Pawneer

Chess openings, like a game#

Pawneer teaches openings the way you learn a game: by playing. No flashcards to revise and no theory to read first. You set off on a world tour where every place is an opening to conquer.

A world tour of openings#

Ten openings across three regions: the Mediterranean (Italian, Spanish, Sicilian), Western Europe (French, London System, Scotch) and Northern & Eastern Europe (Scandinavian, Caro-Kann, Slav, Queen's Gambit). Win 5 duels at a place to conquer it; conquer 2 places in a region to open the next one.

Short duels against theory#

Your opponent plays the most common replies, weighted by what players choose on Lichess, so you meet the main lines duel after duel. Every good move is named and explained in one sentence. A mistake costs one of your 3 lives: Pawneer shows you the move to play and, for common mistakes, how the opponent punishes it. Other sound moves are recognized, with no life lost.

Traps to set and to dodge#

22 classic traps, checked with a chess engine, show up in your duels. Spring one or fall into it, and it joins your collection; you can replay it as a challenge.

Remember without revising#

A conquered place fades if you don't come back, and one duel brings it back. The interval grows each time, from one day to five weeks, so the openings stick.

Free to start#

The Mediterranean is free and complete forever: three openings and their traps, with no ads and no account. The full world tour is a single one-time purchase, with no subscription, that opens every other region, including the ones to come. It can be shared with your Family Sharing group.

Private by design#

No account, no ads, no tracking. Pawneer makes no network requests of its own, and your progress stays on your device. The details are in the privacy policy.

Opening data comes from the Lichess games database (CC0); traps were checked with the Stockfish engine, which is not included in the app.

Built natively#

Pawneer is built in SwiftUI, with StoreKit 2 for the purchase, VoiceOver that reads every move in words, and text that follows the size you choose. The content (lines, explanations, traps) is prepared by Python tools from Lichess games.