Chess on Kindle

Just wanted to let you all know I came across a nice program for Kindle called PBChess.  It's much better than the official "Chess" program being sold by Amazon.  This one is a pocketbook port created by Sergey Vlasov (I'm not him, but I am forever a fan now, LOL) and it comes with strong engines, like Fruit and Stockfish.  You need to jailbreak your Kindle to use it though. 

One thing I have to point out is PBChess is almost invaluable for "Kindle only" users.  Why?  Because I looked all around and it's the only program that actually lets you look over PGN files. There is another that's supposed to be a dedicated PGN viewer, but the project seems to have been abandoned so it's not functional.

It doesn't have functionality to use the engine to analyze positions, atleast yet, so the only function of the engines right now is to play against them, but maybe we can hope in the future for such a function.

If anyone else is like me and doesn't have an iPhone or any other mobile device that can view PGNs and only has Kindle, check out PBChess, it's very useful.

http://pbchess.vlasovsoft.net/en/index.html

PS This topic may sound a little like spam, but i'm just happy I found exactly what I wanted.  It's fun being able to review the old World Championships with the Kindle.  It's literally the only program that lets you.

No, it's useful information for Kindle owners, current and prospective! Thank you for posting. 

Downloading this now, good find!

Hi!

I've posted some videos for Kindle Touch here:

http://pbchess.vlasovsoft.net

Do i need to jailbreak my kindle to be able to use pbchess.

yes

Can you play pocket shredder on it? I know its in google play. An excellent engine game.

What does "jailbreaking" your kindle entail?

you can play shredder on Android tablets only (e.g. Kindle Fire, Nook). And you can't on Kindle Touch, Kinle 2,3,4 (eink models). My program is designed for eink books. 

It's easy and safe to perform jailbreak. For example, the link for Kindle Touch about jailbreak:

http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Touch_Hacking#Jailbreak

You also will need the GUI launcher. It's very easy to install it either.

Interesting. My wife has a kindle fire, I wonder if that same method would apply? She has a chess app on it now, but it is a flat out joke. It probably isn't rated 1000 or so. It's a free app, so........ as the old saying goes, you get what you pay for. Anyway, it might be worth seeing about to get a good game on it.

Ha :),  what engine? what level? please post game here :)

PBChess is best program on older Kindle 3.  There are other programs for other devices but we are not talking about for PC or iPhone, we are talking about Kindle.  Yes Shredder for your computer will be stronger than an engine on Kindle, that is obvious and irrelevant, we all have stronger programs on computer Rybka, Houdini etc.

PBChess is best program for older Kindle.  Maybe there is other for Kindle Fire I don't know, but for Kindle 2 and Kindle 3 this program PBChess is best

Yes, pbchess 1.2.4 works only for e-ink models of Kindle: Kindle 2, 3, 4nt, Touch. It doesn't work with Android models (such as Kindle Fire) yet. It has a few pretty good open-source engines: fruit, togaII, stockfish, glaurung. Now it supports 10 levels (1-10 half-moves depth).

But the main aim of this program is studying rather than playing.

You can:

1. Solve chess problems. We have a lot of chess problems here: http://pbchess.vlasovsoft.net/en/contents.html;

2. Learn the famous grandmasters games with comments

3. Examine and analysing your own games

4. Reading chess books in PGN format

What are you talking about? What program? What engine? What level?