About ScanChessA scoresheet scanner from a small team that plays
ScanChess turns photos of handwritten chess scoresheets into rule-checked, editable PGN. This page says who makes it, why, how the recognition works, and what it does not do.
Scan a scoresheetWho builds it
ScanChess is made by SudoAI, a small software studio. There is no sales team and no support department: the people who write the code read the support inbox and look at every scan a user reports as wrong.
The guides on the blog are written by the same team and checked against the FIDE handbook and the platforms they describe.
Why it exists
Over-the-board games end up as a stack of paper, and typing them into a database is slow enough that most are never looked at again. We wanted the step from a scoresheet photo to a game you can replay to take about a minute — including the checking.
How recognition works
- 1
A vision model reads the handwriting on each photo and proposes a move for every cell, with a confidence score.
- 2
The proposed moves are replayed on a board with chess.js. A move that is illegal in its position, or that the model was unsure about, is flagged. Nothing is corrected silently.
- 3
You check the flagged moves against your scoresheet in the editor — retype a move, pick one of the alternatives the rules allow, insert or delete a move — then export the PGN or save the game.
Recognition quality depends on the handwriting, the lighting and the notation used, so we do not quote an accuracy figure. Expect to check a few moves in a typical game.
What it does not do
- It does not guarantee an error-free transcription. A flagged move is one to check; an unflagged move can still be wrong when a misread was confident.
- It reads standard algebraic notation (e4, Nf3, O-O). Descriptive notation (P-K4) and non-Latin piece letters are not converted.
- It does not upload games to Lichess or Chess.com for you. It gives you a standard .pgn file, which those sites and desktop programs import.
- Scanning uses credits and needs an account. The PGN viewer, board editor and PGN validator are free and work without signing in.