Use the AI to Test One Drop, Not to Collect Wins
Name a candidate first: walk the silver, drop the pawn, or promote the bishop. Then open the hint. If your drop walked into nifu or left the king bare, undo it and try the quieter square. The value of AI practice is immediate evidence about one decision.
Choose difficulty by the rule you want to practise
Stay on the gentler level while you are still learning which pieces promote and how a drop lands. Once you can finish a game without hitting nifu by accident, raise the level so a loose gold near the king is punished more often. If most of a game is spent guessing why a square is illegal, step down; repeated mates you cannot explain teach less.
Look at the hint only after choosing your own move
Say the reason out loud: protect the king with a gold drop, climb the silver toward the promotion zone, or keep the rook’s file open. Then open the hint. If it differs, do not memorise the answer. Undo and test both lines, then write the contrast: “Mine captured a silver but left the king thin; the hint dropped the gold and waited.”
A useful review needs only two turning points
Find when a piece first promoted, and find the drop that first put the king in real danger. Pause before revealing the next move and choose again. Keep one sentence for the next game, such as “I dropped the pawn on a file that already had one,” rather than “I played the middle badly.”
Gentlelearn drops and promotion
Strongerpunish a loose gold
Hintcheck after a candidate
Replayfind the drop that mattered
