Panda Chess Academy

Engine Options

Enable Stockfish 19

Show Evaluation Bar Position bar on Right Side Show Best Move Arrow Show Candidate Lines

How many

Analyze in the backgroundKeeps evaluating the game while the engine is switched off — fills the eval graph, but costs battery on a slow laptop.

Analysis Depth

Max keeps thinking on one position for up to 2 minutes — strongest, but uses the most battery.

Promote Pawn

Click a piece or press Q R B N

Comprehensive Help Guide

Feature Finder

Navigation & Board Control

Next / Previous Move (main line) ← / →
Enter / Cycle Variations (then → to play through) ↓ / ↑
Start / End Position Home / End
Toggle Orientation (Flip) F
Null Move (Pass Turn) Z
Undo / Take Back Move (↩ button in controls) Ctrl + Z
Command Prompt M

Tools & Modes

Board Editor (press again to cancel — only Done replaces your game) E
Variation glow on/off — Michigan-blue ring in a side line (amber in dark mode), and “variation!” flashes left of the board (on by default) V
Back-step cue — chevron flashes left of the board when you take a move back (on by default) B
Show Threats (opponent's captures) X
Mark Diagram / Puzzle Position D
Toggle Pawn Structure Mode P
Simple Board (board only) Shift+Z
Toggle Shot Clock Timer T
Toggle Dark/Light Theme L
Dance Party (again: next style) Shift+D
Top 3 moves as Red/Green/Yellow arrows R
Draw Random Student Name N
Toggle Number Coordinates Type /numbers
Golden Rules Popups (1, 2, 3) Opt/Alt+1/2/3
Candidate-Moves Quiz (top 4, random colors) Cmd+3
Red-Green-Yellow Light Show Opt/Alt+4
Who Stands Better? Panel W
Scoresheet Mode Shift+B
Next board view (Regular → Maximize → Zen → Scoresheet → Projector) Shift+V
Open this Help Guide Shift+H

Analysis & Feedback

Toggle Stockfish Engine Shift+E / Ctrl+E
Stockfish Settings Modal Shift+Q
Toggle Evaluation Graph G
Eval Symbols (!, ?, !?) 1-6
Giant Center Symbol Ctrl + [1-6]
Write Move Annotation A
Annotation Palette Shift+G
Toggle PGN Headers Ctrl+Shift+G
Copy PGN to Clipboard C
Copy Board Image (PNG) (🖼 button in controls) Shift + C

Lichess Integration

Lichess Integration Modal Shift+L
Quick Export to Study Ctrl+Shift+L

Who Stands Better? (WSB Mode)

Select Row ↑ / ↓
Evaluate (White / Black / Draw) W / B / D

Drawing & Touch Gestures

Green Arrow / Circle Right-Click Drag / Click
Red Arrow / Circle Shift + Right-Click
Blue Arrow / Circle Alt + Right-Click
Yellow Arrow / Circle Shift+Alt + Right-Click
Freehand Draw Ctrl + Left Drag
Touch Devices: Draw Long-Press Square
Touch Devices: Clear Drawings Two-Finger Tap
Editor Mode: Delete piece Drag off board

PandaChess — All Features

Board & Play

Drag-and-drop or click-to-move — legal move highlights with charge animation
Board flip — play from either side at any moment F
Editor mode — freely place, move, or remove pieces E
Pawn Structure mode — lock moves to pawns only P
Null move / pass turn — show opponent's idea Z
Undo — step back without losing the tree Ctrl+Z
Promotion dialog — keyboard shortcuts Q / R / B / N
Touch / mobile — swipe to navigate, long-press to draw, pinch-friendly
Paste PGN anywhere — Ctrl+V loads a game from clipboard instantly

Engine & Analysis

Stockfish 19 WASM — full-strength engine, works offline
Evaluation bar — live centipawn gauge beside the board
Eval graph — see the full game's score curve G
Move symbols — !, ?, !?, ?!, !!, ?? on any node 1–6
Giant board symbol — full-screen flash overlay Ctrl+1–6
Variations tree — branch, promote, delete, navigate sub-lines
WSB mode — Who Stands Better? structured evaluation panel
Opening Explorer — Lichess DB moves inline for any position
Engine settings — depth, lines, Elo cap Shift+Q
Engine Comparison — Stockfish 6 vs 18 side by side /compare
Engine Battle — pit two engines against each other (e.g. Stockfish 19 vs 6), adjustable speed + adjudication /battle

Teaching Tools

Random name picker — call on a student with shuffle animation N
Shot clock — countdown just above the board's top-right corner, click to close T
Space Test — live board-space overlay; blue = white, red = black (type space)
Golden Rules — animated chalkboard popups for your 3 teaching rules Opt/Alt+1/2/3
Candidate-Moves Quiz — flashes "Have 3-4 candidate moves." then reveals the engine's top 4 as green/yellow/red/blue arrows in random colors, so the color never gives the best move away Cmd+3
Simple Board — just the board, arrows and coordinates; Shift+↑/↓ for the whiteboard and editor shelves Shift+Z
Maximize board — collapse the side panels, keep the full layout /maximize
Dance Party — celebration visual effects Shift+D
Student roster — manage class names, used by name picker
Live Class Room — push positions to remote students; they play moves back /class

