Have you ever wanted to play a quick game of chess while waiting
to board your
plane at the airport? Are you a daily bus or rail commuter who would
love to play a game en route to or from work? Do you ever find yourself torn
between playing a game of chess or going outside and enjoying the sunshine and
fresh air of a beautiful day? Chess programs
for smartphones, tablets, e-readers, portable gaming systems, and handheld chess
computers, make it easy to
start or
resume a game of chess almost anywhere anytime. Handheld chess can be a lot of fun.
Best of all, there are no pieces to lose!
This page is divided into 3 main sections. First a few
chess programs for Apple's iOS platform are
reviewed (immediately below).
Secondly, chess
apps/tablets for the
Android platform are listed. Finally,
older dedicated chess handheld units and programs are
discussed.
A Few Chess Options
for Apple Products
I've owned an iPad since April 2010 and have found it to be my
favorite device for portable chess. Apple's iOS platform, which consists
of the
iPad,
iPad-Mini,
iPod-Touch, and
iPhone,
are all capable of running much of the very best portable chess software available.
Immediately below is a brief description of the chess programs on
my iPad.
Stockfish
There's an old
saying that goes "the best things in life are free". This may
be true when you're talking about chess programs for the iPad. I say
this because of
Stockfish. Stockfish is one of the very best chess programs
for the iPad and it doesn't cost a cent. Stockfish has an extremely wide
level of difficulty settings. The strength of the computer engine can be
adjusted in 50 Elo point increments from 0 to 2500. That's 50
different strength levels! "Permanent brain" (a feature that
controls whether the computer "thinks" on your time), can be easily switched on
or off.
Additionally, 6 different playing styles are offered: "Passive, Solid, Active,
Aggressive, Suicidal, and Random". In my own
testing, Stockfish has proven to be
a formidable opponent even against desktop computer programs rated 2500 Elo and higher!
I sometimes believe that the strength levels listed in Stockfish may be a bit
too conservative. That is, if one plays Stockfish at the Elo setting of
1000, that corresponds more accurately to an Elo setting of 1200 or 1300 on
other chess programs.
As with the other chess programs reviewed on this page,
Stockfish allows you to easily set up a position for analyses or for solving
chess puzzles from books. However, the implementation of this feature, at
least on my iPad, seems a bit odd. When "Edit position" is selected, a
much smaller representation of the chessboard appears where you can add/remove
pieces as needed. It would have been much easier if Stockfish would
have allowed you to directly edit the full size chessboard represented on your
device's screen rather than on a miniaturized board. I can imagine that on
an iPad-mini, editing a position with Stockfish might be pretty tough!
Stockfish can also be used like a regular chess board (you move both sides), and
as an analysis tool. Stockfish comes with a very rich set of features
including the ability to automatically record and email your game. The email feature automatically
formats your game into PGN format for easy importing into other chess programs. Stockfish is optimized to take full advantage of both
the iPhone and iPad platforms. It does a great job of supporting multiple
finger gestures and there are numerous options for customizing the board colors
and piece sets. You can even select to turn on/off "figurine notation" if
desired. If you own an Apple portable device and love chess,
you've got nothing to lose by downloading and giving
Stockfish
a try.
Chess Pro - with coach, Chess Lite -
with coach, & Chess Free - with coach
Developed by Christophe Theron, author of
Chess Tiger,
"Chess
Pro - with coach" is a first rate program that can be used at
all levels of chess play. Players, who are brand new to the game of chess, will
find everything they need to learn the game. Experienced chess
enthusiasts, who wish to perform extensive analysis of their games, will also
find this program to be invaluable.
Originally this program was designed only for the iPhone in mind. However,
"Chess
Pro - with coach"
has received a major update that takes advantage of the iPad's larger and
sharper screen. This program
offers the best "visual thinking" feature that I've ever seen in any
chess program. If selected, the program will display the best moves being
considered (or recommended) using a series of green arrows. The most
favored moves are displayed with the thickest and brightest arrows. Less
favored moves with thinner and dimmer arrows.
The "Enable variations" functionality in "Chess
Pro - with coach" is extremely useful. You can try out
an unlimited number of variations when
analyzing a game and then easily get back to the "main line" when
ready. Even if you don't use the advanced functionality of "Enable
variations", I find this program to be the best program for easily navigating
forward and backwards thru a chess game. When I just want access to
a "virtual chessboard", I'll set this program to human vs human mode with its
computer analyses turned off.
