Best iphone chess app?

I meant something along the lines of a version of http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/ for the iPhone. That's the ideal option but the variations in pgns would work too.

It's a real pity - this is what I'd hoped for when I went down the iPhone path. It seems such a logical development that it's hard to believe that there is not something in amongst 100,000 apps that does this :-( 

Hi

I am looking for a chess app for my kids -bright 11 and 9 years old.  They love to play against each other or against the machine.  I would like to find something encouraging while they learn. They do not need gimmicks-just an app that is ok for beginners. Does anyone have any recommendations?

tChess Lite or tChess Pro would be my recommendation.  If they want something ultra-simple, Deep Green might also fit the bill (and there's a free version in which the only restriction is that it doesn't remember the current game when you close the app).

Thanks DeepGreene-we will give tchess a try first.

I already posted this in the Apple "iGroup" forum, but it works here too.  :)  

Hi all,

I was pleased to hit the app store today and get an update for Tom Kerrigan's tChess Pro.  The main thrust of the update is adding iPad compatibility, but all users of the app get the benefits, which include:

- a slightly stronger engine (estimated +10 Elo)

- hand-painted wood and marble 2D boards and more options for the pieces as well

- a brand new 3D board (wood or marble) that can be zoomed (with a pinch gesture) or rotated (two-finger swipe) at will

These are nice changes, for sure.  The 3D board is probably the best one I've seen in an iPhone app, although I'm still not sure I'll use it...  I'll give it a try, anyway.

I do like the 2D wood board quite a lot and it's a nice change to an app that's historically been pretty restrictive regarding look and feel.

Has anyone here tried Chess Elite? Chess Elite is a feature-rich correspondence chess game that allows players to send challenges to their address book contacts as well as to other players registered with the Chess Elite community. The game boasts of an Elo Rating system that rates the relative skills of all the players in the community. It also includes Push notification support that alerts players whenever a challenge is received or a move is made in a correspondence game. 

Players can view their Career summary and check the details of their games against other players. Along with this, they can also use the Analysis mode to analyze moves in an ongoing game. An interesting feature is the Chess Elite Clubs that categorizes players based on Elo Rating and Smart Groups that includes the Most Active Players, Most Promising Players and Past Opponents. A Chat feature makes the game complete by letting the players interact through the app to discuss Chess tips and tricks.

Grandmaster Natalia Pogonina recently joined the online community of Chess Elite to promote the game of Chess on the iPhone. She has already played quite a few games with the community members! :)

Here's the App Store link of the game: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chess-elite/id315628126?mt=8

i got chess elite, but dont see any chat options there.

analysis mode and/or at least move rewind would be also good there, because sometimes you forget what your thoughts were and how you ended up in certain situation when you look at each game only once in a while or someone takes forever to return moves.

but i do like the groups/clubs, past opponents section, and game archive.

thanks!

chess.com is great. You can play against the computer, play other humans online, solve tactics puzzles, and get video lessons from grandmasters. 

Have you seen the latest update for the Shredder app?  It's got a built-in opening explorer of over a million moves that shows probability and scores based on IM and GM games.  Also, if you've got wifi or 3g access to the 'net, it can access Shredder's endgame tablebases, to show you where you (or the computer) can play perfectly for a mate-in-14, etc.  :)

The chess.com app is the best value in the store, but in the non-free "instructive opponent" category, it's now a dog-fight between Shredder and tChess Pro as far as I can tell.  Both have openings explorers (Shredder's shows scoring data, which tChess doesn't, but tChess lets you pick a named opening at the beginning of your game, which Shredder doesn't); the endgame tablebase access is unique to Shredder. 

Shredder has puzzle mode, graphical analysis, adaptive difficulty mode (it can get weaker or stronger based on your performance), a ratings graph to show your history & progress, and an optional evaluation gauge to show who's ahead and who's behind as the game progresses.

tChess has blindfold chess, a tiltable/zoomable 3D board option, a complete chess course, the ability to cut/paste PGN from the clipboard, the ability to display analysis during play (and to cap the analysis think-time to a user-configurable number of seconds to save battery life), excellent time-control configuration options (including multi-period), and a move-list that lets you jump instantly to any point in the game (why doesn't every chess app have this??).

It's a toss-up - probably comes down to individual features if you need to decide which one is truly "best" (i.e. for you).  One other nice thing about tChess (if you own or plan to own an iPad) is that it's a 'universal' app & supports all iDevices.  Where Shredder is concerned, the iPhone and iPad versions are two separate purchases.

new HIARCS 12.2

What's new

New resign option
Improved chess engine
Piece set improvements
Fixes to issues found since previous release

"CBase Chess" is a new application on the AppStore since August 2010.

I believe it is the 1st (and so far only) application that allows viewing variants in pgn. It is also possible to download pgn files.

"Chess DB" also views variations, but I prefer the interface to CBase Chess over that of Chess DB, plus CBase is free.  Also, I believe CBase is faster at opening large databases.

*Note - I'm the developer of CBase Chess, so I'm just slightly biased.

I was going to purchase Shredder for my iPod Touch, but after reading this thread I might get tChess Pro...

This seems to be an everlasting thread. Started about 2 years ago and is still going. The original question if there is an app that supports Live Chess like we have in Chess.com, or something similar.

Chess apps that can read PGNs or have a strong engine or a big database, in the meantime we have alot of them at iTunes... but what about an app that just lets you play a live and fast "quickie" with some stranger on the other side of the earth ... just like the Live Chess option here?

Any ideas?

I've used these ones for real-time games; they all require a basic registration at either ICC or FICS:

Chess at ICC - http://www.uquery.com/apps/380526850-chess-at-icc

iChess Pack - http://www.uquery.com/apps/338485580-ichess-pack

Magnus's Online Chess - http://www.uquery.com/apps/339914448-online-chess

Please note also that Live Chess IS indeed coming right up on the development roadmap for Chess.com's very own iPhone/iPod app!

In case anyone was curious about the result of that contest, here is the update from the OP of that thread as of 2009:

99Games: We are being notified by Apple not to give away Apple Products as prizes for our Chess Elite contest. This, according to Apple is not allowed and hence we would be stopping this contest.

Just an FYI, the Monroi PCM is also capable of being uploaded with any PGN game via SD card.

You can't play against a strong computer or a live person over the Internet with it, but you can use it to log your chess moves while playing OTB in official FIDE or USCF tournaments.

Shredder is extremely polished, no question.  That said, tChess Pro is hardly an ugly duckling. 

I think they are both must-haves, but I tend to give tChess a slight edge, if only because it's got some PGN, computer-play & navigation (hello, a tappable move list!) features I care a little more about than Shredder's puzzles, evaluation gauge & all-around good looks.

As an iPad & iPhone owner, I'm also pleased that tChess includes native support for both devices in the same app.  Shredder not so much.