Chess ‪∙‬ 4+

This game is straight up chess you can do lay from anywhere at any time. I love how you can start over the match, set the difficulty, and make new games very easily. It’s really great how you are playing against a computer and not real people for safety. If you want a fun game to test your logic skills and challenge your brain you should definitely download this app now!if you need to practice chess for aCompetition this is perfect for you because you can have it at any difficulty and can undo your moves so you can learn from them. There are no adds during game time which is really great! However the one thing that is a little frustrating is that you have to have your volume up to know that your in cheek of you don’t see it and that it is hard to tell when it is your turn. If you completely new to this game and don’t know how to play it can be hard to get the hang of it on this app. If you are a beginner that knows how to play then this app is great for you! But other than that 10/10 would recommend!

I have been playing on this app for a few years almost DAILY when time allows. When I first was learning chess it was terrific and I was able to fine-tune my skills with the difficulty changer setting. That's a sweet plus for the app!
Sadly, as I was able to move up to much higher difficulty levels, it wouldn't allow me to make some legal moves and it was able to make illegal moves. At first I thought it was just glitchy or that it knew rules that I didn't know.
The game allowed a knight to move diagonally one square to take my rook that I used to take a piece and put its King in check. I thought was a glitch so I undid my move (the undo button is helpful for learners as well) and tried to redo it. It made the diagonal move again. I scoured the Internet to validate the legality of that move and couldn't find it anywhere, leaving the only conclusion to be that the computer in the game is somehow allowed to cheat. After reading other reviews of the game about some potential cheating going on, I am sad to say I will be deleting the app. As a new and learning chess player this app is useful but as an avid proficient chess player, it's equivalent to playing with a real person who tries to cheat. Chess is a game of challenging strategy and there is absolutely no room for cheating. Perhaps I'll check back on the app in a year or so to see if they have cleaned it up.

I have two main complaints about this app. First, on the chess side. I'm rated around 1800 USCF and tried playing on moderate difficulty levels. The thing about the AI is that it always plays very strong tactically, probably 2200+. Meaning it will never make a mistake that loses material, nor will it ever fail to capitalize on one of your own mistakes. On the other hand it is extremely weak positionally, I would estimate below 1200 level. And it plays absolutely garbage openings, worse than most human beginners. The result is that it will always give you a huge positional advantage in the opening, but then begin defending extremely accurately making it very difficult to actually win a game. It does not play anything remotely similar to a human player and creates lots of frustrating games.

Second, the pop-up ads are the worst. I frequently got full screen pop-up ads for other apps that would not have an "X" on the screen to close them, and also wouldn't go away on their own. So I would be unable to get past the ad and to access the chess app at all. The only way would be to forcibly close the app and restart it, and hope that a different ad would appear. This completely ruins the user experience, independently of how the program actually plays.

1 star out of 5 for these reasons.