This program offers all the usual features and functionality
that one expects in a high-quality modern chess program. You can import
and export games, select a wide selection of strength and playing style
settings, choose from a number of different chess boards and piece styles, set
up human vs human, human vs computer, or computer vs computer games. As
with Stockfish,
Chess Pro - with coach makes it very easy to email a game
in PGN format. This comes in very handy when you wish to send your
completed game to another computer for further analyses. Whether you're an absolute beginner or expert player, you'll find a
lot to like in this program. Prices vary throughout the year. "Chess
Pro - with coach" typically retails around $10.
Sometimes you can find it on special for around $4.
There are also two lower-cost options. With "Chess
Lite - with coach" you don't have as wide of strength levels
to play against. Otherwise it is pretty much full featured and typically retails for $4. "Chess
Free - with coach" gives you a chance to try out the program
for a limited time at no cost at all.
Chess.com
Another chess app I
frequently use is
Chess.com.
With this program you can play chess online
against other opponents, play against the computer,
analyze games, watch a number of different instructional chess videos, or
practice chess tactics with Chess.com's "Tactics Trainer" offering.
Indeed, "Tactics Trainer" is my favorite Chess.com feature. This selection
allows you to practice various chess tactics and (optionally) be scored on how
quickly you solve the various puzzles presented to you. Hundreds of
different tactical puzzles are available that explore the whole range of
different situations you may find yourself in. Sometimes you are looking
to win material, other times you're going for checkmate. Many of the
puzzles involve sacrificing significant material before the combination pays
off. I have enjoyed many hours in "Tactics Trainer".
How much you can do with Chess.com
depends on your Chess.com membership level. The free membership
level is actually pretty good in that you can play against the computer and do a
limited number of
tactical exercises per day. (It seems to me that if you
turn off your internet access before launching Chess.com, you'll be able to do
additional tactical exercises beyond what is normally offered by the free
membership level.)
Chess.com's paid membership options range from "Gold" membership at $5 per month
to "Diamond" which costs $14 per month. You can save money if you pay by
the year with Gold costing $29/year and Diamond at $99 per year. There's
also a "Platinum" level membership at $49 per year, but only Diamond level gives
you access to the training videos. I find the free option to be adequate
for my needs but I have had an opportunity to sample a number of the training
videos and they are pretty good.
The board graphics in Chess.com are excellent and
customizable. There are 10 different strength level settings for the computer
opponent with 5 different styles of play available. These selections should be more than adequate for
beginners and casual players. However, strong club players, (those rated over 1600), may need
to look elsewhere as the computer opponent in Chess.com is not particularly strong.
If you're looking for the option of playing against extremely strong computer
opponents, consider using
Stockfish or "Chess
Pro - with coach".
Shakki
Shakki
(Finnish for "chess") is a brand new chess program developed by Ulf Bierkamper.
What attracted me to Shakki was its look on the iPad. In its default
setting, the graphics are razor sharp and stand out very beautifully against a
jet black background. Though green is the default, you can choose from
just about any color under the rainbow. You can also opt to reverse the colors.
That is, have the chess graphics superimposed on a pure white background. Shakki also employs some
clever graphics on its main "Settings" navigation page. "Behind" the
buttons where you can start a new game, resume the current game, edit the board,
or load a previous played game, you will see chess pieces randomly drifting
across the screen in the background. It's certainly not essential to have
such a feature in the program, but it is a nice touch that shows some
serious work went into the creation of the graphics for this program.
Though Shakki only offers one piece type for the chess pieces themselves, it is
the Merida style which is my personal favorite for 2D chess piece
representation.
Unfortunatey Shakki's graphics are probably the best part of the program.
The chess engine itself, while strong enough for beginners and casual chess
players, is no match for a strong club player or even a 10 year old handheld
chess computer. I played Shakki against
Excalibur's Talking LCD
handheld in a series of games that tested all 8 levels of Shakki's strength
settings. When I limited the Excalibur unit to thinking ahead by 3
ply (3 half-moves), it was able to beat Shakki across its first 4 levels. Shakki's higher levels could beat the Excalibur unit at
3 ply but when I set the
Excalibur unit to 4 ply, it continued to beat
Shakki even at Shakki's highest setting. Considering the Excalibur
unit utilizes a 5 MHz processor (that can run for years on just 3 button
batteries) versus Shakki running on an iPad with a 1,000 MHz processor, this is
very poor performance for Shakki!
