Usefullness of analysing ones own games with an engine There are different opinions on analysing your games with an engine. Some say you shouldn't use an engine at all, and others say you can use it, but you should do your own analysis first. Most say that you shouldn't use the engine without a manual analysis first.

But what can you learn from an engine analysis? They can point out tactical mistakes, but if the mistakes imply you must correctly play a long variation, and you don't manage this, the whole variation fails. But of course, often the mistakes are easy to see. But I have started to ask myself, how valuable is this at pointing out tactical mistakes? Often I can find the easy mistakes by myself, and the hard ones are probably above my understanding.

Maybe the engine is more useful for endgame? But even so, it can be hard to understand the engine moves.

For the opening I think an opening-db or opening books are much better then the engine.

The best option is to probably analyse games with a stronger player/coach, but I do not have that option. You can also try to get help from players on sites, asking for help with analysis. I have tried this on chess.com several times, but I have gotten very few answers. I am trying Chess Stack Exchange to see if I get more responses.

I found this article that has lots of good advice.
First of all it kind of depends on your playing strength, but every player can benefit at least a bit from an engine.

Personally I use the engine for the following analysis:


Opening preperation: I play out different variations of my opening with the engine running. I do this so I dont miss any critical good moves of my opponents. For myself I dont necessarily chose the best engine move, but the move I think fits my style the best. At the end I check if I like the position and what the engine says of it. I dont care about +- 0.2, as long as I feel the position is good for me.
Open issue control: If I play 10+0 or 15+15 online, I dont analyze every game by hand afterwards. But I will go for a quick engine run and check, what kind of mistakes I made (if there are any). This way, I get a overview about my typical mistakes and know where I can improve. I also check, if I followed my prepared opening ideas (if present) and how the position developed. 
For club games, I will always first analyze them by hand. The time spent depends a lot about the position and how many ideas I find which are worth analyzing (or ideas I had in the game but could not calculate due to time). Of course I will analyze my mistakes I spot myself. Afterwards I will run the engine and check if I missed any mistakes. In addition I will play out some lines of the engine which I find intresting. Afterwards I think about, wheither I could have spotted it during the game and if it was something I could play myself, regarding the resulting position.


In general, I think an engine gives you intresting insights, but you should always remember, that you dont have to be able to play like the engine. So the engine will find some lines, which you should dismiss, because they are too hard for you.

For additional benefit, you can use a book to improve. I will sit down with a chess book go over some content and later on use the engine to double check the ideas I learned in the book.