Last updated on January 21st, 2026 at 05:40 pm
Chess without ads – Board Game Review
Chess without ads is a Board/Strategy/Education game from Christophe THERON, first launched in 28th August 2012.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 36,646+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Chess without ads Stand Out
Beginner or advanced, become a chess master, without ever being disturbed by ads.
Do you want to master the most prestigious, the classiest game ever, while having fun?
It's EASY! For starters, there are no ads to distract you. There's no account to create, and you don't even need to be connected to the Internet.
So, how does it work?
If you are a beginner, let yourself be guided by the introductory lessons included. The lessons are SHORT and EASY. Right from the start, you begin playing by moving pieces, and you learn the rules of the game while having fun.
Once you know the rules, you start playing real games! The coach shows you the moves a Grandmaster would pick. Not just one move, but THE 4 BEST MOVES.
Sounds too simple? But think about it… How did you learn to speak as a child? Did you take grammar and spelling lessons? Of course not. You listened to the adults talk and then you went for it! Because that's how you learn!
This app allows you to do just that, AND IT WORKS!
From the very first games, you start learning effortlessly. You immediately enjoy playing, and after a while you notice that the right moves come to mind naturally, as if they were obvious.
Gradually, you deactivate the suggestions and play by yourself. At the end of each game, the coach shows you the good and bad moves you've made. You can better understand what happened, and you can even try out other moves to improve.
If this sounds unbelievable, you should read the user reviews for our app. It has one of the highest satisfaction ratings on the App Store, in all countries.
FOR BEGINNERS, THIS APP…
• contains introductory chess lessons that are even suitable for children.
• shows you all the possible moves of a piece when you touch it.
• explains why certain moves are forbidden.
• can suggest 4 to 6 excellent moves at any one time. The green button lets you show or hide these suggestions.
• can tell you when you can mate your opponent, so you can look for the winning move by yourself.
• can warn you when your opponent is about to play a dangerous move.
• provides many trainer levels of increasing difficulty.
• knows and applies perfectly all the official rules of chess.
• is a very competent teacher of a very high level.
• analyzes your games and shows you how to improve.
FOR EXPERTS:
• Both USCF and FIDE rating scales are supported.
• This app has one of the strongest chess engines for mobile devices (3040 USCF Elo).
• On current devices, as incredible as it sounds, it plays at the world champion level.
• The chess engine displays its thinking, up to 20 moves ahead.
• You can analyze a game by replaying it. The app indicates bad moves by coloring them red. The 4 best moves in each position are shown in green.
• This app supports variations: you can test other moves and then return to your original game.
OTHER FEATURES INCLUDE:
• The coach can comment on the game as you play (optional).
• When the game is over, the coach can analyze it and show you how to improve.
• Several beautiful visual themes are included, which you can customize.
• 4 playing styles are included, from «cautious» to «suicidal», which you can combine with all available levels.
• Includes an opening book of more than one million moves.
• Many customization options are available (graphics, sounds, engine output…).
• …and much more…
privacy policy: http://www.chesstiger.com/iphone/About_privacy_en.html
terms of use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
This Board game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Chess without ads is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 2nd November 2025
Recent improvements include:
- In some situations, the score would get stuck at 999. This issue has been resolved.
- This update includes a few other minor improvements and fixes.
Over the last 12 months, we have released 10 updates, including the following improvements:
- New «Learn» section, with 145 introductory chess lessons.
- New «Frosted glass» button style.
- New promotion menu.
- A new option lets you disable the «Suggestions» button. If you find you're asking the app for help too often, this option is for you!
- Most sounds can now be disabled individually.
- Works perfectly on Macs with Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, M4, M5…).
- «Analyze my game» has been improved: the commentary is now always in line with the suggested moves.
- The analysis of positions where checkmate is possible (direct or in several moves) has been improved.
- The display of the number of moves to mate has been improved.
Download & Availability
Chess without ads is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Chess without ads 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:
This game is awesome so we give it a five star. It is so easy to play. It even gives you hints if youre stuck. And you can learn. The best part is there is no annoying ads.
If you wanna get better this is the one to pick in our opinion other apps where good but didnt really help us advance the way we wanted too.
Easy to play and great features. Analysis very helpful and optional hints help you to see where you went wrong when you backtrack a move.
We are learning so much. This is a great App.
It's a fun game but as others have said– has a level cap so you won't get any better after a certain point. Anyone can still play for free though and not be distracted by ads. Hate to say this, but winning against computer opponent gets boring after a while. For example, early in the game, computer might sacrifice its queen for a bishop for no apparent reason. Our queen takes computer's queen because there's nothing protecting it. Neither side has had time to move pieces where they back one another up. Computer opponent will make this kind of mistake several times. Haven't tried the 'Pro' version yet (we're not that good) but to really learn chess, paying a small fee might be the only way to continue learning an 'in depth' game.
Good but no puzzle challenges available. And cannot increase difficulty to most challenging level.
We love this app, but it doesnt really teach us much.
Complete newbie here. Here is why we love this app so far (2-4 wks in): FREE! No ads, No tracking, No sign-up Start playing immediately! Default settings are perfect! This has to be the most well thought out app, really, ever. Any question you have are answered in Settings. NOTE TO DEVELOPER: Thank you. Thank you for making this easy to understand and free. Its very clear your passion for the game. We appreciate being welcomed in to a world that once seemed intimidating and ultimately hard to learn strategies.
