Last updated on January 22nd, 2026 at 06:21 am
Chess Tactics and Lessons – Education Game Review
Chess Tactics and Lessons is a Education/Board/Puzzle game from Lockwood Productions, LLC, first launched in 7th June 2012.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 4,902+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Chess Tactics and Lessons Stand Out
“Chess is 99% tactics” (R. Teichmann.) From beginner to expert, practicing tactics is hands-down the best way to master the game.
Our app provides tactics, lessons, and openings and adjusts to your ability as you play. Join thousands of users who improve their game with tactics every day:
"This app is a must have for any chess player – student or master." -Tom Taylor, USA
"This is easily the best purchase I've made since owning a smartphone." -Miles C. Samuels, USA
"This app has improved my game tremendously!" – anonymous fandom on the App Store
FEATURES
-
Tactics: Play as many tactics as you want, for free.
-
Lessons: Get deeper into strategy with detailed lessons including positions from Netflix's 'The Queen Queen's Gambit' and the 2018 World Championship.
-
Openings: Practice makes perfect — save and practice openings from the Grandmasters and more.
-
Create your own tactics, lessons, and openings for others to try. Compete with others to make the leaderboard for the toughest ones.
-
Learn from your mistakes. When you get something wrong, you can see the solution, see an explanation for the tactic, and talk to others in the comments.
-
Join the community: comment on tactics and learn from other users.
-
Customize your board design.
New tactics are added every day, so you'll never run out.
Chess Tactics PRO subscriptions will be charged to your iTunes account upon purchase. Subscriptions will automatically renew unless canceled within 24-hours before the end of the current period. You can cancel anytime with your iTunes account settings. See Privacy Policy and Terms of Service for more information.
Privacy Policy: https://chesstacticsapp.com/privacy.html
Terms of Service: https://chesstacticsapp.com/terms.html
Acknowledgements:
Chess Pieces by jurgenwesterhof on WikiCommons (adapted from work of Cburnett)
Icons by bezier master, Cutiecon, and Shawn Wong from the Noun Project.
This Education game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Chess Tactics and Lessons is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 3rd December 2022
Recent improvements include:
Just doing some maintenance in this version
Download & Availability
Chess Tactics and Lessons is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Chess Tactics and Lessons 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:
Some puzzles should be removed… But most are well done! The App has some glitches…. Over all it is a good way to improve your Chess skills.
This is a must have for every chess lover/player, only 2 comments: – no android version ! – the pro should be discounted or offer a student or club player a discount.
Really enjoying having a chess companion in our pocket.
Good for repetition and practice.
After subscribing to this app for a year to learn how to play chess, we had issues trying to cancel the auto renewal. We emailed Support and Peter and we exchanged several emails where he took the time and effort to solve our problem. He was actually working to reduce his subscriber count and app revenue! That made such an impression on us that Ive decided to renew our subscription for another year! Thanks Peter! Best wishes for your continued success.
The app is good, it sees if you know things in chess, and teaches you things, but one thing. REMOVE THE RATING SYSTEM! ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE ME FEEL STUPID IF we GET ONE WRONG.
We like this app very much. We play it every day. Our one complaint is there is a display bug of some sort. Dont know if its the app or our phone. Most tactics start with your opponents move, the piece moving from the starting square highlighted in white with the animated piece sliding to the ending square. Very nice! But not every tactic does that. It is extremely frustrating when it doesnt and the first move of the solution is to take a pawn we didnt realize had just moved en passant. Theres zero chance Id miss it over the board, but Ive lost a lot of points because of this. (To be fair, Ive lost more points from playing too fast – but still.) If not for that, Id give it all the stars.
Queen sac Queen sac Queen sac Queen sac Queen sac Queen sac Queen sac Queen sac Queen sac Queen sac Queen sac Queen sac Queen sac Queen sac Queen sac Queen sac.
We havent played in 35 years, things have changed lol , am trying this app and so far its been great. Thanks.
So, we bought the $30 yearly subscription and have been playing it for a couple of months. The problem with this app is that the puzzles are curated by the users and A LOT of the puzzles are bogus. Its terribly frustrating to stare at a puzzle that seemingly has no logical solution only to find out AFTER failing it, that lots of other people have already found out that its a bogus puzzle. Ill play it til our subscription runs out, but Im not renewing.
The font on iPad is so small its difficult to play more than a few tactics. Would be 5 stars if developer would fix this headache inducing element.
We love the depth of lessons from beginner to advanced. However the lessons arent always written well and the app is not too easy to navigate. Improve the UIUX of this app and we might consider download again.
Would have rated higher if free with ads at bottom.
We are running is app from more then 10 years and when we change our device and download this app . We realized that we forgotten the password When we totally fail to remember our password. We did mail to our problem to them but the sad part is that they did not reply any of our mail. May be so many people are facing these type of problem Please help us in regard and help us to generat our forgotten password Thank you.
Very limited makes you have to buy pro to really learn much or play very long.
We tried several times to subscribe, didnt work. Id think its worth it but cant even try.