With Shakki you can choose to play white or black against the
computer, but there is no "human vs human" setting that would allow you to use
Shakki for playing both sides. Thus you can't use Shakki for playing
against another person or for following chess games from books. When
playing against the computer, Shakki shows its thinking process by using arrows
to show the move it currently thinks is best. A nice feature except there is no way
to switch it off. Shakki also lists the lines of
play it is considering above the chess board while evaluating its moves.
However, you can't turn it off and it does so using only "from/to"
rank and file notation and not the more common
algebraic notation that most programs employ. There's also an arrow
indicator showing "at a glance" which side currently has the advantage.
Unfortunately, this advantage indicator appears to only take into account
material advantage and not the overall evaluation of the position by the
program.
You can save and email games from Shakki.
Generally I found this feature to work well but I have seen cases where pawn
promotions are not accurately recorded. Thus I have had to manually
correct a few PGN files before I could import a Shakki generated PGN file into
another program for analyses. I've also encountered a "low memory error"
with Shakki. In my 3 years of owning and using an iPad, I've never
had to worry about memory capacity errors until I started using Shakki.
Shakki is definitely a "work in progress". I know
the author is currently working on an improved version. I sincerely
hope that, in the near future, I'll have a chance to run an updated version of
Shakki that I can recommend to others. As of today, we're not quite there yet.
Checkmate in 123
Unlike the above programs, where one can play a regular
chess game against a computer opponent,
Checkmate in 123 is purely designed to assist in developing
your ability to quickly spot checkmates in one, two, or three moves.
When
I first started using this program, I was surprised to discover how rusty
I had gotten at spotting certain kinds of checkmates. This program is more than just a whole
bunch of mate in one, two, or three puzzles.
Checkmate in 123 allows you to selectively filter down to
the specific type of mating situations you wish to practice on. For
example, beginners may wish to start with just practicing back rank mates.
More advanced players may wish to focus on more difficult categories such as
Bishop and Knight mates. There are 15 general categories allowing
considerable flexibility on the type of mating situations you can practice on.
Each puzzle is timed. The sooner you solve the puzzle, the more points you
score. Results are saved allowing you to easily measure your
improvement as you become more proficient in recognizing checkmating situations. You can
even set up multiples profiles, so different family members can individually
track their progress or set up multiple profiles for yourself so you can easily
compare your own improvement over time.
Though designed specifically
for the iPhone, this program also looks and plays well on the iPad as the
chess board and pieces look sharp even when blown up to fit the iPad's larger
screen. Currently priced at $1.99 this program is a fantastic buy if
you're looking to improve your checkmating "board vision" skills or if you just
enjoy solving "mate in 1, 2, 3" type puzzles.
Apple's iOS
platform is by far the most popular mobile applications platform and it shows in
the many
(over 100?) chess programs available. Feel free to
send me an email if you find a
chess program you really like that is
not discussed here.
Chess for Android!
Phones and tablets that have access to the
Google Play Store are capable of running a
huge selection of chess programs.
Here are a couple of Android chess
applications, I've gotten familiar with:
iChess
iChess is a
superb chess tactics exerciser program
developed by
Asim Pereira. I find
iChess to have several advantages over the tactics
trainer found in
Chess.com's iPad app. First of all, each tactics exercise
comes from a real life game. (You'll see the players and date of the game
listed just above the chessboard.) Secondly, if you make a mistake,
you don't have to start completely over with the combination as you would have to do
with Chess.com's trainer. Instead, you just keep trying at the step where you're at.
Thirdly, you have some control over the amount of effort it takes to solve each
puzzle you encounter. Difficulty levels offered are: Normal, Advanced, and
Master. Finally, you don't have to have an active online internet
connection when playing. Nor do you need to
pay a monthly fee to have access to additional tactical exercises.
One of iChess's best features is that you can easily add more exercises.
Additional packages are 99 cents each and typically contain anywhere from 200 to
300 puzzles. Some of these packages have a particular theme to them.
