Best Chess Apps

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MBrades

Jul 5, 2014

Hi,

I'm an addictive in iOS chess apps. You might look at my posts about those apps in http://master64chess.foroactivo.com/f4-ajedrez-en-maquinas-de-bolsillo-ppc-android-moviles-smartphone-tablet

I've purchased virtually all apps with a keyword chess on iOS. I subscribe to a daily mailing list which sends an email to me whenever there is a new app that uses the "chess" keyword. If I see a new chess app, I buy it without before even looking at the description. But, so far, only four remain on my device.

1. SmallFish

Look at the screenshot below if you don't have iOS, because you should! SmallFish is easily the best chess playing app. Android users should feel shame about not having the app in their store.

It's strong, it's too strong. It's a 64 bits Stockfish engine, which means it's performance is much better than any 32 bits apps. It's one of the only two chess apps which support 64 bits - the 64 bits feature has greatly accelerated the search. Smallfish uses the same engine as it's Android counterpart - Droidfish, but it's stronger than Droidfish simply because it's 64 bits and Droidfish is 32 bits.

Graphically, SmallFish is very impressive. The app is divided into three components - Game, Analysis and Graph, they're exactly the functionality expected by any serious chess player. Do you want to know when you blunder? You can visuale it in a graph. Do you want to know the correct evaluation? SmallFish has a power bar for it.

SmallFish also allows you to download chess games from Carlsen, Fishcer, Kasparov etc.... for analysis.

The app is totoally amazing.

2. Stockfish App

This is the other app that supports 64 bits. It uses the same Stockfish engine as SmallFish but coded by another developer. It's a very solid app, and I don't much to complain other than the visual design. The app was started in 2008 and since then, the design hasn't been changed. It looked awesome back then, but it looks daunting in 2014. It's good but not as good as SmallFish.

3. Chess Tiger

Chess Tiger is an awesome app. The engine is weak but strong enough for most human players. I use it for enterainment but not for serious playing.

4. SmallChess

SmallChess has the most complete funcionality for a chess app, it's absolutely briliant. Look at this, it has a very powerful 3000+ chess engine, it also supports multi-pv, control panel, tablebase, custom opening book, guess-the-move, puzzles, blunder check, variations, annoations.

The app is a perfect example how features can be presented on a tiny iPhone screen. I love it, and I love it. The only reason it's 4th because it doesn't yet support iPad, otherwise it would have been 1st.