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by LautrecOfCarim

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.

by Cruiseguru

My second attempt at posting a review. Leveling up a pawn tends to cause the app to freeze. A few weeks ago it got even worse, my phone (iPhone 12) screen would not function. I had to take the SIM card out and put it in an old phone to find a secondary way to reboot my phone. If the app freezes when you level up a pawn, do a hard reboot on your phone ASAP. I agree with the others who mentioned pop-up ads…even when the app’s ads are running it is ridiculous. Pop-up ads will run without notice even while you are playing. Ugh! I just deleted the app because I was close to winning but that stupid three repetition draw/stalemate stopped the game. That only happened because the computer opponent makes moves that a human never would. A common example, the computer king, when all alone, will do stupid things to cause a draw/stalemate. Why would a king intentionally go near my two rooks and my queen? Run the other way!!!

UPDATE: The computer rooms are so cowardly! Most of the time when they move, they don’t take out my pieces. The rooks seem really scared to attack even to put me in check! I don’t get it!

by ScottTheRecruiter

I’ve had this app for several years but the developer updated the app to have a ton of ads. Like, way more than usual ad amounts for free apps. For example, today I opened it up and there was an ad that I couldn’t skip for like approx 15 seconds. Then, I played a few moves for my game opening and I checked a text message that came in (in total, I switched apps no more than 5 seconds to read the text). So, I switch back to the game and now there is yet another ad and it wouldn’t go away. Full screen ad, no X go close or skip it anywhere, and it stayed on screen and wouldn’t let me go through it back to the game. I waited 3 minutes and it’s still there!! And also it’s in a different language, and I don’t even know what it’s for. I came here to write this review and delete the app, and changing to another app now. It’s a shame because I used to use this app near daily for several years.