For example, there is a 300 puzzle package on "Endgame Tactics", another 300
puzzle package covering the Sicilian Najdorf (Be2), and a 275 puzzle
package titled "Magic of Mikhail Tal". Currently a dozen additional
packages are offered with more being made as time goes on.
All good tactical trainer programs offer a "hints feature" for
those times when you are truly stuck but don't want to skip the problem or see
the whole solution. iChess offers a simple
but very effective means of providing hints. If you get stuck, pressing the Hint button
will outline the target square of the desired move.
iChess features sharp graphics and the piece style used is one
of my favorites. 6
different pairs of board colors are offered--and they are all excellent color
combinations. There are also multiple ways offered of progressing
thru each puzzle set. You can configure the program to offer each
challenge sequentially, randomly, or, via a "bird's eye view" feature, you can
directly choose a particular puzzle by number.
You can easily email a puzzle (as a ".jpg" file) or share a
puzzle via Twitter or Google+. iChess also offers "one button integration"
with Analyze This
(described more below). You can even import a PGN file of your choice into
the program and use iChess as an "opening exerciser"! All in all, I
find
iChess to be the best tactical chess trainer I've yet
encountered and I highly recommend it! The free version shows a small ad
at the bottom of the screen. You can eliminate ads by purchasing the paid
version for only $1.49.
Analyze This
Once
I have completed playing a chess game, I always put it on a computer for
analyses. I find it interesting to see what other lines I could have
played, tactics I've missed, and how well the computer rates my overall play as
well as my opponent's. I've often used
ChessMaster on a desktop system
to analyze a game overnight. I then save and play back the results at a
later time.
There is another way of analyzing your game with a computer
that doesn't require several hours of pre-processing. By putting a
chess program in "analyses mode" or by using a program developed specifically for
analyzing chess positions, you can interactively study your game. This
type of analyses has the computer engine displaying its best thinking lines in
real time as well as providing you with an overall score of who is ahead. Asim
Pereira has developed just such a program called
Analyze This.
There are two key features with
Analyze This that really help it standout amongst other
programs that perform chess analyses. First of all, it comes with
not one but two first rate chess engines. Both
Critter and the latest version of
Stockfish are included with Analyze This. You
can run one or both engines simultaneously. Secondly, this program
provides you with excellent visual queues as to the current best line computed
by each engine. A line is shown from the source to the target square for
the best move currently evaluated. Each line is color coded to a
specific engine. Thus you can easily see, at a glance, which engine is
favoring a particular move. The program also does an excellent job of
displaying each engine's favored move, even if they both favor the same move.
Sometimes, you may wish to see multiple lines of play from one or more of the
chess engines. This can be done "on the fly" just by pressing the "+" key
to add a line or the "-" key to remove a line. Additional lines will be
shown below the chessboard. Though only the most favored move, from
each engine, will be visually shown on the chessboard.
Some basic settings are offered. You have the ability to switch
on/off the board coordinates. As with iChess, you can choose one of 6
different pairs of board colors. You can easily and quickly reset the
board to the starting position, clear the board to quickly set up your own
position, and flip the board so black is playing from the bottom.
As with his
other chess programs,
Asim Pereira offers
Analyze This in both
free and
non-free "Pro" versions. The Pro version offers the ability
to import additional UCI chess engines into the program and costs only $1.99!
Whether you just opt for the
free version or spend a couple of bucks to go "Pro",
you'll find
Analyze This to be an excellent study partner for improving your
chess!
Barnes and Noble Tablets
Barnes and Noble's 7"
Nook
HD and the larger 9"
NOOK HD+ tablets are excellent choices for those of you looking for a
quality tablet that is considerably cheaper than the
iPad
and
iPad-Mini. (I bought a Nook HD for my wife this past
Christmas.) On May 3rd, Barnes and Noble announced
a major software update to the Nook HD and Nook HD+.
These tablets now have full access to the
Google Play Store. Thus
hundreds of quality Android chess programs are now available to
owners of these tablets.
A chess program comes pre-installed on the older Nook Color
and Nook Tablet units. Unfortunately the pre-installed
chess program is limited to just a few difficulty levels (beginner,
intermediate, and expert) and doesn't have a 2-player mode. That is, there
is no mode available where you can make moves for both sides. Thus you
can't use the built-in Barnes and Noble chess program to play against another
person or to "play thru" previously played chess games.
