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Best Free Computer Chess

Updated Sat, 06/12/2010 - 03:55 by Bob

In a Hurry?

Go straight to the Quick Selection Guide

Introduction

The art of chess has fascinated down the ages, through Alice and beyond.

PCs provide countless opportunities for learning, playing, practicing, studying, and even watching both online and offline. Convenient freeware chess programs are available that give you all you need to do these things straight out of a single box at any level. Great for beginners and experts alike.

If you or your children are just learning chess... Don't panic! There is plenty of friendly introductory material online, such as here or here. Lists of free tutorials here.

This review will cover some of the top freeware chess programs and suggest a few free browser based options and resources.

Discussion

Portable WinboardX gives you a well known chessboard user interface (Winboard) hooked up to three different chess engines of different levels. The package includes Rybka 2.2, the strongest available free chess engine, which is great for game analysis. But you can also play against two lesser engines (Delfi 4.5 and Phalanx)

As with the other recommendations listed below, if you're feeling lazy you can just sit back and watch a couple of them battle it out. The program can continuously analyze the state of play and will provide hints if asked.

You can also play through and analyze historical games, or use the program as an interface to play other people online for free via a variety of servers.

Arena is another excellent freeware option, which keen players may well consider the best of the bunch. It is particularly rich in features and the attractive interface is worth exploring since it offers many useful options.

The 2.0.1 version of the program allows very straightforward installation. The smaller of the two available download files come with just the SOS engine preinstalled.

The larger download file is worth its weight as it comes a large selection of engines, including the strong freeware Rybka 2.2. An interesting feature is the ability to handle Shuffle Chess or Fischer Random Chess.

Weighing in at just 1.34 MB, Crafty Chess is a ready-to-use application which makes an excellent lightweight option. It incorporates the powerful Crafty engine—an open-source program developed by Dr. Robert M. Hyatt.

Crafty Chess comes with a pleasant, intuitive interface providing ready access to useful features such as engine strength and thinking time adjustment. Although there's only the one engine, you can easily instruct Crafty to play either or both colors whenever you want. Much to enjoy.

PyChess provides an advanced chess client for Linux following the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines.

You can play against the GNU Chess engine or lots of other chess engines, such as the Crafty engine, which can be downloaded from here. You can also play Internet chess by connecting to the FICS servers.

With this program, games can be saved in the PGN, EPD and FEN chess file formats so that you can always return to continue with the games or analyze them.

PyChess also offers opening books and other useful features including undo moves, hint and spy modes, sound and animation effects.

More free chess software?

Infinity Chess gives you a serious freeware program with a very attractive modern interface, linked to their interesting website. All well worth exploring. Installation is safe and clearly explained (the program requires Net 2.0 framework and Visual C++ runtime libraries). [Windows XP and Vista, including 64 bit]

Free chess internet client software:

BabasChessClient provides an attractive interface to play or watch human games on the FICS (Free Internet Chess Player) network. An interesting feature is the ability to go over a game you've just watched or played with some analysis from Crafty. [Windows 95 to Vista; Linux with Wine]
If you enjoy modern chess variants like Bughouse, Crazyhouse, Losers, Suicide, Kriegspiel etc., try open source internet client Thief [Windows 95 to Vista; Linux Wine]

Chess freeware for learning:

Pawn - Author's description: "Pawn is a freeware chess program with an easy to use interface especially for beginners and intermediate players. Playing strength reaches up to club level but can be adjusted in several options. A special beginner's mode lets the program make mistakes [there's an adjustable slider for frequency]." You can decide whether or not to let the program use its preinstalled opening book. Version 3 has a clean 2D interface (download from here). Like other versions, it's portable; just copy the program folder after running the installer.
Lucas Chess - An interesting freeware chess tutor which challenges you to play and beat increasingly strong engines/levels of play from beginner up to expert (think Rybka!). As in some video games, the program expects you to win twice at any given level before moving on to the next one. In tutor mode, Lucas Chess will flag a stronger move found by the engine and give you gameplay hints on lines of play. Your reaction to Lucas Chess will probably depend on individual learning style and personal taste. Well worth exploring. Portable version available. [Windows and Linux]

3D interface chess freeware pick:

For a great blend of frivolity and ability on a lively 3D interface, don't miss WJChess 3D—an ultra cool program for all weathers! [Windows 9x/Me to XP; works fine for me on Vista]

Free online chess resources straight from your internet browser:

Of course, you can also do all sorts of chess-related things via your internet browser from a host of sites.

