Chess Openings Wizard

Bookup Chess

About this game

This app is ONLY for players preparing openings, reviewing endings, composing tactics for review.

Chess Openings Wizard uses the PocketGM chess engine server which runs Stockfish 16.1 on a fast server in the cloud. (Internet access is required.)

This is a companion app to the Macintosh and Windows versions and it has full editing power. Your openings can be moved back and forth to the Macintosh, Windows, and iPad versions using a free Dropbox or Google Drive account.

Chess Openings Wizard is meant for designing your openings for White and designing your defenses for Black. It then tests your knowledge of the lines by playing mock games against you. It makes you repeat positions where you play an incorrect move. It warns you if you have made a mistake previously.

It has sample ebooks including the White and Black repertoires of Carlsen, Nakamura, Caruana, Kasparov, and Fischer.

But the most important ebook is the one you make for yourself out of your own opening repertoire.

The short version is: if you are designing your openings with a game database or with a playing program, you're working too hard.

Chess Openings Wizard contains 40 years of refinements (based on the original Bookup program, first released in 1984), with every power tool that a serious tournament player requires to prepare openings fast.

You get support directly from the programmer, Mike Leahy. Contact him via email or in the Bookup experts forum.

Ratings and reviews

Hi , Is it possible to train endings and tactics in a mobile app? I don't have a desktop version. Also I just want to know if there is a way to import pgn files in the mobile app.

Really handy companion to the desktop app, and the developer support is top-notch. Works great overall! The only small tweaks I’d love to see are (1) being able to import opening files directly through the Android file explorer, and (2) having the option to run a local analysis engine on the phone so it doesn’t always need internet for those tasks.

I've been waiting YEARS for this app, thank you Mike! This app is designed for your tablet or ipad not your phone; dispite this I tried it on my phone (Samsung S9+) and found it works. The only issue is some of the buttons are on top of each other and its hard to download your premade ebooks from dropbox. I was able to get it to work and love it! I now have access to my complete repertoire and can train anytime I have a free moment...what more could you want?!!

What’s new

This October 2025 release fixes some minor bugs in reaching the PocketGM server (Stockfish analysis at full speed) and enhanced support for moving ebooks to and from Google Drive and free Dropbox accounts.