatic monthly progress reports carry game counts and ratings, with no AI text and no game analysis.
Written by Abhishek Tiwari. See our editorial standards.
