Training notebook · Review your games
How to annotate your own chess game in useful words
Write chess annotations that preserve decisions, test alternatives and leave a clear lesson, without filling every move with engine variations.
Write for your future self
A useful annotation explains what you were trying to do and what the position demanded. It does not need to sound like a published grandmaster collection. Begin with the moves where you made a real choice, felt uncertain or changed your plan. Routine recaptures rarely need an essay unless an alternative mattered.
Keep your game-time thoughts separate from discoveries made afterwards. “I expected the rook trade to simplify” records your original reasoning. “Later analysis showed the pawn ending was lost” records a correction. Combining them into one confident explanation erases the very misunderstanding you need to study.
Use a four-question note
For a critical move, answer four questions: what was threatened, what did I consider, why did I choose this move, and what did I miss? The answers can be short. A specific sentence about an undefended rook is more useful than several lines saying the position was complicated.
Include a variation only when it supports the explanation. If you claim a capture fails because of a fork, show enough moves to establish the fork and its consequence. Avoid adding a long engine line whose final position you cannot assess. The annotation should make a claim understandable, not demonstrate how much output you copied.
Distinguish facts from open questions
Mark uncertain assessments honestly. You might understand that a king attack is dangerous without knowing whether it forces mate. Write the question and test it with an engine or stronger player. If the answer remains unclear, preserve that uncertainty rather than inventing a strategic explanation after reading a score.
For notation, use the system your intended reader can follow and include the full game score where possible. A standalone comment such as “the knight is strong” loses meaning if you cannot find the position later. If your tool lacks comments or export, a separate notebook with move numbers can still preserve the reasoning.
Turn annotations into a small training collection
At the end of the review, choose one position to revisit without the notes visible. Give it a question such as “Which exchange should I avoid?” rather than revealing the answer in the title. Later, compare your new reasoning with the original annotation. This checks whether the lesson survived beyond the review session.
Periodically scan several annotated games for recurring causes. If you repeatedly misjudge pawn endings after rook trades, that is a clearer study direction than a general label such as poor technique. Keep successful decisions too, so the collection describes what to retain as well as what to repair. Annotating is valuable when it changes the next training task; it need not become a labour-intensive record of every move or a collection of unexplained engine punctuation.
Put the practice into a routine
Where Brass Pawn fits
Brass Pawn engine practice can verify chess claims behind your notes. This guide does not claim the app has a full PGN annotation editor; use an external notebook or editor when your preferred workflow requires one.