Camp Games

Explorer Quiz — hide the database stats, kids vote on the best move, then 🥁 Reveal /quiz
Score guessing — Quiz + the Score toggle: "what % does White score here?"
ECO flash cards — a classic line plays out, kids name the ECO code; your game is restored after /eco
Team scoreboard — 2-4 teams docked on screen, click names to rename, + to score /teams
Projector mode — everything scaled up for the back of the room /projector
Jarvis butler chat — change settings by chatting with your AI butler /ai
Celebration sounds — coin blips and reveal fanfares; volume slider in Settings (the dance party is silent on purpose)
Offline-proof — Explorer remembers viewed positions; QR remote and ECO cards need no internet

Annotations & Notes

Move annotation box — attach free-text notes to any move A
BlueNote — a full-screen retro blue screen for talking a position through. Type /bluenote to open. It starts blank even on a move you have already annotated; the position sits in the top right and opens at its biggest (click it to cycle six sizes, drag on it to draw an arrow — arrows sync both ways with the real board, and the note wraps around it); typing clicks like a typewriter; line numbers run down the left (turn them off in Settings → BlueNote line numbers), and Tab indents; the ⧉ Copy button in the header copies the whole screen as a PNG for the Zoom chat. The bottom-left corner cycles a King Safety / Material / Pawn Structure / Piece Play form. Esc appends what you wrote to that move’s annotation — so it feeds the Word Cloud and quotes — and banks the position as a homework question. Hit Notes to browse past BlueNotes and ★ the keepers; starred notes sync to the cloud and are never auto-removed.
Diagram / puzzle markers — tag a position; exports as {[#]} D
Annotation palette — one-click chess teaching phrases Shift+G
#todo in annotation — auto-adds item to a to-do checklist
Word Cloud — frequency analysis of all annotation text /wordcloud. Click any word to pull up every note that mentions it.
Recurring Topics — chess concept phrases surfaced automatically (two- and three-word, e.g. “back rank mate”)
Notable Quotes — the notes richest in chess vocabulary, shown with move + date
Collections — bookmark any note into a named set (“Best lines”, “Ideas to develop”) and export just that set
Export — quotes as .txt, .csv or .md, plus Counts .csv for word & phrase frequencies
Cloud sync — sign in to sync notes across devices; the bar shows what the last sync did, and Sync now forces one
Slash commands in annotation — type /command and press Enter
News Ticker — scrolls every *asterisk-wrapped* word from your notes CNN-style /ticker

Drawing on the Board

Green arrow / circle — right-click drag / click
Red arrow / circle — Shift + right-click
Blue arrow / circle — Alt + right-click
Yellow arrow / circle — Shift+Alt + right-click
Freehand drawing — Ctrl + left drag (desktop) or CapsLock mode
Touch drawing — long-press a square, then drag
Clear drawings — two-finger tap (touch) or left-click board
Pen layer — /pen: stylus draws anywhere, clicks still click. Hover the small chip bottom-left for the tray — ⏳ is disappearing ink (strokes fade a few seconds after pen-up); the last colour stop is the laser

Appearance

Dark / light theme L
Background themes — Default gradient, Pitch Black, Dark Slate, Navy, Forest, Crimson, Deep Plum
Glow themes — Aurora ✨, Emerald, Sunset, Crimson, Cyan
Glassmorphism panels — frosted-glass UI
3D piece levitation — pieces lift and shadow while dragging
Eval piece glows — highlights best-move pieces
Large board mode — expands board for projector use

Import / Export & Cloud

Import PGN — paste (Ctrl+V), file picker, or PGN modal

Copy PGN — full game to clipboard C

Lichess Study export — push game directly to your study Ctrl+Shift+L

Game Library — save, browse, and load multiple games locally

Cloud sync — Google sign-in saves quotes + PGNs to Firebase

PWA / offline — install as an app, works without internet

Worksheet

Lesson

On the worksheet

drag a card to reorder · drag it to the shelf to take it off · ⛓ marks the steps of one mate Ask every question as

Class terms

*words* typed in this lesson's annotations

★ Favorites

keepers from every lesson

Bench

banked from this lesson

History

🔥 Stockfish's Thoughts

Tip of the Day

Show on startup

Feature Fight

Which do you like better? Usage is measured separately — you never have to guess it.

What's New

What landed lately, and what is still only an idea.

BlueNote Editor

Position Evaluation

Trainer Mode

Move 1 of 10

Position Evaluation

Trainer Mode

Move 1 of 10

Engine Options

Game Insights (T.I.P)

Lichess Integration

Import PGN

Class Roster

Promote Pawn

Advanced Variations

Game Library

Comprehensive Help Guide

Feature Finder

Navigation & Board Control

Tools & Modes

Analysis & Feedback

Lichess Integration

Who Stands Better? (WSB Mode)

Drawing & Touch Gestures

PandaChess — All Features

Board & Play

Engine & Analysis

Teaching Tools

Camp Games

Annotations & Notes

Drawing on the Board

Appearance

Import / Export & Cloud

Saved Puzzles

History

🔥 Stockfish's Thoughts

Annotation Word Cloud

To-Do List

Save game to…

Engine Comparison