We enjoy playing chess but we miss so much, this app helps us improve and learn.
Chess nerds are the best nerds.
This is easily the best purchase we made since owning a smartphone.
We have to say this is the first chess app Im writing a review for, and Ill explain why. This is one of the few chess apps that not only shows openings and tactics, but also lays out main lines and variations for you. The format makes it a lot easier to learn than other apps, even more subscribed apps. Dont overlook this one. Im subbed to about four different apps, including Chessable, magnus trainer, and Aimchess, and this one is right up there with those other three. It has features that none of the others have. We chose to review this one because we were impressed; the others are good too but this one is low key really good too.
Amazing free tactics that help u understanding chess on a whole new level.
Amazing thank you for improvements.
And good puzzles with little ads.
Up your game with this app – it runs you through common scenarios where you might miss the advantage you already have. Clever.
We really enjoyed using this app; it feels like theres always another level waiting for us. We mostly probably will upgrade it to Pro. Well see.
The tactics are a very practical and enjoyable way to hone your chess skills. They are mental gymnastics which will give you confidence in your games, and valuable experience. We will sign up to get the Pro version so we can have a quick guide to openings, without which – you wont get to a middle game to use the tactics you learn! (-;.
Typically we dont enjoy tactics books and apps but his is great! Enjoyable puzzles that adjust to skill level. Definitely recommended for any improving player.
We have to be 100% honest this is the best tactic application we have found so far. It performs well and isnt overly complicated giving the user just what they need to practice.
We cant believe this is a free app. AMAZING.
Excellent app for learning chess tactics and testing your brain.
It would be nice if they gave you what they want Vs having no text but your move. But fun to try to figure these out.
Im enjoying the tactics puzzles but we keep getting interrupted with a pop-up telling us to sign in with Apple ID, which we cant figure out how to do.
As a beginnerI can see how Chess Tactics can improve our game, but after Ive tried all our moves that dont work, it asks if we want to give up? We say yes expecting it to tell us the correct move we should have made, and it just says incorrect.. How do you learn from that? Please supply the correct move, and the benefit or reason for it. With that we would get the pro version.
When moves r incorrect, would like to view alternative ones.
A lot of the tactics posted by some of the other players arent great. Id seen a different route only to have the app tell us that Im wrong without explaining why. Great for those just beginning to learn but thats about it.
The contents of this app are crowdsourced, so while some is good much is bad, but the real problem is the lack of an overall vision or steady progression. You get a bunch of easy tactics followed by something very hard. Some more editorial control and vision would greatly help this app.
Dont use this as a way to learn real chess.
No hints just Give Up option Cannot go back to previous puzzle Puzzles are not ranked No hints or suggestions Super weak.
Everything good is for money why we would like to be taught chess for free not for 4 dollars a month or 28 dollars annual, when this is free we will download it.
This is one of the few apps Ive actually bought after we tried the free version. The tactics are very high quality. Our only complaint is that we wish there were a GM or IM to look over some of the studies & articles people post. Some of the lessons, posted by other members are pure garbage. Its still a great app, though. Would definitely recommend.
Definitely gets you thinking and doing lots of different problems in quick succession. Will help sharpen your speed in the game.
This is a very good source for puzzles on line. The best that we have found there seem to be a minimum of cooked puzzles (perhaps one in fifteen, or one in twenty), and duplications over time are not significant. Our one complaint is that they do not follow the board orientation convention for diagrams, where the board is always shown from Whites point of view. We realize this is not a study (although, happily, they do include some studies from time to time), and we appreciate that they display Black to Move, but after 50 years of reading chess diagrams one way, it is very hard, and distracting, to keep reminding oneself to remember which side of the board is up. We can recall only one chess book (we believe by Rowson) on our shelves that has this error. He is a brilliant and entertaining author, but this was an innovation not worth repeating. Thank you and best regards,.
Ive been using this app for a whileas a pro subscriber , and now we constantly have problems connecting to its server, rendering the app useless regardless of the network we use. Please fix your server.
This is a good learning tool but you should be able to ask for hints and get explanations of why moves are incorrect.
Great tactics app, love it. Has challenging puzzles.
We love the easy progression. It really sharpens your critical thinking skills, observations and attention to detail.
Create your own tactics and practice against others tactics. We just use missed tactics taken from our own games… Its easy and helps you find your weak spots. The community is positive and active.
Ive sampled many chess apps but this app offers the broadest range of chess learning tools Ive come across including very well explained classic games and challenging tactic quizzes. We also got very responsive customer service from a developer when we had a minor installation problem. Definitely worth worth a try.
This is the best tactics app. Crowd sourced, ratings system, save tactics, add your own. Also the dev was very responsive when we had trouble installing on our new iPad.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 4.1.1
- Size: 36.70 MB
- iOS: 13.0 or later
- Languages: EN, DE, FA, PT, RU, ZH, ES
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: Lockwood Productions, LLC
Last updated: 3rd December 2022 | Genre: Education, Board | Developer: Lockwood Productions, LLC