Chess.com PGN Scraper

Overview

This actor scrapes all available game records in PGN format for a list of Chess.com usernames. It runs on the Apify platform, returning structured data for analysis or archival purposes.

Key Features

• Multi-User Scraping: Processes a list of one or many Chess.com usernames in a single run.
• PGN Format: Returns all games for a user consolidated into a single PGN string per user.
• Comprehensive Game Data: Each PGN includes standard headers (Event, Site, White, Black, Result, Elo ratings, dates) and the complete move list with timings.
• Performance: Scrapes data directly and quickly from Chess.com's public profiles.

How to Use

1. Prepare a list of Chess.com usernames.
2. Provide this list as input to the actor.
3. Run the actor. It will fetch the PGN data for each user.
4. Retrieve the results from the actor's dataset, typically as a JSON file.

Important Notes:
* Adhere to Chess.com's Terms of Service when using this scraper.
* To avoid rate limiting, limit input to 10 usernames per run.
* Proxies are not required for this task.

Input/Output

Input:
The actor accepts a list of usernames. You can provide them via a structured input JSON or a plain text list.

Example input (JSON):

{
  "usernames": ["username1", "username2", "magnuscarlsen"]
}

Output:
The output is a JSON array where each object contains a username and its corresponding aggregated PGN data.

Example output structure:

[
  {
    "user": "magnuscarlsen",
    "pgn": "[Event \"Live Chess\"]\n[Site \"Chess.com\"]\n... (full PGN for all games)"
  }
]

Each PGN contains the complete game history for that user with the following metadata fields: Event, Site, Round, White, Black, Result, CurrentPosition, ECO, ECOUrl, UTCDate, UTCTime, WhiteElo, BlackElo, Termination, StartTime, EndTime, Link, and the full move PGN with timings.

Use Cases

• Building a personal database of games for specific players.
• Analyzing historical games for study or statistical review (e.g., opening repertoire, style trends).
• Archiving your own or others' publicly available game history.