Im only giving it five stars because we want people to see this. Its entertaining but teaches a lot about Chess. The free version is working, so Im sort of happy on what we got. There are no bugs or glitches, and the sound effects work. However, you have to PAY a MILLION FREAKING DOLLARS TO DO ANYTHING!!! Like, lets say you finished a game with the computer and you want to Analyze your game if there are, like 17 key positions recorded, you can only see 5!! 5 measly positions!!! Honestly, we expected more. We deleted it. 2 stars.
Great game, we like that it shows you a score for how many lives you have captured versus the game has captured.
Amazing game got the app never regrets ever so fun our child got this app and she said it was AMAZING.
Cant believe this is for free with no ads!!!! Such a great game DEFINETELY RECOMMEND.
This helps to move us up on how to play.
Helps us learn chess more and more.
It is sad that you have to pay to progress, but we like that its free and we know that you have to pay for it some how.
Our personal favorite chess app, many levels of skill available and even matches against the legends.
After we reached 999 points it paused our progress and wouldnt let us win any more games unless we paid. Aka RIGGING.
Chess with no ads. You play against an elo 800 opponent, but it gives you analysis of your 5 top key moves (good or bad) and compiles a lifetime score for you (that it vociferously reminds you is not an elo rating) all for free. Its so good we might pay the discounted today, flat fee to upgrade because the world needs more software and software developers like this. We have already learned much about our game and played through a few of Bobby Fischers games all for free, and it feels like one of the best possible uses of time spent on our phone.
Excellent features for a free version.
We love it. Great for the whole family.
The app feels great to use, the real-time feedback is nice, the coaching & analysis is good, and it tells you when you play important/good moves. The one peeve we have is that we also want it to tell us when we make a blunder or a mistake, and just as you can see how many good moves you made after the game ends, Id like to be able to see how many bad moves we made too, in order to be able to better mitigate our weaknesses.
We are really impressed by Chess without ads. Im so glad that it gives you suggestions on where to move your pieces. Im just a kid and yet it has inspired us to try to play chess with all of our closest friends who love chess as much as us. It gives you an understanding of how to play chess without any of your super great at chess friends, so you can beat them all.
Great app, impressive. Only reason not 5 stars is the infrequent adds to upgrade to paid version, FALSELY CLAIMING there is a sale. We would actually upgrade if there was a sale (great app) but every time it is a lie.
It would not stop freezing but other than that its great.
Next move got to be your best move! Good games on ap.
Its a great game and teacher. And that should be enough. But no, not for these people, they went ahead and gave us. Wait for it. NO ADS PEOPLE! Thats right no ads bugging you while you learn and play chess! Thats right everyone stand up and applaud! Lol sorry get a little carried away. We REALLY dont like ads But we REALLY love this game. Download it now.
We really like that we can play chess on the we-pad because at home setting up the real board game takes forever.
Es bastante amigable y te ayuda a corregir las jugadas para estudiar mejor.
The play vs computer is quite good and will checkmate you quickly if your not on the ball. Gives you a precise assessment of your game play post game. No adds! Offers chess academy for a fee if serious about improving.
Good game! It provides options and can be customized to help you with your game. Very helpful.
The best game that we have thanks a lot.
We are so happy that it has no ads.
Love playing! Keep up the good moves while you still hanging in.
We have never been a good chess player. This gives us some hope that we can learn the game better.
This is a really fun and very good to learn chess especially for kids.
We taught our 5 year old sister how to play this and she actually likes it! So many different ways to play and teach littles. If you are a parent this is great for kids.
Enjoy the challenge the price is right.
This app is so cool! Ive always wanted to learn chess and practice and this is so fun! Ive learned so much! We love the little warnings and advice! Ive learned the basics of chess in less than 24 hours! Thank you so much! Its very addictive lol.
Was new to chess. Wanted a way to learn and play before using real pieces. This app is extremely fun, and easy tool to play. Thank you.
5 stars because this game gives you suggestions on where to move and it also gives you positive messages which you can also disable and you can play this game with anyone :) 5 Stars.
This chess game is the best in the world it is so good it shows threat and it shows good.
We dont like how it doesnt move you up from intermediate to advanced even though you score high.
Id give it 5 stars if the special offer wasnt unlocking all features for full price. We usually dont care for computer chess but this one has been stable and enjoyable since we started. If you are already a strong player, the paid version might be better suited to your needs.
This is the best chess game teacher.
No ads. Very clear and good game.
Literally an absolute amazing app! No ads. So much information about every part of the game. Deserves an award. If youre trying to get better at chess we highly recommend this. 50/10.
The game is great and was planning on buying it after we tried it for a while to make sure we like it. But we keep getting an ad that says buy the game now at a discounted price. So we check and its the same normal price. We fell for this 4 times and it is always a lie. Because of there dishonesty we will not buy the the game now.
We love this app. We used to lose a lot to our dad, but with the help of this app, we might just win soon.
This app is our fave. Now we grab our phone to play chess instead of mindlessly scrolling.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 2025.11.02
- Size: 43.38 MB
- iOS: 15.0 or later
- Languages: EN, FR, DE, ES
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: Christophe THERON
Last updated: 2nd November 2025 | Genre: Board, Strategy | Developer: Christophe THERON