Last updated on January 20th, 2026 at 10:31 pm
Chess By Post – Puzzle Game Review
Chess By Post is a Puzzle/Education/Board game from Games By Post LLC, first launched in 26th March 2012.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 248+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Chess By Post Stand Out
Play correspondence chess with real people! Challenge your friends to friendly games or play ranked matches against random opponents of similar skill levels. Play as many simultaneous games as your want!
Automatic push notifications will let you know when you have moves waiting!
Improve your ranking by playing ranked games against comparable opponents. Skill ranking updates using the classic Elo rating system to adjust your rank when you win or lose. A leader board view shows you how you compare to the top players.
Chess By Post is perfect for players of all skill levels because your matched opponent's skill level will be adapted based on your own skill level.
Create a local hand-off game and play your friend by passing the phone back and forth.
Play against a computer opponent that adjusts difficulty to match your skill level.
Improve your skills by playing rated chess puzzles.
Features:
-Tracks your skill level over time
-Matches you with similar skilled opponents
-Practice chess puzzles to improve your game
-End game analysis shows you the critical mistakes made by each player
-Head to head stats
-Move History Statistics – Explore the moves of every game you ever played with an interactive board explorer
-Freely move pieces to plan strategies
-Take notes on games to remember strategies
-In-game chat message board
-In-game move histories for easy review
-Ratings leader board
-Local hand-off games can be played offline
-Play games against a computer opponent with varied skill levels
-Alphanumeric grid display
This Puzzle game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Chess By Post is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 30th October 2023
Recent improvements include:
Bug fixes and performance improvements
Download & Availability
Chess By Post is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Chess By Post on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Our friends and we have stayed in touch because of this game. Theres no pressure to move or to even play that day (youve got 30 days between moves). We love it.
A cross-platform app that pairs you up with friends or random players with similar skill level, let's you learn between moves/games with a seemingly endless library of adequately challenging chess puzzles, and all that for free – that is simply amazing. Sending big kudos from Seattle to the developer to honor this great contribution to the global chess community.
Nicely designed and easy to start a game. However, the ratings are grossly inflated. At our best, Im around 2010. On this app, we are 2700+. There are players rated in the 2800s, who make careless mistakes. Feature requests: When we tap on a notification, we should be taken to that game. When we submit a move, in a game, we should be taken to the next game.
Love the app, but when the computer makes a mistake on level 4 or higher, it causes a glitch and keeps closing the app lol.
Great app and ranking system is able to play with excellent players . Only problem we face waiting time its really abusing several players. Please make it 48 hrs expire time per move instead of 5 days.
Many of the moves made by the computer are ridiculous and therefore not realistic.
First off we wanna say this app is fun to play chess with others when your opponents play fairly. After which it all goes down hill.. There are a lot and we mean a lot of either bots or chess engine cheaters. We have played more then 150 different players all low rated not our choice the computer auto picks your opponents who are apparently super grandmasters and are in beatable even though their rating shows otherwise. We are not claiming to be perfect but we have a rating of high 2400s and have about a 96% move accuracy in which all of our opponents always have 100%. Which is only possible with a chess engine / program. Also the puzzles are highly flawed. We have put the computer into mate so many times and it tells us we are incorrect and would rather us win a piece?? More often then not the puzzles rely on the computer making a blunder after your first move which is completely ludicrous. Please fix your puzzles and add a report button so we can start banning these cheaters.
Would you please explain the number that frequently comes up near the captured pieces. Thank you..Roy.
This is our first review of any iPhone app. This chess game is simple, easy to use and satisfies anyone wanting to play long-term games with friends over time. Its gives up to 30 days to make a move. Its has ads but they are small and located at the bottom of the app and are hardly noticeable. Great job to the team who developed this app. We will highly recommend to everyone.
Many of the puzzles are just stupid and wrong. Many better moves are available but if you dont choose their move, you are penalized.
We had a chess kick a year or two ago with a popular chess app. And this one is so much better because of two features 1. Plan Moves lets you play out scenarios so you can see how a given move could play out. (You essentially pause the game and play for both players for a bit and then rewind when youre ready to try a different move or actually make your move.) we feel like Ive learned more about chess in our 6 games on this app than 20 on the other because we think through everything so much more clearly with this feature 2. Game Analysis uses an chess engine to analyze every move made in the game and show you how good it was by comparing it to the move that the computer would have made. Very helpful for getting new ideas based on how the computer would have handled something, and also just kind of fun to see a chart of who was in a better position at which points in the game based on which moves Highly recommend.
We are in love with the game of chess, although we battle with lack of time to spend in studying it. BUT NOW IAM IN LOVE WITH THIS APP ALSO! The upgrades that have been applied to this app are simply AMAZING! If possible we would like to suggest one thing if possible? Could U also make the color scheme of the app customizable for the user sorta like the board color? If not, it wont matter! We still love both the game and the app! We still have to find study time!!!! God Bless.
Love the addition of puzzles. Just wish it would accept other solutions. We have often found better solutions – even mate in 2, but was told our move is incorrect.
We love this game, and we play it with multiple people. However, there is a bug in the game that occasionally prevents the player from moving his knight. This is a problem because our opponent moved his bishop into a place where he can capture our knight. Post, if you see this review, please fix the bug.
Games is great but does not allow for moves like en passant or king takes queen. It also needs sound.
The game functions and its fun to play different people from all over the world. *playing against the bot should require the same submit function that p2p modes have.(make gameplay uniform!) The options to explore moves and plan moves should be in the same place. We need a confirmation before resigning, we pushed the wrong button when we wanted to suggest a draw.
We have been using this app since 2013. Awesome gameplay all the enhancements are quality. With the exception of notifications. On the app, this option is listed as recommended. We started a game with a longtime opponent and the option now seems to be mandatory. We dont want any notifications on our phone. There are enough distractions in life. Please remove this. Two less star because of this, and only because of this. Otherwise five stars straight away. Thanks for the consideration. – – Redloh.
The app works fine, but the chat feature does not allow for muting or blocking players, and some players become highly abusive. Some players have obscene or highly objectionable player handles (like IWillRapeU and there is no way screen out these cretins either. Life is too short to have to put up with that type of abuse.
Keeps trying to play us we reject now ever time is a draw on our record. Fix that or Ill be finding a different site.
One of the best free chess apps available! We got this to play with our father – and its everything we wanted! Simple, elegant, and works so well! Thank you for this awesome chess app.
Good chess game for all levels. Much better than playing computer programs. We have 3 standing games going plus random ranked games. Its fun to see yourself rise in ranking and get tougher competition as you do.
Great chess game. Our only complaint deals with something that most people (especially beginners) would consider an awesome feature of this app: the plan move feature. Just not personally a huge fan of that because it kind of takes away from the more analogue experience, but otherwise the app is awesome.
We really like the Plan Moves feature. It allows a player to test movements without submitting an official turn. Now we dont have to keep it all in our head.
Is there a flaw in the game Im gaming with tenbears vs countdante? We cant castle. Im not crossing a square occupied by opponents bishop, rook, etc. We recalled a game in the past exactly the same as this. And he was able to castle his white king. Please let us know about this dilemma. Thanks.
Its hard only because Im sooo bad but its fun to play with our grandpa who lives far away and our dad and brother but its kind of hard to find a match if you know no one who hase the game Developers note Can you add a way to play with a computer.
We are in a game with a player. He/she moves one move exactly once in a week. Going so, The game will take more than a year to complete. Can you put some time restrictions, like, one move in a week, at least two in second week, three in third week and by 7th week and up, at least seven moves in a week. Please. This person (jeantylergabriel) is purposely delaying the game.
Ive caught a number of our opponents playing completely nonhuman moves. We confronted one, who admitted to using a chess engine and everyone there does it. We asked, Whats the point of cheating? No response. Waste of time. The players who dont cheat are weak. The Elo rating system is completely out of whack.
We have to switch out of the app and back in for our opponents move to appear. Its a glitch so we will go to another chess app not chess by post.
This is twice now our rating hasnt moved after winning games.
Consistent and reliable, best Ive tried.
We love being able to play on the go with our family and friends!! Awesome for learning and practicing.
We have experienced that when someone fall behind they just Forget about it. Checking every day for five days see if they have moved is annoying. We think it should be 48 hours to default. Agreed. 48 hours! Get tired of waiting more than 24 actually. One move a day is hardly competition. Thanks.
Cant get the push notifications to work, even though we have them enabled in our settings.
Not getting notifications… Needs to be fix. App is useless without notifications.
Ive been using this app for years now. But for whatever reason, the app doesnt fetch data when we are not in the app. We never get notifications when someone we are playing makes a move. We have to open the app and let it get info and then loads any opponents moves. It also wont refresh when we are in the app either. We have to close and reopen to see if anyone has gone. We have emailed them and they just refer us to outdated notifications settings from old iOS. Not sure if it is an app problem or an iPhone settings problem.
This app is total garbage and full of cheating program users that will bait you in with low ratings and hit you hard with cheating chess engines.. Best off to just stay away and go with another app and give these losers a bad rap for promoting this crap.
There is no way to report or remove players who engage in hate speech. The listed individual has used derogatory language on your platform but there are no means to report them or delete their language.
We have used this app for years and would have given it a 5 Star rating, but months ago notifications stopped working. Our friend who we play with has the same issue. If this problem can be resolved, this will again be a 5 star review.
We havent received any notification when its our opponents turn. So disappointed cuz we already paid for the premium version.
Ive emailed support 3 times over 9 days without a response. Glitchy, glitchy, glitchy.
We havent played this game in a while and Im still losing, but we know the pieces. Although, we dont know what Im doing but Im getting it a little bit. Chess by post is fun and a little boring but when you play for a while, it might see quite fun. In our opinion, we say that this game is fun and good for people to do when they may or may not be really ready to do the real thing. We give a four star rate for this game but right now Im always losing and we mean every! But we just need to know and play the game more but we think it is a pretty good game.
Just everything is very solid about this app we enjoy it very much.
This site is great. It allows you to play at a leisurely pace if you would like but also supports playing fast.
Im enjoying learning how to play and this game is very intuitive.
This is an amazing app. We play it everyday with several friends as well as family members and ranked games against strangers. The one thing we think it lacks is the ability to see the chess board indexes (1-8, A-H). With that, it could be the perfect chess app.
This chess app is great. Earning a lot about the game just through playing with opponents. Anyone interested in chess should get this app.
We luv this app. The chat is hilarious because people get crazy in it. Sensitive people can ignore it though. The wait time between moves should be less maybe two days at the most but otherwise this is the best chess app out.
Great some people just cant win us and some people just win us awesome woo hoo for ChessByPost From Bryan Yang.
A good and humble way to spend your time, much better than any of those social media sites… Ming.
First off, we would like to say, we love this game around the site that you have provided. Thank you very much. On another note, there are players who are abusing The system. If they feel they cant win the game. They will just let it go for the amount of move time. Vern just before their time runs out, some of them within minutes. They will make a move and start over again with one move. Our suggestion is to cut the wait time to 36 hr. The 4 or 5 days is too long. If they cant play in this amount of time, then they should not play. Thank you. Bill.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 2.2
- Size: 38.05 MB
- iOS: 12.1 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: Games By Post LLC
Last updated: 30th October 2023 | Genre: Puzzle, Education | Developer: Games By Post LLC