Terms and Conditions
The Chess Review Terms and Conditions
Effective version: June 19, 2026. These Terms govern accounts, review credits, game submissions, payments, refunds, transfers, and use of The Chess Review.
1. Acceptance of These Terms
By creating an account, placing an order, requesting a review, transferring credits, requesting a refund, or using the service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not create an account, buy credits, submit games, or use the service.
The Chess Review may update these Terms from time to time. Continued use after changes means you accept the updated Terms. Material updates may require a new click-through acceptance.
2. The Service
The Chess Review provides educational chess feedback based on games, positions, links, PGNs, notes, and questions submitted by users. Reviews are coaching opinions and study guidance, not guaranteed rating improvement, tournament results, professional certification, or engine-perfect analysis.
Review quality and turnaround can depend on the clarity of the submitted game, the user's notes, reviewer availability, payment confirmation, and any follow-up needed.
3. Accounts and Eligibility
You are responsible for your account, login credentials, submitted content, and activity under your account. You must provide accurate information and keep your account secure.
You may not use the service for fraud, payment abuse, harassment, spam, unauthorized access, resale of credits, or any unlawful purpose. The Chess Review may suspend, limit, or terminate accounts that appear abusive, fraudulent, risky, or in violation of these Terms.
4. Review Credits Have No Monetary Value
Review credits are a limited license to request game-review services on The Chess Review. They are account accounting units only. They have no cash, monetary, stored-value, or market value. They are not refundable or redeemable for money except where The Chess Review chooses to provide a refund or where required by law.
Credits may be used only for eligible review services offered by The Chess Review. Credits may expire, be revoked, or be adjusted if they were issued by mistake, obtained through fraud, tied to a disputed or reversed payment, transferred in violation of these Terms, or connected to account abuse.
5. Credit Transfers
The service may allow transfers of review credits between accounts. Transfers are internal account adjustments only and do not create a cash payment, withdrawal right, ownership interest, financial account, or outside market. The Chess Review may delay, review, reverse, or refuse transfers that appear mistaken, unauthorized, abusive, fraudulent, or otherwise risky.
6. Payments
Card payments are processed by a third-party payment processor. The Chess Review does not store full card numbers. Bitcoin payments, when offered, require manual confirmation and may take up to 48 hours before credits are delivered. You are responsible for sending payment to the correct receiving address and for network fees, exchange-rate movement, and wallet errors.
A purchase is not complete until payment is authorized, confirmed, and accepted. The Chess Review may cancel unpaid, suspicious, reversed, or disputed orders.
7. Refunds
Refunds are reviewed manually. Review credits have no cash value, and purchasing credits does not create a right to withdraw money from the service. Refunds, if approved, are generally limited to unused review credits tied to a valid payment and are subject to fraud review, payment-processor rules, card-network rules, bitcoin-network limitations, and applicable law.
Fiat refunds are generally submitted back to the original card charge when possible. If multiple orders or cards were used, The Chess Review may allocate a partial refund across the relevant charges. Bitcoin refunds, if approved, may be handled manually and asynchronously. Refund amounts for bitcoin may account for network fees, exchange-rate movement, payment traceability, and operational risk.
The Chess Review may deny or reduce a refund for used credits, completed reviews, partially completed work, suspected abuse, chargeback activity, inaccurate information, violation of these Terms, or inability to verify the payment. Nothing in these Terms limits any non-waivable consumer right required by law.
8. Chargebacks, Reversals, and Fraud Review
If a payment is disputed, reversed, charged back, reported unauthorized, or suspected to be fraudulent, The Chess Review may suspend the account, pause reviews, revoke or freeze credits, reverse transfers, deny refund requests, and provide order records, account records, terms-acceptance records, review records, and delivery records to payment processors, banks, card networks, or other parties involved in resolving the dispute.
9. Submitted Games and Content
You retain ownership of your games, PGNs, notes, and submitted content. You grant The Chess Review a license to use that content to provide the review, communicate with you, maintain records, improve internal operations, and resolve disputes. The Chess Review will not intentionally publish personally identifying customer information in a public sample without permission, but may keep internal records needed for service, safety, accounting, legal, and dispute purposes.
10. Reviewer Availability and Changes
Specific reviewers are not guaranteed unless explicitly agreed in writing. The Chess Review may assign, reassign, delay, or cancel work based on availability, expertise, workload, user conduct, or service needs.
11. No Warranties
The service is provided "as is" and "as available." To the fullest extent allowed by law, The Chess Review disclaims warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, uninterrupted availability, error-free operation, and guaranteed chess improvement.
12. Limitation of Liability
To the fullest extent allowed by law, The Chess Review will not be liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, or punitive damages, lost profits, lost rating, lost tournament results, lost data, payment-provider failures, network failures, wallet errors, or unauthorized account access. To the fullest extent allowed by law, total liability for any claim is limited to the amount you paid to The Chess Review for the specific order giving rise to the claim.
13. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify and hold The Chess Review harmless from claims, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses arising from your submitted content, account activity, payment disputes, misuse of credits, violation of these Terms, fraud, or unlawful conduct.
14. Termination
The Chess Review may suspend or terminate access to the service, accounts, reviews, transfers, or credits for violations of these Terms, suspected fraud, payment risk, abuse, security risk, or operational need. Termination may result in loss of unused credits, except where a refund or other remedy is required by law.
15. Governing Law and Disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws applicable to The Chess Review's principal place of business, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, except where consumer-protection law requires otherwise. Before filing a claim, you agree to first contact support and give The Chess Review a reasonable opportunity to investigate and resolve the issue.
16. Contact
For account, review, payment, refund, or terms questions, log in and use the account support tools.