English Chess Forum

A few conversations over the last year have revealed that some keen chess players are unaware of the smart phone apps that can enhance the pleasures of the game. Here’s a list of the ones I use on my iPhone (most, but not all, are also available for Android phones).

Chess Studio, a database which reads PGN files and contains a version of the Stockfish engine. Versions also available for iPads and Macs.

Forward Chess, an e-book reader which carries electronic versions of most publishers’ chess books (but not Gambit - see below). A move by move diagram and chess engine accompany the published texts. iPad version also available.

Chess Studio, an e-book reader devoted to Gambit Chess publications. Move by move diagram and engine also built in. iPad version also available. Same name but entirely different application to the chess database listed above.

Chess Viewer, an e-book reader devoted to Everyman chess books plus diagram and engine. Note that many of Everyman’s more recent publications are also available on the superior Forward Chess app.

Chess Studio (the database) costs a few quid on Apple’s App Store. The other apps are free downloads from the same store. You can buy the books you want from within the apps.

Hope this is useful. Interested to hear of any other apps that people use.

When I was a bit more competitive in the past I would use an app called scid - it's a database viewer which, if you go to the effort of downloading every pgn file from UK tournaments (or even the world, if you are really feeling studious) you can merge them all together into one mega file and have access to every game played in the UK for the last 15 years or so and be able to instantly research any opponent before a match without having to rely on the online databases which tend to only have limited or outdated information on English players.

I don't really play competitively enough to be bothering with this anymore but it is still a viable option to those that want to put the effort in

Not an active player at present.

I use Droidfish on an Android phone, I've downloaded Komodo 9 as an alternative engine to the built in Stockfish (and Cuckoochess, probably for users who are tired of losing to engines). Quick tool to open .pgn files and analyse, nice interface, finding the menus takes a bit of fiddling. All free.

By far the most useful app I use is the Chessbase database. It costs a few quid, but it is well designed, easy to use and perfect for prep when away from a computer.