To play a computer from your browser via a Java app:

Little Chess Partner is a good first stop. You can also find the Little Chess Partner app on several site's, including the developer's own and ChessGames.com, which helpfully provides a carefully reasoned set of online alternatives with something for everyone:
Jester Chess offers a whole series of options, including some colorful variants, ranging from Throne of Chaos (Shuffle Chess) to Crazy Horses (knights instead of bishops) or the delightfully named Lethal Amazones (where queens take the place of knights and bishops). In One Step Beyond, both players start with their pawns one rank ahead. And true to its name, this app can also be set to make unorthodox moves (Fantasy) or play in Clownish Style: when Jester gets ahead he'll suddenly doff his metaphorical hat by making a silly move to let you get back into the game.
Sparring Partner (at ChessKit.com) is another attractive option, which also allows engine vs engine play.
Thinking Machine isn't so strong but shows countless lines of play...

Free internet chess servers:

You can play humans online (after free registration) at many sites, including:

ChessWorld.net, Chess.com, and even GeeksWithChess.com (Silverlight plug-in required).
Both MFO Chess and ChesSOS also give you the chance to challenge other players at Fischer Random.

Other free internet chess resources:

ChessGames.com has a search engine which provides access to a great free online database of historical chess games, some annotated. You can either play games back on ChessGames' online java app or download as .pgn files.
Get Fen is a useful online app to generate FEN strings to describe chessboard positions (for software or reference): just drag the pieces to their squares and then copy and paste the fen read out.
Virtual Pieces provides beautiful free chess graphics resources, including icons, diagram kit, wallpapers and more.

Top pick chess freeware site:

Want more chess freeware? A brief review like this cannot hope to cover the gamut of available free chess software. If you're hankering after more goodies, then you'd do well to check out a dedicated site. Zarkon Fischer's Free Chess Programs provides an exceptionally well presented guide which is regularly updated by a friendly chess enthusiast who also knows how to write. Although some of the programs discussed are only demos, you'll still find a wide range of lively freeware suggestions. The engines page, for example, is a must visit. Zarkon's top pick is freeware chess program is Fritz 5.3.2. Two recent new entries are Haundrix and Homer (unmissable!). Strongly recommended.

Or if you want something traditionally different...

Why not try Chinese Chess? The ancient game of Xiangqi (Elephant Chess) is an exciting, living challenge. A river runs through it. But the elephants can't cross. You'll find Gizmo's Best Free Chinese Chess here.
Or the Game of Go. Nowadays the most powerful chess programs can sometimes beat even the strongest Grand Masters. If you feel that chess has become just a bit passé, try the classic Far Eastern game of Go. Quite different from chess, Go is based on just a handful of simple rules. But its depth of play and subtlety make it a strong rival. Besides, Chess and Go seem to activate the brain somewhat differently. You'll find Gizmo's Best Free Computer Go here.

Please help us by rating this review

Comments

by Kortantic on Tue, 07/27/2010 - 19:37 (#55008)

Here's a freeware program that can be a real asset to serious chess players.
http://www.chesspositiontrainer.com/

by Anonymous on Sat, 06/26/2010 - 07:30 (#53167)

how about The Tarrasch Chess GUI

by filavirus on Tue, 06/22/2010 - 05:44 (#52689)

Arena is definitely a good one, but the interface is a bit complex for the casual user.

by Anonymous on Sat, 04/24/2010 - 08:35 (#48332)

Some good Free Online Chess Games include:

http://www.dmcgames.co.nz/Action/21472/Mate-Master.html
http://www.dmcgames.co.nz/Puzzle/21473/Chess-Master-2.html

Mate Master has multiply levels from novice to expert.

by Anupam on Sat, 04/24/2010 - 08:48 (#48335)

Its a request, please do not post the links all over the site. We will start marking it as spam, if you continue to do that.

by arunj on Mon, 03/01/2010 - 05:16 (#44753)

Can anyone suggest a lightweight Chess interface to play over the LAN? I mean peer to peer, no server required.

by Anonymous on Sun, 03/07/2010 - 18:02 (#45168)

ChessLan: http://sourceforge.net/projects/chesslan/

by JonathanT on Thu, 12/24/2009 - 06:54 (#39327)

For bughouse chess Thief seems to have a really good interface.
http://www.thief-interface.com/

by Bob on Tue, 12/29/2009 - 18:40 (#39746)

Thanks for this suggestion. I'd been planning to add something about chess variants...

by Anonymous on Wed, 12/23/2009 - 08:50 (#39191)

For beginners this is my contribution :
Lucas Chess http://lukasmonk.110mb.com/indexEN.htm
(open source)

by Bob on Sat, 03/27/2010 - 08:29 (#46277)

Thank you - this looks like a very good recommendation.

by Anonymous on Mon, 12/07/2009 - 16:21 (#38029)

Robert Hyatt (Crafty) was my graduate level Database professor in college (University of Southern Mississippi) in the late seventies. He wrote a world class mainframe chess program: [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crafty ] and continues to do great work. I highly recommend this program. Thanks Gizmo for recognizing this work in your "best picks" list.

