Chess ∙ Wiki

The reason why I think it needs improvement, is whenever I play the computer it froze. I think they should improve that, and also if it freezes or something like that. The time freezes as well,Then I have to restart the round then it happens again in the new round in less then 5 moves. But over all it’s pretty good, no improvements need to be needed if it’s a 2 player. And back to the 1 player thing, it goes on and off it isn’t always like it though, it’s always on and off. Thank you for your time reading!

I have been playing on this app for a few years almost DAILY when time allows. When I first was learning chess it was terrific and I was able to fine-tune my skills with the difficulty changer setting. That's a sweet plus for the app! Sadly, as I was able to move up to much higher difficulty levels, it wouldn't allow me to make some legal moves and it was able to make illegal moves. At first I thought it was just glitchy or that it knew rules that I didn't know. The game allowed a knight to move diagonally one square to take my rook that I used to take a piece and put its King in check. I thought was a glitch so I undid my move (the undo button is helpful for learners as well) and tried to redo it. It made the diagonal move again. I scoured the Internet to validate the legality of that move and couldn't find it anywhere, leaving the only conclusion to be that the computer in the game is somehow allowed to cheat. After reading other reviews of the game about some potential cheating going on, I am sad to say I will be deleting the app. As a new and learning chess player this app is useful but as an avid proficient chess player, it's equivalent to playing with a real person who tries to cheat. Chess is a game of challenging strategy and there is absolutely no room for cheating. Perhaps I'll check back on the app in a year or so to see if they have cleaned it up.

A flawed system for sure, and very infuriating at times. I may or may not stick with this app because of this reason...I will sit and think for like, five minutes straight, and when I go to execute my move, I can’t. The game just doesn’t let me move. Before I wrote this, I had a plan to love my queen and it wouldn’t allow me to move it. It only allowed me to move it backwards, directly in the line of fire for a bishop. I couldn’t move my pawn, which clearly had plenty of space and availability to travel to the back of the board, I still had my knight but, despite a clear and open space AND a perfect lineup to snatch the opponent’s king, it wouldn’t allow me to move it, and although there was a pawn I was able to steal with my bishop, I was unable to move. This is a reoccurring problem that you constantly have to work around. I’m not very good at chess, and it’s one of my favorite games ever, but how on Earth am I supposed to learn properly and strategize if I’m unable to move my piece? Try this app out for yourself, like I said, I don’t know if I’ll stick with it or not. It’s very painfully mediocre.

So it’s been awhile since I played this game. I got back on just now, but I don’t think it’s very good anymore. Not by preference, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this review, but the computer’s knight took out every single pawn I had in just a few moves, ignoring any of the legal moves a knight must follow (ex. Going three squares downward in a straight line and two diagonal). Eventually it was just my King left, and I was right next to someone from the computer I wanted to take out, but it just wouldn’t let me move there. I checked again and again, and there was nothing that could take me out if I made that move. It’s not very good for beginners, in summary, who would think they could do those things legally. It’s learning wrong. Sadly I think I have to delete the app, but it’s a good game for people who know what they’re doing and have a good idea of what to do.

Would be good but the easiest difficulty is too hard for a beginner like me. I may be new and not know all the little tricks but even my friends know that the computer moves out of turn, there has been times it either took two turns or moved a poun 3 spaces or diagonal without taking a piece or moved the castle thing diagonal or the diagonal only piece up down and side to side, like even I know that’s against rules oh and yk that trick if you get a poun to the end of the board you get to swap pieces well sometimes it didn’t swap and just added or it wasn’t a poun and instead a knight and I know that’s against all the rules and when I try to do those exact same things I literally can’t cuz it’s not only not allowed but not existent rules or way of playing. This app is horrible because of all the flaws meant to make the computer win and it’s not a bug it’s literally the way the game was made. Other than that great graffics. Oh yeah sometimes my pieces would make how the shouldn’t be able to according to my sister who played for me once and she’s so not a newbie like me.

Don't download the game at all in the first place. I unwittingly got the game, played for a few weeks on difficulties below half, and once I increased the difficulty to higher levels, the game experienced the most frustrating errors I have ever encountered. Prevents the player from putting the opponent king in check, prevents the player from making some moves; I scoured the internet for rules against the moves I wished to make and found none. I have been playing chess all my life and there is absolutely no reason that I could not make these moves. For example, the opponent moved their king into check and then I was not allowed to take their king. My pieces frequently disappear, seemingly only when the opponent is bad position. These are not occasional, isolated errors; each game sees several errors in it. I suggest not to download the game at all until these bugs are worked out.

I have two main complaints about this app. First, on the chess side. I'm rated around 1800 USCF and tried playing on moderate difficulty levels. The thing about the AI is that it always plays very strong tactically, probably 2200+. Meaning it will never make a mistake that loses material, nor will it ever fail to capitalize on one of your own mistakes. On the other hand it is extremely weak positionally, I would estimate below 1200 level. And it plays absolutely garbage openings, worse than most human beginners. The result is that it will always give you a huge positional advantage in the opening, but then begin defending extremely accurately making it very difficult to actually win a game. It does not play anything remotely similar to a human player and creates lots of frustrating games. Second, the pop-up ads are the worst. I frequently got full screen pop-up ads for other apps that would not have an "X" on the screen to close them, and also wouldn't go away on their own. So I would be unable to get past the ad and to access the chess app at all. The only way would be to forcibly close the app and restart it, and hope that a different ad would appear. This completely ruins the user experience, independently of how the program actually plays. 1 star out of 5 for these reasons.

