Chess - Play & Learn Wiki

I had started playing chess around three years ago, but stopped playing after a while because me sister wouldn’t have time for it anymore. I also didn’t know all the weird stuff or the stuff that is secluded, like castling, stalemate and the difference between check and checkmate. And so I gave up on chess. But three years later, in 7th grade we had a chess tournament in our contest math class. I was very unpleased and upset to have found out that I lost in the second round! I watched the finals match, and watched one of my good friends get bashed and checkmated in around five to six maybe seven minutes. At that moment, I wanted to be like that guy who defeated my friend so badly. So I started forcing my sister to play chess with me. But however at one point she got tired of it. So then I had to find a good chess app or website to play on. After lots of asking people what the best chess apps are, I finally got this one!!! And I must say I love it! There is however, a minor issue. I found out there is now multiplayer! The other player must have an account and you have to invite them. Anyway, other than that, it’s all cool!!!

This chess app is amazing and feels like it has everything you can possibly need. The chess AI can play at an extremely high level when you want it to and Ive learned many things from the AI! Also the live matchmaking system has a wide variety of options you can choose from, my favorite being the 10 minute matches because they are quick and fun, and it matches you up with other players in mere seconds. I would recommend this app to any chess player, whether it be just starting out or a great player because the matchmaking will set you up against opponents of equal skill level and the AI can be set to any rating as well. For beginners there are videos and a bunch of resources available to help you to become a great chess player as well! One last thing I want to point out is that the developers are phenomenal, they are quick to address any problems you may have and really care about the app and want it to be the best it can be. If you have problems or concerns I would highly suggest trying to reach out to them!

Having known not much more than the basic rules, I find this app extremely helpful in helping me understand different moves and tactics. I now win almost all of my friendly games and I also compete in some casual tournaments in my community. Most of my more advanced learning has come through this app, and it’s super handy. It gets your through the very basics quickly and brings you right in to the good stuff. That, along with some of the daily puzzles, offer a new experience every day. I do not use premium but it seems that it would be worth it. You get so many more puzzles, which is one of the best way to master your moves and analysis of the game. The videos and streams are also convenient and not too bulky and very user friendly; the chess teachers are welcoming to viewers and keep a lively environment to keep me from getting bored. I can easily spend 20-30 minutes a day or more without ever getting bored or tired of it. A fantastic app all around, free or paid.

I have played around with Chess apps for years. This is the first one that actually gets me going and keeps me coming back. I have bought the diamond level and find it fascinating!!!! I am 61 years old and have never developed a “3 to 4 steps ahead” thinking style. This app is the real deal and is played by some really smart people. I believe it has all of the tools that I need to keep my mind sharp as I enter my senior citizen years!😁 An almost perfect app and I don’t give five stars unless I LOVE an app. (note to developers: there is a fatal bug in the puzzles/learning/puzzles missed section. When you get done with all of the “missed puzzles”, the app goes back to a starting position and then goes back to the home screen. I am using the latest version of the iOS. This has not been a big deal for me because I just start the app up again and it works perfectly but I thought for the sake of tidying up loose ends you might want to look at it. 😊)

I’ve never really played chess and am very bad at it, but this is a good application if you are looking to learn. It has lessons (some free ones to learn how the pieces move and paid ones that I haven’t looked at as it is a little too pricey) and you are able to select how long you want the game to be. One problem I continually have is running out of time during the games. Though this is clearly my problem and not the application’s, I’ve also been in quite a few games where my opponent has also not been keeping an eye on the clock and time just expires. I suggest adding a vibration, similar to the standard vibration from moving a piece when certain time intervals are reached such as every minute. I would add this to the settings if there is worry many users would not like this change. Anyways, love the app, great job to those who created and maintain it. Take care to anyone who reads this review.

Excellent game play, game management, & much more. Post game analysis ranks each move “excellent/good/inaccuracy/blunder” and identifies what the better move would have been. Track your stats separately different game speeds, and accrue virtual ratings in the lessons and tactics drills. Pick up live timed games instantly, or play “daily” chess with days or weeks to make a move. I Love the daily tactics puzzles. Excellent interactive lessons and drills (e.g. practice every variety of limited-material mate). Watch other games live... easy to peek in on a friend’s games. GM video lectures and other curated material offer solid insights. Regular shows like “Chess Brahs” always a good time. No other chess app comes close to this. Unlimited game play for free; all other main features available in reasonable quantities for free, more than enough to keep a casual player occupied. I upgraded just to get more daily tactics puzzles, and got deeper analysis tools I’m still learning about.

I enjoy playing blitz and rapid chess games with this App. I find it a wonderful source of spacial cognitive ability enhancement. The news and articles by Peter Doggers are well written and timely. You play against chess players from many different countries. The tactics training is fun and if you upgrade you receive extra features. Lessons are available and charts and statistics show your progress. I play tournament chess at the West Valley Chess Club. Our members use computers to train and analyse the games. By playing many bullet games Online games I was able to achieve the 1st place of the Chaba Mehes memorial tournament. My ability to calculate quickly helped me defeat my rivals. Developing an opening strategy with online chess is another benefit. You can pick your favorite player and watch live games. Whether you are an amateur or considering becoming a professional, this App will be a great resource.

I want to offer simple design improvements that would engage users to a whole other level. This is so far a chess app / website that allows you to just play chess but severely lacks an actual chess community to the degree in which I see its potential. We want to find professional players / engage and keep up with chess news. People don’t want to read articles that’s boring. When I go to a professional chess players page all I see is comment spam from random people and no actual comments or video updates from the chess player them self. It needs to have Facebook comment design prioritizing the users comments at the top and then the most like comments after. They should also be able to add photos that could be commented on and liked. Secondly there are SO MANY sections that are not grouped up accordingly. People love simplicity. There should be a (Play) (Learn) (Watch) (News). Instead, all the categories that should be located inside each drop box are scattered outside these categories and are extremely ugly and overwhelming. Besides that to somehow promote twitch engagement would be huge and lastly, getting borders for your advertisements would help you look like s more high quality website. I just love chess so much and this app. I want this app to be successful and the chess community to grow.

