Last updated on January 14th, 2026 at 10:24 pm
Chess Premium – Entertainment Game Review
Chess Premium is a Entertainment/Board/Strategy game from Optime Software LLC, first launched in 23rd April 2009.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 4,464+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Chess Premium Stand Out
Are you tired of playing chess games that look like they were designed for a Commodore 64 instead of an iPhone? We've got the antidote for you. Chess Premium is the best designed chess game for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Chess Premium supports both 1 player and 2 player gameplay, so you can play against friends or test your skills against a challenging computer opponent.
Chess Premium includes a host of exciting features, including:
- Great graphics and exciting sound effects
- Configurable player names and score tracking
- Outstanding AI engine with configurable difficulty level
- Undo function if you accidentally hit the wrong square
- Automatically saves your game when you get a phone call or exit the application
If you're looking for a killer chess application for your iPhone or iPod Touch, check out Chess Premium today!
This Entertainment game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Chess Premium is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 29th October 2020
Recent improvements include:
• Fixed issue with board scale on larger iPhones
• Support for all iPhone screen sizes
• Minor bug fixes
• Fixed issue where app would occasionally crash on undo or new game
Download & Availability
Chess Premium is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Chess Premium 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:
So far Ive only been able to stalemate on the difficult level. This is a great training aid for teaching you to hold algorithms. Premium is worth it to remove ads bc geo tracked ads were sending the wrong kind of content to us.
Keep up with different tactics with the free version.
How do we change a king with a rocks. Can someone show us.
We wish the game would fit the display on the iPad Air 5th gen.
The chess is our game favorite of U.S.A.
This app is really fun. Tough computer at high difficulty settings, yet beatable on the easy settings. Good music to play to also. Incorporates special rules like castling and promotion.
Why is it that every time we are one move away from Checkmate the app will call a draw and not allow us to make the winning move? Irritating to feel like Im playing a virtual cheater lol.
Our kids learn so much. Is like a learning game!?! And its very good quality.
Its pretty fun and a great way to workout your brain.
All we play is Chess. This app is simple, just chess. Perfect. Worth the 2 dollars to remove ads.
Awesome game, best one we played.
Good means of improving ones game.
The game is excellent as an opponent and as an instructor … Having Chess on your IPad is is like having a friend and mentor wherever you go.
Great game for practicing strategy or learning how to play if you are a beginner.
Great way to stay sharp while waiting in any line. The different levels are a good teaching tool.
Perhaps for us older users . . . A bit more clarity of the pieces to help us distinguish the pawns from the bishops and increase the contrast between the pieces and the board. Older eyesight issues cause us to squint highlighting the character lines around our eyes. Mike.
Hello app makers/maintainers. We wish to report that the premium version of this app failed to call a winner when checkmate was reached. And instead simply state a check. We were playing as white, and the computer on the was playing as black. At the moment, it eludes eludes us how to send a screenshot to you guys. To describe it in words, and to only state the relevant pieces, imagine your eyes being focused on the lower right of the chessboard. The three pawns had never moved. And we had castled. Our king was in the middle below them. The black queen made it to the bottom and shouldve check made the king but it only recognized a check. Please let us know how we can send you a picture. Then at least we can officially rule it as a glitch, or someone with more expertise then we can point out what we were missing. Thanks.
Good but it has glitches Example it marks as a draw too fast when you want to continue and not ability to turn that off.
This game is a nice and convenient way to play on the go. The great thing about paying for the app is no more ads. Even greater is the fact that you can play silently or with calming music.
We love speed chess and we have found no one that wants to play fast. This allows for that. We have to limit the number of games of chess we play a day too sometimes. The graphics are good enough.
This app has greatly improved our chess game. Very user friendly.
Challenging ever time,gives you time to think for your next move..,.
This game is beautiful and you made it really affordable to remove 100 percent of ads thanks it plays well our son and we play it and enjoy the time.
App is fundamental good, but there have been instants where you are checkmated, but the app only says check and lets you try to move even though there are no viable spots for you to move to. Wish that could be updated, but other than that it is a great app that we enjoy.
