

#3d chess games for mac free#
To play against a chess engine or use it to analyze boards, it must be paired with a chess GUI, but there are lots of free ones. If you’re not sure a chess engine is something you want to tinker with, don’t buy anything-free engines are extremely powerful.Īn engine alone won’t do much for you, though, as they don’t include any kind of graphical user interface, just a console.

These engines are primarily for training-you can play against them, analyze chess positions, and pit them against each other-so they’re for people who seriously want to study the game. Komodo is also highly ranked, though you’ll have to pay a subscription for the latest version (Komodo 9 is free), and Houdini costs €40 for the standard edition. If you want to play against a powerful, customizable computer opponent for the purpose of studying chess, you’ll want a chess engine, such as the free and open source Stockfish engine or its derivatives. It supports online play with a separate account, and comes with a good computer opponent via the Stockfish engine (see the section below for an explanation on that). It’s not nearly as slick as Chess Ultra, and it crashed on me pretty quickly, but hey, it’s free. It’s a good deal, too: just $13 on Steam, and $9.09 right now during the Halloween sale.įor a free-to-play alternative, try Simply Chess. For anyone who simply wants to play chess, this is your game-simple and beautiful, like chess itself. It also includes basic tutorials for newcomers. It includes VR support, an AI opponent with several difficulty levels, as well as local and online multiplayer, Twitch integration, and the option to export matches.
#3d chess games for mac software#
Chess UltraĬhess Ultra is a gorgeous chess game for those who just want to play chess without dealing with the complicated software in the sections below.

It runs in your browser with a simple, clean board design, and has a ton of players so I’ve never had a hard time finding a match with someone of a similar skill level (which is to say, not very much skill). You have to put up with a few ads, and it’ll bug you to pay for an optional premium subscription, but as a way to quickly start playing chess online at any skill level, it’s one of your best bets. For practice, you can also play against the Stockfish engine.īest chess game is a good commercial free alternative. The best thing about it is that you can play anonymously without creating any kind of account, though I find that means I’m more likely to encounter players who resign or request a draw immediately-you never know who you might be paired with. It’s free and supports plenty of match styles, including multi-day correspondence. This guide will introduce you to the software chess world, with advice for players who just want to play casually online or offline, as well as those who want to seriously study opening moves and analyze historical matches. Because there multiple reasons to play software chess-roughly split between causal fun, studying, and competition-there are many different kinds of programs and games out there.

The rules of chess are simple, but it’s one of the most demanding tests of foresight, tactics, and mental endurance there is. Best chess gamewas played between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky in 1851, but the best chess videogames are something else entirely.