Winthrom

by Bob on Wed, 12/30/2009 - 16:55 (#39832)

Thanks - on the list for review

by Bob on Wed, 12/30/2009 - 16:54 (#39831)

ThankYOU

by Anonymous on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 10:02 (#36832)

Personally I love Facebook's (free) chess application. 50,000 users of all levels, something to suit everyone. You can play the machine, but playing people from around the world is much more fun!

by Anonymous on Fri, 11/13/2009 - 08:35 (#36549)

I need Complete free Chess to paly in my Office Computer but found noware :(

by Anonymous on Sat, 12/12/2009 - 04:54 (#38368)

Try GeeksWithChess.com

by Bob on Thu, 09/24/2009 - 16:31 (#33227)

Best Free Chess Problems on the Internet?

My choice would be Raymond Keene's Winning Move.

Raymond Keene is a well known chess writer and columnist. His daily chess column in the Times contains his commentary of an historical or topical game, such as from the current Karpov Kasparov rematch. The column always closes with a tactical Winning Move problem, often related to the game just presented.

If Raymond Keene's most recent Winning Move offerings don't slake your appetite you can access a whole lot more from here (hint: if the text on old pages appears garbled, try right clicking to "view as image").

by Anonymous on Fri, 09/04/2009 - 16:34 (#32156)

Here is a good free online chess site:

http://www.geekswithchess.com

by Anonymous on Mon, 07/06/2009 - 20:08 (#24732)

can somebody please reccomend me a good computer checkers software? I been dying to find one.

by Anonymous on Mon, 02/15/2010 - 13:47 (#43666)

Best free checkers program I have found is http://www.worldchampionshipcheckers.com/

by Anonymous on Sat, 08/22/2009 - 07:27 (#31305)

go to slowblitz site, n have mooch about there

by Jojoyee on Tue, 07/07/2009 - 14:12 (#24772)

Try Amusive Checkers, which includes three versions of checkers: Russian, English and give away.

by Anonymous on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 22:50 (#23009)

What about of Jose?
http://jose-chess.sourceforge.net/index.html

by Bob on Sun, 06/28/2009 - 19:46 (#24477)

Thanks - I'll check this out
Sorry for not replying earlier: AWOL

by Anonymous on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 15:49 (#24498)

Have you tried this yet? It's flagged on Virustotal by TheHacker! Probably false positive though!

by Bob on Sat, 07/18/2009 - 06:27 (#25295)

Sorry for the delay replying. Yes, I do think that alert is a false positive and Jose is almost certainly a safe program.

I liked the look of the program a lot. However, on my Vista system it is just too buggy to test its capabilities. I tried installing it more than once for review on this page, but after a few seconds the menus all blank out on my system. This may be a system or a Vista related related problem
(though the program is supposed to be usable on Windows 98 onwards).

Any more feedback on Jose?

by Anonymous on Fri, 10/16/2009 - 15:14 (#34794)

I have Jose running on XP SP3. Good, simple interface. No issues with the program install or operation. Uses MySQL to store played games. Documentation says other chess engines can be used with the game.

by Anonymous on Sat, 05/23/2009 - 02:53 (#22179)

I found this on a site that I found a link to here, http:// realgreatgames . com/index.php?task=view&id=21316 it's a pretty good chess game and it doesn't freeze my computer.

by Bob on Sat, 05/23/2009 - 06:59 (#22185)

Thanks, but no thanks. I couldn't even figure out how to castle. I think clearly recognizable pieces are important too - especially perhaps for beginners.

by Bob on Tue, 03/24/2009 - 18:53 (#18486)

I've posted a few suggestions for Shogi ("Japanese Chess") here:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/best-free-computer-shogi-japanes...
Feedback welcome.

Bob

by Anonymous on Mon, 03/16/2009 - 17:44 (#17973)

Nothing is better than Brutal Chess:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/brutalchess/

by Bob on Wed, 03/18/2009 - 17:15 (#18116)

Scarcely a strong player... But children of all ages may enjoy the 3D graphics. See how it develops.

by Anonymous on Fri, 02/13/2009 - 14:07 (#15962)

Are there any free games for bridge players?

by Bob on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 16:33 (#16074)

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-computer-bridge.htm#comment-16633

by Anonymous on Fri, 02/13/2009 - 09:28 (#15950)

If someone is looking for Backgammon, I reccomend http://www.gnubg.org/

by Anonymous on Fri, 02/13/2009 - 04:27 (#15942)

This is great! One of the more "entertaining" articles posted :)

by Bob on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 04:55 (#16060)

Thanks
Enjoy!
:)

by Anonymous on Tue, 01/27/2009 - 15:37 (#14803)

One of the strongest chess engine in the world now is Rybka. The previous version, Rybka 2.2n2 is available for free.
http://www.rybkachess.com/index.php?auswahl=Demo+version