So I understand that this is a computer and it is very hard to beat. I couldn’t beat it for the longest time. Now when I finally had the chance to win the game suddenly starts cheating, bad... so I had to move my queen in place to make the checkmate, but when I tried moving her. It wouldn’t let me at all! So I moved something else thinking it’s just being dumb. When suddenly, my supporting knight disappeared. Just disappeared! Nobody was in his place, nobody attacked him! So I undo my turn and for the heck of it move a pawn up to protect because why not? Then my pawn that was castling my King disappeared. Discovering a rook attack on my King, then the game tells me I’m in checkmate. What it should’ve said was in check because I could’ve moved him out of the way. But the game ends like that with no chance of an undo. Sooooo I’m officially done with this game. It knows when it was about to lose and it started cheating lol. Playing against a 10yr old child computer I guess.

If you don’t plan on immediately purchasing the no adds version don’t bother. Launches to some very disconcerting websites that are obvious hardcore adds, cookie injectors, and who knows what else. Yes we get it you need to eat and generate revenue but launching some hacker type site while I’m right in the middle of a chess move is fubar! Really kills the relaxing experience to have to go into cyber defense and stop your forced browser launch. There are other ways to get paid without treating potential customers like that. Comes off as very unscrupulous and greedy. Therefore uninstalled this app. I’d much rather watch two adds back to back at the beginning then have this thing kick me out of the game, launch safari, and hijack my browser force routing itself to go hit several sites on the for some pay per click. Not cool! Dislike would not recommend.

On the hardest level and on time control, the computer will magically add a second bishop of the same color (either dark square or light square, but usually dark square in my experience.) Last time I checked, each player has 2 bishops. One light and one dark. It is impossible to have 2 bishops that are on the same color square. This always happens when I have a mate in 2 or 3. Seems like the computer is a loser and should get a life. Also the computer uses the bishop like an extra pawn. It positions the bishop behind 2 pawns in a V shaped form. Very silly and not chess at all. Very very bad chess. So, I will get a life myself and delete this funny app. Thank you for showing me what chess is not about. I will continue to enjoy chess while trying to get a life like your computer bishop. Although, I think I will be more successful than your silly computer bishop. I wish you the best, computer bishop.

I was playing this game daily and I loved it but I was really disappointed by the same issue many people seem to be having with the game: the opponent cheating or using illegal moves when on an increased difficulty. I'm not that good at chess so when I put the difficulty to the max I've lost every time, but today, for the first time I had victory in my sights as I was 2 moves away from a clear checkmate. To my dismay, however, when the opponent was given a turn, none of his pieces moved and my queen just disappeared. I tried moving to every spot I could on the board thinking maybe it was just a rule I didn't know of but no matter what I'd do, he wouldn't move a single piece and my queen would just disappear. Really disappointing and if this problem gets fixed I'll change the rating. Otherwise I recommend not downloading this game due to possibly major let downs.

I’ve tried downloading this app maybe a dozen times over the past few years. Always deleting it for the same reason. It has no ability to gradually change difficulty. Around the halfway Mark, it jumps from incredibly easy to very difficult. You can tell how night and day the computations are too because just the slightest movement to the left, and it moves pieces instantly. If you move it the slightest bit to the right, it takes a good 5 seconds per turn to figure it out. I dominate 10/10 times moving in the slightest way to the easier side, and can’t win at all going to the right. The whole point of chess is trying to find a good opponent, this difficulty bar should be staggered in numbers of 4, not as it is, cause it’s so misleading. Makes you think you can gradually increase difficulty, but for years it’s been exactly like this.

I never give reviews on games. Yeah, yeah. I’ve seen the other reviews the same way. But in 10 years of being a fanatic of certain games, this is literally my first...... this is not a “bot.” Just a real guy in Denver at 5:15pm on a Monday. (As a reality check, I’ll add that current politics means Trump keeps playing the American public like this game plays against you.) 🤪 This game has an undo button which is great. However, if you play chess for real and you know the rules, then you will be frustrated like me. Occasionally, the AI player is allowed to move a piece in a completely unorthodox way. I.E. bishop moves horizontal OR rook moves diagonal. No amount of hitting undo will change that. Developers need to fix this. Otherwise this is NOT real chess. Plenty of free options out there. Download something else. 0 stars if I could. Instead, I’ll try 1 of the other 9 trillion chess apps. Buh bye.

I normally don’t care about ads because all it takes is a little patience and then you can exit out of them, but I do have a big problem with the ads in this app. They pop up randomly during play, which is inconvenient enough, but then on top of that they direct you to programs that mess with your entire system. Mid-play it’ll redirect me to another screen and then even if my sound is off it’ll start making audible text-tones for no reason. Then when I close out of the ad it just opens back up again, and this happens multiple times before it finally goes away. I can understand wanting to generate revenue through an app you took the time and effort to design, but inconveniencing the people that you made the app for in the first place is what will cause them to abandon it for a better chess app, and it’ll deserve it.