Last updated on January 28th, 2026 at 12:10 pm
Chess Prime – Education Game Review
Chess Prime is a Education/Board/Strategy game from Anton Vinokurov, first launched in 7th May 2013.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 69+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Chess Prime Stand Out
- Importance of chess –
Chess is one of the ancient games in the world. Chess has become so increasingly popular that there was a time when chess was considered "Royal Game", but is now a common source of entertainment for a common man. In many parts of the world (in schools) chess has been introduced as major part of the curriculum, because chess increases the mathematical and scientific skills of the students. Chess also increases the problem solving skills, a sense of confidence, a self-worth and the communication skills.
••• Why Chess Prime? •••
Chess Prime is one of the best designed chess games for the iPad / iPhone (1,000,000+ downloads so far). It provides learning support for novice players, a real challenge for the experienced players and fun.
Chess Prime supports both ‘one player’ and ‘two player’ game play, so you can play against your friends or against a challenging computer opponent.
You can even start your game from different position that allows you to test your skills in different game phases, common positions, solve chess puzzles, etc. Also you can save your game and then re-load it anytime you want.
If you are novice player you may take advantage of the feature that shows all legal moves for current piece.
-The full list of features:-
• Excellent graphics, sound effects and music
• Configurable player names
• Great AI engine with a flexible difficulty level that suits both novice players and experts
• Versatile openings: Chess Prime AI engine plays like a human, not as a computer that always chooses the same move at the same position. It gives you opportunity to play different famous openings to gain extensive experience in chess. This feature is activated automatically in the game with high difficulty level.
• SETUP game: Start the game from any desirable position with any number of pieces
• UNDO function if you accidentally hit wrong piece or square. It works even if your king is checkmated.
• REDO function if you missed the opponent’s move. Just press EYE button and Chess Prime will show you the last opponent’s move.
• SAVE / LOAD feature gives you an opportunity to finish the game later or to play the chess puzzle which you can setup in the “Setup Game” module.
• Option to show the LEGAL MOVES for current piece (very useful for novice players)
• Option to ROTATE the board in ‘two player’ mode.
• Option to limit ‘think time’ in ‘one player’ mode to 5, 15 or 30 seconds
• Option to switch on / off sound effects and / or music
• Automatically saves the current state of the game, so the game state would be automatically restored if you quit the application
• Universal app (supports iPad / iPod touch / iPhone)
If you love playing chess in landscape mode and in 3D, then download and try out our new Chess Prime 3D app!
Enjoy!
This Education game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Chess Prime is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 14th September 2017
Recent improvements include:
This app has been updated by Apple to display the Apple Watch app icon.
Minor bug fixes
Download & Availability
Chess Prime is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
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:
At 79 we enjoy playing against the program and shamelessly undo stupid moves to look for a better choice.
Ads are short, straight forward game. A good choice to play some chess.
Love it .. Our child needs to stop running ahead.
Its been a while (30+ years) since playing serious chess and forgot most of the defense and with this app, we might be returning to our old form of playing seriously.
Please explain when playing against the computer who only has its King left, and we had our King, Queen, Castle, Bishop and Knight left and the game is a Draw? Are you kidding? We were moving in for the kill. Let the game play out.
Very fast. Easy Pickens through level 4 (our rating @ 1800) but must concentrate to win on level 5 and cannot beat level 7 at all. Only suggestion to improve is automatic alternation of white and black to open. But great app as does not slow you down with 3D graphics.
Am truly grateful to have this system in our cycle of references & resources! In our late years am reacquainting ourselves with Chess, as a means of staying mentally sharp; as well as an outlet, to quench our competitive nature, enjoyably! Respectfully Thankful, xSpyridonGermanKoukouzelis.
Just like all stockfish engines it has very long drawn out end games. This thing cant finish a game unless the ending is slapping it in the face.
Playing with the computer has resulted only in 1 paltry win, 1 draw and numerous times of pie in our face. We are an average player and this is giving us a bad complex as we feel we are playing with a chess grandmaster.
We HATE THE clean storage APP ON THIS THING.
HORRIBLE cheating by ads INTERFERING and distracting you during the playing of the chess game!!!! Its like several people talking loudly around you while you are taking a final exam in college… ++.
We started playing this chess game about a week ago. A week ago we were a novice. Now we're not. We can undo our moves and see our mistakes. Great graphics too.
Its the best chess game we ever played! Great music and graphics, and is a good challenge. We really like save/load/redo options, many other chess games dont have those options. Show legal moves is helpful as well.
The only thing is that sometimes when we promote a piece or get a checkmate the game will glitch, exiting the app and reseting the game.
This version of chess plays well on our IPAD…Opening book has both new and classical variations if you are an e4 or a d4 player.
We are impressed with the graphics.
Hate the computer but great challenge!! Only thing would be cool if you didn't have to switch sides when playing 2 player.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.3.1
- Size: 44.28 MB
- iOS: 8.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: Anton Vinokurov
Last updated: 14th September 2017 | Genre: Education, Board | Developer: Anton Vinokurov