Nook Color and Nook Tablet owners need not despair however.
They too can get access to the
huge library of chess programs available for the Android
platform. Check out
AndroidForNook.com for memory cards that can enable your older Nook
Color or Nook Tablet to dual boot
into the Android operating system.
Amazon's Kindle Fire Tablets and e-Readers
Amazon currently
sells the
Kindle Fire at $159, the
Kindle Fire HD at $199,
and the top-of-the-line "Kindle
Fire HD 8.9" tablet has been recently reduced to $269. These
are fairly decent units and, though not fully Android compatible, the
selection of chess programs that will run on these tablets is
fairly good.
If you own the original (2011) Kindle Fire model, and are not
happy with its performance or the selection of chess programs available for it,
there is a way to
replace its operating system with the latest version of Android (Jelly
Bean). I do not recommend this unless you are
tech-savvy but it will give your older Kindle Fire better performance and access
to
an even larger selection of chess programs.
Many people do not realize that Amazon's black
and white (e-ink) readers are quite capable of running game programs.
During a vacation last summer, I spent some time playing chess on a Kindle reader using a
program developed by Oak Systems Leisure Software.
Though I didn't have a lot of time to give the program a good workout, I found
it to be a competent opponent. Even on Level 1, if you play
carelessly, you may find yourself struggling to win.
At $119 the
Kindle Paperwhite is a good buy for those looking for an e-reader that can also play chess.
The
Paperwhite
can be used in any lighting from bright sunlight to darkened rooms. If you are on a more
limited budget, the
basic Kindle can be purchased for only $69. It can also
run the above chess program and has an excellent display
in normal room light to bright sunlight.
Chess for the Nintendo DS
and Other Handheld Gaming Systems
Though I don't own any of the current generation handheld gaming systems,
I do know
that you can purchase
ChessMaster for the Nintendo DS. I recommend
doing some shopping around though as some dealers (such as
Amazon.com)
are charging astronomical prices for this program. (As of March 4th 2013,
Amazon wants $98 for this program!) I would never pay this much for a
Nintendo DS program. For any game you consider for purchase, be sure to
read up on the customer written reviews!
Archived Handheld Chess Overview
Material
Much of the rest of the material on this page (immediately
below) was written 7 to 12 years ago.
It covers some of the dedicated chess handheld computers that were available
then. In general, the dedicated chess units tend to have screens that work
well outdoors or in other brightly lit environments, but provide poor visibility indoors
in comparison to a modern smartphone or tablet. You can still find several of the models mentioned below
for sale at various retailers on the internet. Be careful when shopping
for older chess computers handheld or otherwise. Prices for the same model
can vary dramatically from one place to the next. For some hard-to-find
models you may end up purchasing your dedicated chess computer from smaller (less
well-known) retailers or individuals.
ChessMaster for the Nintendo GameBoy
Probably the first widely available handheld LCD chess program was the
ChessMaster cartridge for the original Nintendo GameBoy. It was quite successful
and when the Color GameBoy was introduced, a newer version of GameBoy
ChessMaster soon followed. As for program strength, I’d give the color
cartridge a rating of around 1700 to 1800 Elo when played at classical tournament time
controls (40 moves in 2 hours). Unfortunately, the GameBoy suffers from a
too small and murky display for many people to comfortably use for long periods
of time. Also, it is extremely difficult to save a game for future play.
(Saving
and retrieval of a previously saved game requires the entry of a ridiculously
long and cryptic password!) Additionally, the GameBoy suffers from very short
battery life. Long games are best done with an AC adapter attached. This defeats
the portability aspect of the unit. Finally, because the original GameBoy ChessMaster
cartridges are no longer being manufactured, they are becoming extremely hard to
find. Your best bet for locating a cartridge is at an internet auction site such
as Ebay. You can learn a lot more about GameBoy ChessMaster on a web page where
I’ve compared it with the Excalibur LCD handheld unit. Just click on this
link:
LCD Chess versus GameBoy ChessMaster
Programs for the Nintendo GameBoy Advance
With the debut of the GameBoy Advance in 2001, Ubisoft
released a version of ChessMaster for the GBA (Game Boy
Advance) . Around the same time a company called Titus released Virtual Kasparov for the GBA.
I have no experience with either program but did receive a letter from
Eric
Fauman that summarizes the characteristics of these two programs:
