Last updated on January 29th, 2026 at 06:00 am
Chess at ICC, play & learn – Board Game Review
Chess at ICC, play & learn is a Board/Entertainment/Strategy game from E4KE2 Inc, first launched in 5th November 2013.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 365+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Chess at ICC, play & learn Stand Out
Unleash your inner grandmaster with ICC – the ultimate online chess experience! Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting your chess journey, ICC brings the thrill of the game to your fingertips. Join a vibrant community of chess enthusiasts from around the world and elevate your skills to new heights!
Key Features:
Play Anytime, Anywhere:
Challenge opponents from across the globe and play chess anytime, anywhere. ICC provides a seamless online chess experience on your iOS device, ensuring that your next game is just a tap away.
Dynamic Chess Community:
Immerse yourself in a dynamic chess community that's passionate about the game. Connect with players of all skill levels, engage in friendly banter, and participate in tournaments to prove your prowess on the board.
Learn and Improve:
Enhance your chess skills with access to a vast library of instructional videos, lessons, and puzzles. ICC offers resources for players of all levels, from beginners looking to grasp the basics to advanced players honing their strategic mastery.
Global Tournaments (coming soon):
Compete in global tournaments and climb the ranks to become a chess champion. ICC hosts a variety of tournaments with diverse formats, providing endless opportunities to showcase your strategic brilliance.
Challenge the Best:
Test your skills against powerful chess engines and learn from the masters. ICC provides a platform to challenge renowned chess engines, offering a unique opportunity to refine your tactics and strategies.
Achievements and Leaderboards (coming soon):
Track your progress, earn achievements, and climb the leaderboards. ICC recognizes and rewards your accomplishments, adding an extra layer of motivation as you strive for chess supremacy.
Safe and Secure:
Enjoy the game with peace of mind. ICC prioritizes a safe and secure gaming environment, ensuring fair play and protecting your privacy.
Download ICC now and embark on a chess adventure like never before! Whether you're aiming to sharpen your skills, connect with fellow chess enthusiasts, or compete in global tournaments, ICC is your gateway to the exciting world of online chess.
It's time to make your move – play ICC today! Checkmate awaits.
This Board game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Chess at ICC, play & learn is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 5th December 2025
Recent improvements include:
Improved Puzzles: Enjoy a variety of captivating, hand-crafted puzzles designed for all skill levels.
New Missions System: Take on daily and weekly missions to unlock achievements.
Enhanced Gameplay: Faster load times and improved matchmaking make each game more exciting.
UI and Performance Upgrades: A cleaner interface and enhanced visual polish.
Bug Fixes & Stability: We’ve squashed bugs and fine-tuned performance for a more reliable and enjoyable chess experience.
Download & Availability
Chess at ICC, play & learn is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Chess at ICC, play & learn 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:
Very enjoyable and rewarding way to play chess. The historical daily puzzles are very nice and worth solving. The newer Puzzle Quest is also great.
Stoked that theyve enabled use of landscape mode again. Makes the experience so much better on iPad, IMO. Puzzle Quest is currently our favourite feature. We play every day in an effort to help keep our mind sharp.
The whole family plays love this game.
The app crashes While playing – suddenly you the game disappears – also several times the opponent left and it did let us claim victory.
Really nice, clean revamp and relaunch for ICC. This is really promisingsome of the other sites have lost focus of what made a good chess app, so this is encouraging. Excited to see what is next. EDIT: Could we please get landscape mode on tablet and a few more theme choices? These would be our top two items. Keep up the good work.
The GUI is blah and not user-friendly. Worse: There are quite a few puzzles that have more than one solution. Yet, your app does not take that into account and unfairly deems a solution wrong. Strangely, there is no contact email. Email, to the one provided in the newsletter, bounces.
Why is this app taking steps back? IPad version is now stuck on vertical which makes it unusable. Options for game boards and pieces are limited more than the previous old version.
Love the new update, everything is easier to find and there are players of all skill level. Able to play puzzles for hours without boredom.
We have been playing in this app for a few years. It was simple, easy to get a game, and gave you a fairly accurate reading of your rating. There were some bugs but they generally fixed them. The new interface is horrible. Its distracting when playing, it takes longer to get a game, and we lost all our previous ratings.. The one feature they added that was a positive was it shows you how it calculated your rating score at the end of the match. But its not enough to put up with this and we will not be renewing our subscription.
Ive read the history of this chess site, ICC. Im happy those computer programmers did what they did. It made for the phenomenal chess site where we can play chess every day. It is truly the way the chess site is advertised: The premier chess site of the entire world. Thank you, Mark.
Still the best gaming app ever invented. Helps develop cognitive skills. The shooting apps develop hand to eye coordination but very little to help users develop thinking skills.
All levels can enjoy chess and improve their game using this app.
During these difficult health crisis times , ICC has offered two free months of service. Very thankful and appreciative. Thank you ICC.
Theres a serious battery drain problem. The phone runs hot and the battery drops to perilously low levels instantaneously. Make sure you play only while charging.
We reviewed this app years ago and talked about the challenges of an IOS user not being able to delete completed games. Well that hasnt been resolved as of yet but Im not mad. Its still a strong chess app even for IOS users. The function to manually accept challenges isnt working for us. We wonder if that too is an IOS thing.
Bring them back! It would be bigly huge and the best ever.
The ICC app for iPhones is alright. We just wish the board took up more of the screen and the pieces looked bigger.
Really would be nice to add a challenge without using the console.
Navigating this app as a beginner is like getting the moon rocket ready for launch. Ridiculous really.
It is painful play chess with such app, running slow even with a super fast internet connection. Besides those guys never make an up date.
