Not a complete newb, but I am looking to delve further. Can anyone recommend a good (free) app for phone play? Books will come later, but I want something to noodle about with.
CHESS
- Thread starter Bakker1964
- Start date
I had an app called Magnus, I think, where I learned some basic strategies (I really never played strategically before and consequently only ever defeated my children). I'm still not very good, but it was a decent start.
I go through phases where I'm temporarily obsessed with *trying* a game. About a year ago it was chess. Then it was Sudoku. Currently I'm in a calm before the storm.
I tried maybe 10 or 20 chess apps for Android and never really found one that was awesome.
I did like "Chess Tactics for Beginners". It gives you a pre-composed small section of the board to play with. I though it was a neat idea.
I didn't dedicate myself to learning chess so I still suck at it.
I tried maybe 10 or 20 chess apps for Android and never really found one that was awesome.
I did like "Chess Tactics for Beginners". It gives you a pre-composed small section of the board to play with. I though it was a neat idea.
I didn't dedicate myself to learning chess so I still suck at it.
Loves me some chess. For Android check out the "Chess - Play and Learn" or "Chess Coach" apps. Neither is perfect but neither is playing chess on a phone, in my opinion. If you're an iPhone user I can't really be of help.
Paging @rockviper
Owen Bawn
Garden party cupcake scented
I still play a 1980s Chess Challenger 9 electronic chess game. I win more than I lose, but it still beats me fairly often, and that's after having the machine for over 30 years. I'm not real good. My daughter never beat me until she returned home from her junior college year in India where she lived with someone who played at the master level. Now she slays me at will.
Can’t help you with apps, as I’m not a player. But I’d encourage everyone with Netflix access to watch “The Queen’s Gambit”, a recent miniseries centered on a fictional chess player. The game, and the psychology of the game, are featured prominently. And the cinematography, lighting, acting, and 60’s fashion are all fantastic.
Thanks, Bob!
Go to the stockfish homepage and there's a big green DOWNLOAD button that will bring you to a page to select based on your platform/OS. It's quite strong on top level (of 20!) and I generally play on level-7-9; I'm currently ~1800 FIDE if that helps.
Go to the stockfish homepage and there's a big green DOWNLOAD button that will bring you to a page to select based on your platform/OS. It's quite strong on top level (of 20!) and I generally play on level-7-9; I'm currently ~1800 FIDE if that helps.
When I am playing against a really strong program,
I get the illusion that I was doing ok up until a certain point,
then I take back the moves until that point and exhaust every
possible option until I realize that I made my mistake earlier.
This process repeats until I get back to the opening move,
and then I realize that I never had a chance playing at that level.
All the suggestions are very good, but I'd recommend chess.com. It's not free, $35, $50 or $100 a year. The $35 level will do until you're a competitive, rated club player. It has a pretty good engine to play against, person to person games, tactics, puzzles, speed games, chess rumors, gossip, and more. There's a free trial. It's the most popular. Today alone, 5.8 million games played, 137,000 actively playing at 8 PM.
Last edited:
- Thread starter
- #11
Played my first game there tonight . . . and got spanked. I expect my rating to be double digits in no time.
I just tried chess.com and played to a stalemate. I thought I had him on the ropes until he declared the stalemate. I signed up for the free trial until they asked for a credit card. .doesn’t sound like a free trial to me.
It's a free trial but unless you cancel before X days they will start billing. My 82 year old mother fell for that garbage too many times. I've taken a hard pass on many a trial or website that does crap like this.
That’s why I passed on this one. It looks like the games would teach you to get better, but I’m not able to justify a monthly fee for a game. I already pay a monthly fee for the privilege of using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop and it irks me every time I see the charge in my statement.
lichess.org isn't as large as cheese.com but has a load of players of varying strengths.
chess.com has quite a few free tutorials and lessons if you look around a bit. And of course you can play live games for free. I've recently been playing 5min blitz games to drum in my openings. I'd recommend the Play Winning Chess series of books by Yasser Seirawan, especially the Tactics and Strategy books. There's also this dedicated section on wikipedia. Chess - Wikibooks, open books for an open world - https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess
I always have a few games going on chess dot com. This is a great book for any chess player: Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess. A few examples:
I use Chess.com, free version. There is an iPhone app called Shredder that has some good tactics puzzles and an Engine to play against. I’ve been enjoying the engine on Chess.com but I’m to cheap to upgrade so I only get a few puzzles per day and the playing styles of the engine are solid but limited. That is, they have a lot of playing styles in the engine but free users only get about 5%.
- Thread starter
- #19
I am on the Chess.com app on my phone now. Have not created an account yet. Currently pretty consistent in winning against their bot that has a "250" rating, so I think I will move up against their 400 bot soon.
Bakkere:
Sorry...I really never got into chess (but I'm learning),...backgammon is more my game.
BTW, I did see this article in the Washington Post.
"The pandemic sparked interest in chess. ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ made it explode".
By Kent Babb - November 27, 2020
"Selena Lucien was in control, locked in on the squares on her phone, her opponent on the run. Downstairs, her friend was waiting. They had agreed to go for a walk around Toronto. But Lucien couldn’t just leave. She was in the middle of a chess match.
“If I left my apartment and played while I walked, I would lose,” she said later with a semi-embarrassed chuckle. “I couldn’t risk it.”