I enjoyed this for the first couple of hours I had it installed. I made an account so I could access some of the features that you aren’t given off the bat. After spending a couple of hours playing against the computers, I got to one I had trouble beating. I decided I should look at some of the lessons that were recommended to me. After finishing the first lessons, I was about to start the next but was stopped because I had to pay to do more than one per day. I understand that the app is free and normal chess lessons aren’t, but I wish you could have more lessons per day. I ran into the trouble of taking one lesson and then trying against the computer, only to fail again. So I would then wait a day to start the next lesson, only to realize I didn’t remember anything I was taught from the previous lesson, and I wasn’t improving. My suggestion is that the one per day increases to three per day. This would allow people to take multiple lessons in succession, and they could then practice what they learned from the lessons against a computer. Beside the one per day limit, I had fun and might install it again eventually.

Hi there, been playing on the app for about a month and started to really like it so looked at the memberships and there’s 3 levels ... $30, $50, and $80 (I believe) for a year, provided you pay upfront and not month by month. I was like ok I get it... there’s lots of features so you have to pay for more of them. Well that’s all good, I get that. My main issue is with the puzzles that sometimes the “opponent” player doesn’t make the best move so you can’t actually solve the puzzle correctly unless you guess they will do the wrong thing. Solved a puzzle today and I would’ve gotten it right however the opponent made the worse move of their two moves and thereby I made the wrong move because I predicted the opponent would obviously make the best move. Please creators/admins fix this issue. It’s really not the way the puzzles should function. If you fix this I will gladly change my rating to 5 stars since that’s my main issues. Also I couldn’t find anywhere in the app to report this. But secondly to advertise their “videos” to watch to learn and improve in a notification or have it ever present on the main menu is really annoying when you can’t even watch the whole video because you don’t have the most expensive membership. I don’t like that. Just an annoying paywall situation where I already paid for the app.

The abandonment feature frequently forfeits games just because you access another app on your phone. This just happened to me with less than 20 seconds away from the game. It’s really frustrating when you are winning a game and you pause a movie only to come back and find the game forfeited. Fix this glitch and it would be a 5 star review. Really abandonment is a bad feature in a timed game. The rules of the game allow a player the entire time on the clock. Sure, it’s a jerk move to walk away from a game and make your opponent wait it out, but ratings shouldn’t change because of lost connections. Edit: the abandonment feature has a bug. It frequently forfeits games instantly just because I check a text or email. I’m almost always playing long time format games. I almost exclusively play 15/10. I see several other reviews with the same complaint. Fix the bug. Make the rules clearly defined. At the very least there should be a set amount of time that triggers the abandonment feature and it should be easy to look up what this time is. Currently checking a text will instantly trigger abandonment. That definitely is not the way the app should work.

For the most part, this is OK. I do enjoy the daily puzzles, however sometimes they are just flat out wrong. I would say about one out of every 10 puzzle (recently more) is the wrong solution, and it is frustrating to lose points when you know that the recommended move is so obviously not the right move. Additionally, the hint button is absolutely useless. If I just accidentally touch it even though I didn’t mean to, I immediately lose all the points. What is the point of having a hint option if I can just as well make the wrong move and lose just as many points? Since using the hint provides partial solution, doesn’t it make sense that only partial points are lost? I would also recommend to the developers to add a confirmation prompt to the hint button to avoid these accidental frustrations. I had considered signing up for the paid version of the app, but these glitches have stopped me from doing so. These are all minor fixes to make a very good and capable app even better. I really hope the developers take this feedback seriously and consider improving their app.

The daily puzzles and game reports desperately need a back button. I spend so much time staring at puzzles trying to remember what piece was captured and there’s no value at all in showing the previous move in literally half a second and expecting us to be able to see what piece was captured. I don’t even have enough time to focus my eyes before you make the move for the puzzles and same thing with the game recap. It needs a back button so I can look at what move was actually made. And you need to fix the alignment on the notations because I have to scroll to the right to see the check and check mate symbols. Simple fixes but it’s why I canceled my membership. Telling me what the best move is in the game report is fine but if you don’t tell me WHY it does NOTHING to actually make me better!!! I switched to Magnus trainer and dr wolf for better explanations. This app taught me how pieces move and how to castle but that’s it. I literally could not checkmate someone until I downloaded Magnus trainer lol. You also can’t replay the key moments and they move way too fast so when you show me I made the best response to a mistake for example I can never see what my opponent did first because it moves too fast and I can’t go back to previous key moments.

This is basically a “join our site/email spam generator” app that has almost everything hidden behind a join/pay wall. What a joke. Why would exercises, puzzles, game modes, etc. _need_ me to join some random site and get spammed with emails from, in order to function? Hint: it does not. This is basically a mailing subscription grabber that is likely to sell your email and/or spam you. The UI also very frustrating as well seeing how this is not a native app and looks like a web wrapper for their site. The app has loads of bugs and many still exist in the app with no way to report them to the developers and they have such a convoluted UI that doesn’t offer any help for looking where to even report the bugs. The best bug I came across was it just allowing pawns to move diagonally without capturing a piece (a basic rule and requirement that should never have been a bug in the first place). This is such a low quality, cheap e-mail grabber app that put no effort into actually designing a high quality, bug free chess app but rather a dirty “register to use” model for a website-as-an-app loaded with bugs. Horrible.