Chess.com is far superior. If youre paying for ICC you should really switch over to chess.com. It took us way too long to try chess.com and Id never even think of going back to ICC. Chess.com is better in every way. Game play. Interface. Practice. Puzzles. Availability of opponents. Way too many advantages to list. Find out for yourself. ICC is old, tired, and outdated.
Over all responsive and easy to play with. Had some glitches like reverse time counting. Our move was shown and our time was running. Sometimes it quits and you dont recognize it. Too often it tells us that after just a few moves the time was exceeded. In reality just a few seconds were used. Same thing with a message that the game was resogned. Ugly and probably easy to fix by the develope.
Ever since an iOS upgrade ICC will randomly lose connection if app is in background. Very frustrating and no help from support.
The app looks ok but it consume too much battery. Our phone gets hot when using the application. We do not have this issue with other chess clubs apps.
We cant get a correspondence game started, we cant get any help from customer support, and we cant find any way to cancel membership and get a refund. Dont waste your time or money with ICC. There are many other better online chess values.
This app does not work properly, yet the developers charge money. Shame on you! Currently stuck in a game that we won and the challenge or new challenge keep directing us back to the same game we finished. Nothing compared to Chess.com or Lichess, which are free.
Downloaded this app due to frustration with timing issues and glitches at chess.com. Found this app be extremely clunky with huge wait times for each game. Tucking tail and going back to chess.com.
2 business days for a response, but rest assured surveys work instantly, and so do premium payments, no problems there.
Frequent lag on clock causes much frustration in bullet and blitz. Need to fix it.
Its either extremely slow at connecting you with a player (we waited over 5 minutes before losing our patience) or it just doesnt work. Seems outdated.
Its fast and responsive. Recent updates are great! The share game feature is welcomed! Would like a tournament menu, but other than that, solid app.
Paid for a 6 month membership. Allowed us to play 2 games, then app kicked us out of account and said we had to purchase membership. Logged into our account online, and saw we had purchased membership. Does not work at all.
Us gusta esta app porque ahora tengo mas experiencia en el juego y conocimiento.
Anytime, anywhere with WiFi, anyone!! Chess on demand.
We tried other apps but by far ICC is the best.in many ways ; educationally, friendly app, and can be use in many other devices with no problems. Is the best. That's why we return to ICC.(one note they should try to get better prices for senior citizens).
We like what we see so far. This is the only chess site that we will consider paying for. We are a novice and need a sympathetic community as we learn the game. A competing site which we wont name is a bit overcrowded for our taste.
Im very happy about the update.
At some point in chess website history, ICC was surpassed by several other sites, including Chess.com, Lichess, and the ChessBase site. Now, due to declining membership, it can be hard get a game on ICC at some times of the day. Glitches on ICC of various types persist, and the site is very slow to respond to requests for help. During a blitz game today, the clock froze, and after we waited a long time, 5 min. At least, the clock had STILL not restarted. Crap like this is why you should select this site ONLY if you have to. Our chess teacher uses the site because hes too set in his ways to move to a better site. Hes the only reason we use ICC. Since ICC is no longer as good as the other sites, the managers should be discounting the annual fee. $40 per year is way too much for this chess dinosaur. And yes, the blitz clock froze again today. We would guess this website is not generating enough $$$ to keep the equipment upgraded. And if the blitz clock is not freezing, then it screws up by failing to flag an opponent who is out of time, but not moving. Avoid ICC if you can.
Several years ago we reviewed all of the major online chess playing apps. ICC, while arguably the best online playing environment for live chess, had the worst app. It is much better, but still a little awkward in its design. Using it required some counter-intuitive adjustments that are easily learned, but that will requires re-learning if you only play every few months. For bullet, however, it is best avoided. In a recent game, our time was running down two, three, and four seconds before our opponents move appeared on the board. We one-minute chess, this handicap is fatal.
Ughhh you have to pay $ pretty much just to sample this app so…maybe Ill stick to lichess.
It crashes all the time. It did not up until late last year.
Awkward interface. Dont play 5 min chess on it… You make a move and 30 sec or more goes by, finally you get opponents move, but you look at clock and you lost 30 sec. Never had this problem with an android phone.
This app is missing a major feature, that is the ability to flip the board when game in progress. This is a important feature for training and coaching purposes. Chess.com and lichess supports this feature.
Love this app! Great interface! Never much of a wait time to play. It's really the only one we use for online play. But, this app needs more chess board colors. How about green & buff.
The best. Although our membership at ICC has lapsed, the app is still super useful. Thanks for keeping this updated.
One of the best we have ever used.
Slow to keep up with technology. Disconnects often on iPhone 5s. You can have a winning position and lose due to disconnection that you didn't even know had happened 20 minutes earlier. Our rating dropped 200 points. Customer service by volunteers that may lack social skills. We liked ICC for years and was willing to pay. Now there are other options that meet our needs with trouble- free playing. We do like that some of the world's best players are on ICC.
Over the years, we have used several interfaces to ICC, but this one is our new favorite. The functions we use are quickly accessible (starting matches and analyzing games afterward with the built-in engine).
Nice to see that chess at icc will still work now when iOS 11 comes out. Still prefer though Lantern Chess an ICC Interface on iOS as it has full examine mode functonality and a stronger engine.
We like it, we are just waitting 3D format.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 6.0.2
- Size: 44.80 MB
- iOS: 14.0 or later
- Languages: CA, CS, NL, EN, FI, FR, HE, HI, ID, IT, PL, ZH, ES, ZH, TR, VI
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: E4KE2 Inc
Last updated: 5th December 2025 | Genre: Board, Entertainment | Developer: E4KE2 Inc