You'll need a chess GUI. I'll recommend Arena.
http://www.rybkachess.com/index.php?auswahl=FAQ

by Bob on Tue, 01/27/2009 - 21:13 (#14815)

Arena is a great recommendation: it installs directly (and very easily) with a variety of engines including Rybka 2.2 and offers useful features on a good GUI.
Arena 2.0.1 Setup: http://www.playwitharena.com/directory/download.htm

For the record, Portable_WinboardX_Rybka does actually have the Rybka 2.2n2 mp engine preinstalled along with two less strong ones. The Crafty package provides another of the best engines, and the set-up allows you to adjust its strength directly from the GUI.

by Anonymous on Sun, 05/10/2009 - 20:03 (#21335)

http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/ is a popular site (mentioned in Arena help, BTW), which simply cannot be omitted from any discussion about computer chess. For years it holds tournaments of the best chess engines (link "WBEC Tournaments"), and it appears that the results are more or less representative of their true strength; personally, I followed them for more than four years.

All news about updates, newcomers, download links, ratings (link "WBEC Ratinglist"), etc. you can also find there.

Now what we have here: free version of Rybka is naturally one's first choice, and we have to add Fruit, Glaurung, Thinker, Spike, ProDeo (this one, the successor of Rebel, is not on a par with the others in terms of playing strength, but beats all records in analysis of some famous positions on my system) and a few others.

Some of my best chess bookmarks:
http://www.wtharvey.com/prodex.html - Chess Puzzles by Grandmasters
...
(waiting when your great spam filter let me post the others)

lloonn

by JonathanT on Tue, 01/27/2009 - 00:43 (#14753)

BabasChess is also popular client to play on the FICS network. I personally prefer BabasChess's interface over WinBoard's interface.
http://www.babaschess.net/

by Bob on Tue, 01/27/2009 - 19:54 (#14770)

Thanks Jonathan - BabasChess looks really impressive and I've already enjoyed observing some online players and going over the games with Crafty.
Do feel free to edit this page any way you think good ... I started it really just with the main idea of recommending WinboardX_Rybka and a nice Go tutorial as HotFind(s), but your suggestions are helping it grow.

by Anonymous on Mon, 01/26/2009 - 13:36 (#14707)

The links http/tinyurl etc don't work - "Network Interrupted" message! Other links refer to source codes and other terms with which I'm not familiar. I just want to click, download and play.

by Bob on Tue, 01/27/2009 - 21:18 (#14772)

"I just want to click, download and play."

You can do this with Chenard: http://cosinekitty.com/chenard/
- Download winchen.zip
- Unzip the folder and click the exe file inside.
(A good engine coupled to a basic interface.)

by Anonymous on Mon, 01/26/2009 - 20:33 (#14729)

Sorry you've been having problems (I've just checked all the tiny urls again and found them all working so maybe it was a temporary issue).

"Other links refer to source codes and other terms with which I'm not familiar."

- Portable WinboardX: After downloading and unzipping the compressed folder you'll find a ReadMe file. Here's an extract:

INSTALLATION AND USE:
1. Extract "WinboardX_Rybka.exe" to any Folder you like ...
2. Start "Create_Shorcut.cmd" to create Winboard shortcut on your Desktop (OPTIONAL)
3. Start Winboard
4. Choose what you want to do (play against engine, engine vs engine, or play on internet chess server...)
NOTE #1: If you choose to play against engine you can choose two engines - the first one is the engine you will use for analysis or playing, while second one you choose plays black in "Two machines" mode.

- Crafty Chess Interface 2.0: Download the binaries, unzip, and move the folder to wherever you want. Try running crafty.exe
If the programme starts, then you're underway. If not, you may need to download from Microsoft the "VB6 run-time library": you'll find the full instructions and links at the bottom of the download page.

- For the Go set-up I suggested,download the Jago board from here:
http://www.rene-grothmann.de/jago/
You'll need to follow the instructions for Windows (which may involve installing the Sun Java platform if you don't already have it): click Download and install the self installing JagoClient version and then run the installer.
When you launch Jago from the Windows start menu go to "Actions", click "Play Go (using GMP)" [unless you want to play a human player online] and set your handicap to zero.

by sunkumarspace on Sun, 01/25/2009 - 10:59 (#14660)

this the game i adore and thanks g=for this information really awesome

by tony on Sun, 01/25/2009 - 08:40 (#14654)

This a great link thanks I have been looking for a good free Chess game. I shall watch what others put here as well

Tony

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Best Free Computer Chess

Free online chess resources straight from your internet browser:

To play a computer from your browser via a Java app:

Free internet chess servers:

Other free internet chess resources:

More online chess links:

Top pick chess freeware site:

Or if you want something traditionally different...

Portable WinboardX

Arena

Crafty Chess

PyChess

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