ChessGate: Chess Masters

Arne Bailliere

In-app purchases

About this game

Play the great masters. Analyse every game. Learn from both.

Choose a master from chess history and play a full game against them on your phone. Afterwards, tap Analyze game: every move is graded, the stronger lines are shown, and both sides get an estimated playing strength. The analysis runs on your phone, with no account and no daily limit.

WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT

Play the masters. Paul Morphy, Wilhelm Steinitz and Alexander McDonnell are included. 46 more historical masters, from Lasker and Capablanca to Tal, Fischer and Karpov, are in the Masters shop, each a one-time in-app purchase with portrait and biography. Each personality is built from analysis of the master's own games and is designed to reproduce that master's characteristic choices and playing preferences. A purchased master is available to download; once downloaded, it plays offline. Restore purchases brings your masters back on a new phone.

Unlimited whole-game analysis. Analyse every game you finish, as often as you like: no subscription, no account, no daily limit. ChessGate grades every move — Best, Intriguing, Shaky, Fumble, Bad or Very Bad — with what it cost and the stronger line. It assesses your opening, middlegame and endgame separately and gives both sides an estimated playing strength with a title.

Levels with a name. Eight levels on one dial, from Serious Player through Club Player to Grandmaster. Your opponent pauses to think before it moves, so a game feels like a game rather than a machine firing back.

A ladder for learners. Sparring has eight rungs, from 300 to 1350, each measured in more than 8,000 test games. It goes wrong the way people do — a piece left hanging, a capture not answered — so a brand-new player can win.

Read annotated games. Open a PGN file and step through it. An annotated game shows its comments, symbols and side lines in a large text panel under the board. Tap any move, side lines included, and the arrows and marked squares from the file appear on the board.

Rate yourself. Play the moves of 40 historic games in seven schools and see your rating for each school. Test methodology and data by SpaciousMind (Nick Milicev), used with permission.

A course for a complete beginner. Chess from Zero: eleven chapters, 52 lesson pages and 82 exercises, from files and ranks through piece values, opening principles, mating patterns, forks, pins, defence and endgames to a small repertoire and a chapter on queen's pawn openings. Every exercise explains itself, and your progress is kept.

WHAT YOU GET

Play
- Morphy, Steinitz and McDonnell included; 46 more masters as one-time purchases in the Masters shop
- Eight levels on one dial, plus the eight-rung Sparring ladder
- Up to 30 seconds a move, or real clocks: 3+2, 5+0, 5+3, 10+0, 15+10, 30+0
- Two players on one phone, pass and play, with or without a clock
- Tap or drag; hint, take back, swap sides, play on from any position
- Set up a position and play it out, or watch the game play itself
- Engine apps you install (OEX format) as opponents and analysts
- Points and achievements for the games you finish

Analyse
- Unlimited whole-game analysis: every move graded, opening, middlegame and endgame assessed, estimated playing strength
- A live analysis board with up to five candidate lines
- Annotated games with arrows on the board

Learn
- Chess from Zero: 11 chapters, 52 lessons, 82 exercises
- Rate Yourself: 40 historic games in seven schools
- Piece explorer, check and stalemate tour, mate-in-one puzzles

Your games
- Save, load, copy, paste and share standard PGN
- Your own game collections, exportable as PGN

Make it yours
- Five board colour schemes and five piece sets
- Letters (Nf3) or figurines; sound in four steps, or off
- Phones and tablets, portrait and landscape; a dark look throughout

Requirements: Android 8.0 or newer, on a 64-bit device.

Ad-free, always with you, and your games stay yours.

What’s new

New: the Masters shop. 46 more historical masters, from Lasker and Capablanca to Tal and Karpov, each a one-time in-app purchase. After purchase, tap Download; a downloaded master plays offline. Restore purchases brings your masters back on a new phone. Morphy, Steinitz and McDonnell remain included. Also fixed: the game clock pauses while you read a lesson or change settings, the hint's evaluation, and the Analyst achievement.