Chess Reviews

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 this app at all. Very very bad this app. So, I will get a life myself and delete this funny app. Thank you for showing me what this app is not about. I will continue to enjoy this app 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.

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 this app 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 Chess. 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.

My second attempt at posting a review. Leveling up a pawn tends to cause Chess 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 Chess 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 Chess ’s ads are running it is ridiculous. Pop-up ads will run without notice even while you are playing. Ugh! I just deleted Chess 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!

While I am not new to this app, I am also not an “expert.”

I was baffled when I went to move my bishop to take a pawn in front of the king. My rook was set to cover the bishop. When I moved my bishop it switched to the computer … They didn’t move any pieces, but my bishop disappeared from the board. I undid the move and tried moving my rook instead, which would have resulted in check covered by the bishop. This time the rook disappeared. Over time playing Chess , I notice that if I put the king into check my pieces will sometimes randomly disappear. Definitely feels like the system cheats and has a fail safe if an unpredicted move is made — Just remove the piece from the board. Deleted and will not download again.

Other reviews seem to mention this cheating as well. I don’t mind if it beats me — Which it did multiple times. I am here to learn. But, I can’t learn if you cheat.

Many glitches including rook being able to move diagonally, been that way for 6 years and still hasn’t been fixed. Same with the stalemate glitch where it will preemptively call stalemate before it even happens, as well as call stalemate when only the king can’t move, and the other pieces can still move… which is not stalemate. Also the pieces move too fast to the point where I often have to undo just to see what changed. On top of it there’s the ads, which I can understand the banner ads at the bottom of the screen, that’s okay, what’s not okay is the un-skippable full screen ads that last for 15-20 seconds. 100% of the time I immediately close Chess and stop using it when those ads pop up. I would spend a much longer amount of time on Chess if there were only the banner ads.

I’ve tried downloading Chess 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 this app 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 have two main complaints about Chess. First, on the this app 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 this app app at all. The only way would be to forcibly close Chess 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.

I’ve had Chess for several years but the developer updated Chess 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 Chess , and changing to another app now. It’s a shame because I used to use Chess near daily for several years.

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.

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 this app 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.

Hello! I want to say this is a good game, but there are some major bugs that make it just not. Multiple times while I’ve been playing, my pieces have frozen and I can’t make any moves except for a selection fee the computer allows. This wouldn’t be that bad, except when it happens, the only moves I can make are horrible and give the computer the upper advantage. I’ve only been playing for a few days, and this has happened way more than 2 or 3 times. For example, just now it happened. I want to move my lawn to attack another or even to just move forward, and it’s totally frozen. I also tried moving my queen, my bishop, my knight and more. So far it will only let me move my king…
I would really enjoy Chess, if only the bug could be fixed. Please fix it!!!! This glitch doesn’t happen due to a delay from the user every time, sometimes it just happens randomly.

Other than that, I would say Chess works ok. I use an ad blocker, and that helps with the ad problems I’ve read from other people. I hope the glitch is fixed so I can continue to use Chess, if not it’s going to be deleted.

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. Chess 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.

my only major complaint with this game is that sometimes it’ll call a stalemate when it is definitely a checkmate. it happens a lot, actually. i’ll put the opposing king in a position where he can’t move without putting himself in check, while i have the liberty to move and avoid check. (which is checkmate), and the game will tell me “draw by stalemate”. very annoying. also, i don’t know how to make “rooking” happen. the AI will do it, but i never have the ability to do so — and will sometimes have to restart the game because rooking is the only way to save my king — and the game won’t checkmate it. this game has been around since the first or second iphone, so i have some nostalgia for it — and would like these bugs to be fixed.

I have been playing on Chess for a few years almost DAILY when time allows. When I first was learning this app it was terrific and I was able to fine-tune my skills with the difficulty changer setting. That's a sweet plus for Chess !
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 Chess . As a new and learning this app player Chess is useful but as an avid proficient this app player, it's equivalent to playing with a real person who tries to cheat. this app is a game of challenging strategy and there is absolutely no room for cheating. Perhaps I'll check back on Chess 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 Chess 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 this app, 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 Chess 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 Chess , but it’s a good game for people who know what they’re doing and have a good idea of what to do.

I like it. It, (the computer)(on most difficult setting) did cheat on me right b4 I was about to checkmate' like twice in 2 years. I also did so other times though!

I wrote that n never sent it bc I checked it out again n couldn't beat it, so I just kept playing. That was 3 months ago, n I finally beat it again, ( set on most difficult). Now tonight I was seriously feeling like I was guna win, had everything set up just so... n it kicked me off! M a pretty peitiant man, so I started a new game. Kicked off again!!! N m talking lost the game, it was gone! Four more times!!! The last one I am sure I woulda had' again, n it let it play out for most of the game is how I can say that... So MAD, well for a few minutes anyway, (one step closer to a heart attack, unnessasaraly!!! M not da best speller, sorry! I really hope this might make a differance tho. I swear, it almost felt like it was getting hacked!!! It was just tonight, so far!

I love this this app game. It’s simple, and for somebody that plays it just for fun it has become an inseparable friend any time I have to wait in line for something and on my free time. Ads are a little annoying, but not a big issue at all. Only suggestion: I play for fun and it is nice you can go back as far as you need to find where you made a mistake and fix it (don’t you wish we could do the same in life), but once you get check mate it is impossible to go back. Sometimes I played a really silly move just because I got distracted and It will be helpful to move back again.

Most computer games are for the advanced. This game is for every range of this app experience. From the earliest beginner to the advanced.
My wife never played this app before and didn't even know the names of the different pieces. I taught her the basic moves and downloaded Optime's this app for iPhone last month 1 month later she's addicted to this game, plays it whenever she has a few spare minutes. We played yesterday and gave me a real run, almost beating me.
The game has a real feel and sound to it. You can feel the piece as you move it, almost like it has a marble feel with a felt bottom.
It's very easy to play and convenient when it's on your phone.
I can't recommend it enough to everyone with an appropriate phone. And while you're downloading this game, check out Optime's other games of similar quality like checkers, free four, dots, tic-tax-toe.

Update 2018 January 24

While the features that I listed above remain, the latest updates have removed the ability to listen to your music while playing.
As with many others, I play Chess as a means of relaxation, which for me goes hand in hand with listening to my purchased music.
Now, you can I either play the game or listen to your music. You can’t do both.

Chess plays killer this app. The comment about weak openings, followed up by muscle bound defense is possible. The engine keeps track of time, but does not facilitate this app notation. This leaves me wondering how these “geniuses,” did their analysis! With the timer on, a novice cannot take time to note the moves in this app notation. I think the claims of the engine “cheating,” are bald faced lies. One review apparently claims to not be able to document and “en passant,” pawn loss. It is possible that the algorithm to change the level of the opponent, or difficulty has some holes in it, but if you let it play as default it appears unquestionably helpful to the amateur, provided he really wants to learn this app. Buy a book and learn a few openings, and the engine will sharpen your skills to a razor’s edge.

Great engine for a serious student of this app.