Its easy to play, thanks to the difficulty settings. We enjoy playing it.
We play this game all the time and occasionally, the game will cheat. If we move our pawn parallel to an opponents pawn, it will capture the pawn. Other than that, we enjoy casually playing and learning the game.
Ive noticed that the AI like to treat the knight as if it can be skipped over. That can be infuriating, especially when youre in check from behind a piece blocking the checking piece. Other than that, id say the AI could use a little but of a nerf. We could go toe-to-toe with Level 7 difficulty in Microsoft Chess, however, we have yet to beat (what we assume to be) level 5 on this app. Other than that, this greatly supplements our chess addiction, and thats enough to rate it 4 stars.
No checkmate notice, the game just stops.
Love the game but not loving when its called to a draw and dont have to option to say no. We need the win lol. It also would help with our end game strategy. Please.
Wish there was a way to see previous moves without changing gameplay or at least notation.
Having been a former USCF rated expert (2005 rating), we find this app to be all the challenge we need in our bucket list attempt to reach a master level. We play it on full strength with some limit to time since we can explore more plans/strategic lines this way. As expected, the tactical capabilities of this on a iPhone 6 are well beyond human, so much so that the app seems to almost play positionally. With this type of strong opposition, one can explore variations much more quickly and improve more quickly as well. However, since it cant read PGN files, it is therefore limited in its full capability for training purposes. This is a shame, since otherwise it is a very powerful player.
We encountered a position where, after Queenside castling as white, the computer on the highest difficulty setting made no move as Black and yet somehow put us in check. The same thing happened 3 times in a row after using the undo feature. Up to that point though the app is fine, hence 3 stars.
We dont like that we have to turn down our phones volume to turn down the on hold music (that just loops and loops). We like to listen to podcasts on our phone or audio in general while playing chess. This app will not allow you to do that. FYI buyer beware.
Can send video of it. Normally its fine but its untelling how many times this has happened and us not notice. We put the king in check with a pawn and it moves in to check in the path of a rook.
We paid for the non ad version still get ads.
The graphics are good and playing the app is enjoyable. That said there has been at least two occasions we were about to win and the computer has made our pieces vanish off of the board. They werent taken, they just vanished. Id undo it, try again and the pieces would vanish again. Most recently we had the computer in check and the app told us we were in checkmate and we had lost the game. We wasnt even in check and the computer never addressed the check in which we had it. We took a picture of the board, that Id be glad to share if you have somewhere we can send it.
There was once a option for the software to suggest a move. That was an extremely helpful option.
Ive also have the issue of our opponent achieving checkmate and the game remaining in our check. Itd also be nice to know what pieces are gone. Good ap though. Its tough.
DEVELOPER – Can you please show the captured pieces somewhere on the screen.
Decent chess play but hard to distinguish white from black sides. Needs an option to alter look/color of pieces.
Just bought this and two days in Im playing the bot and it says Im in check when clearly according to the positions on the board, Im not. We had to undo two moves to get the check to go away (neither positions were checks) and computer refused to play the same move even though we repeated our moves multiple times. Seems like check is based on what the AI thinks is a check and not what is actually on the board. Game logic is seriously flawed and we have no faith in the engine. Avoid.
Its one of a few on there that says no help at all. We cant believe we bought it. Should we get a refund.
The harder difficulty seems to have a lot of bugs in it. False checks and check mates. Very frustrating especially since we paid for it.
Game is awful dont waste your money.
No Elo settings or preferences. No Opening Book. At higher playing level (slider) it takes forever to make a move (iPad Air 5th Generation.
WARNING: we paid to remove the ads and 3 days later the ads are back! Dont waste your money like we did.
We still have the ads showing up when we open the app, even though we paid to remove the apps.
Ditto title! Tell us how do we cancel app.
We just paid for the app to have no ads and still seeing ads we could have bought two McDoubles for that price.
Game is a waste. Soon as you start pinning the king it will call it a draw match. Waste of time and money.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.85
- Size: 49.56 MB
- iOS: 10.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: Optime Software LLC
Last updated: 29th October 2020 | Genre: Entertainment, Board | Developer: Optime Software LLC