So she kept playing, ignoring her friend’s texts, pursuing the stranger’s king. She won, eventually. And when at last she joined her incredulous friend, Lucien shrugged and blamed her apartment building’s shockingly slow elevator.
Eight months ago, newly shut in and under siege by the coronavirus, people around the world diverted their worries and experimented with newfound free time. Some fed flour to slime, telling themselves this was the beginning of a sourdough empire; others dusted off musical instruments, screenplay ideas, long to-do lists. Lucien is among the millions who learned, played and gradually became consumed by chess.
Playing is therapy.
Winning is a high.
“I know it sounds really nerdy,” she would say. “I feel it, and it makes me feel exhilarated.”
These feelings have only intensified recently, a month after Netflix began streaming the original series “The Queen’s Gambit.” Set in the 1950s and ’60s, the show’s main character is an orphaned young woman named Beth Harmon, a chess prodigy who climbs the American and international circuits while battling personal trauma, self-doubt and addiction.
Netflix said this past week that 62 million households have watched the series since its Oct. 23 premiere; the service said it is the most-watched show in dozens of countries.
Players in Krakow, Poland, play chess this month. The pandemic fueled interest in the game, and “The Queen's Gambit” made its popularity explode. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto/Getty Images)
The show has fueled a chess renaissance that actually began in the spring. Since March, chess.com has added nearly 13 million new members, according to Nick Barton, the platform’s director of business development. More than 2.3 million of them have joined in the past month. An amateur chess tournament called PogChamps became a sensation in June, drawing a combined 50 million viewers on gaming platform Twitch and becoming the most-watched chess event of all time.
“It's one of those perfect storm moments” for chess, Barton said.
Last month, “The Queen’s Gambit” pushed interest into overdrive. Chess sets are selling out, and last week an executive at a game company told NPR that October sales were up more than 1,000 percent. Seth Makowsky, who uses chess to teach mental skills training to sports stars and celebrities, said interest in his program has skyrocketed and went so far as to call roll-up chess boards an unlikely fashion item.
“It’s bigger than chess,” said Makowsky, whose clients include Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, actress Cameron Diaz and the U.S. artistic swimming team. “It’s an exciting moment for society in this way because it’s making smart cool.”
Read More: Queen's Gambit & chess interest
"The place of chess in the society is closely related to the attitude of [...] people towards our game". Grandmaster Boris Spassky
Sorry...I really never got into chess (but I'm learning),...backgammon is more my game.
BTW, I did see this article in the Washington Post.
"The pandemic sparked interest in chess. ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ made it explode".
By Kent Babb - November 27, 2020
"Selena Lucien was in control, locked in on the squares on her phone, her opponent on the run. Downstairs, her friend was waiting. They had agreed to go for a walk around Toronto. But Lucien couldn’t just leave. She was in the middle of a chess match.
“If I left my apartment and played while I walked, I would lose,” she said later with a semi-embarrassed chuckle. “I couldn’t risk it.”
So she kept playing, ignoring her friend’s texts, pursuing the stranger’s king. She won, eventually. And when at last she joined her incredulous friend, Lucien shrugged and blamed her apartment building’s shockingly slow elevator.
Eight months ago, newly shut in and under siege by the coronavirus, people around the world diverted their worries and experimented with newfound free time. Some fed flour to slime, telling themselves this was the beginning of a sourdough empire; others dusted off musical instruments, screenplay ideas, long to-do lists. Lucien is among the millions who learned, played and gradually became consumed by chess.
Playing is therapy.
Winning is a high.
“I know it sounds really nerdy,” she would say. “I feel it, and it makes me feel exhilarated.”
These feelings have only intensified recently, a month after Netflix began streaming the original series “The Queen’s Gambit.” Set in the 1950s and ’60s, the show’s main character is an orphaned young woman named Beth Harmon, a chess prodigy who climbs the American and international circuits while battling personal trauma, self-doubt and addiction.
Netflix said this past week that 62 million households have watched the series since its Oct. 23 premiere; the service said it is the most-watched show in dozens of countries.
Players in Krakow, Poland, play chess this month. The pandemic fueled interest in the game, and “The Queen's Gambit” made its popularity explode. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto/Getty Images)
The show has fueled a chess renaissance that actually began in the spring. Since March, chess.com has added nearly 13 million new members, according to Nick Barton, the platform’s director of business development. More than 2.3 million of them have joined in the past month. An amateur chess tournament called PogChamps became a sensation in June, drawing a combined 50 million viewers on gaming platform Twitch and becoming the most-watched chess event of all time.
“It's one of those perfect storm moments” for chess, Barton said.
Last month, “The Queen’s Gambit” pushed interest into overdrive. Chess sets are selling out, and last week an executive at a game company told NPR that October sales were up more than 1,000 percent. Seth Makowsky, who uses chess to teach mental skills training to sports stars and celebrities, said interest in his program has skyrocketed and went so far as to call roll-up chess boards an unlikely fashion item.
“It’s bigger than chess,” said Makowsky, whose clients include Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, actress Cameron Diaz and the U.S. artistic swimming team. “It’s an exciting moment for society in this way because it’s making smart cool.”
Read More: Queen's Gambit & chess interest
Last edited:
