{"id":7069,"date":"2016-04-28T10:45:34","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T15:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.richimages.net\/?p=7069"},"modified":"2017-06-12T09:03:57","modified_gmt":"2017-06-12T15:03:57","slug":"chess-com-nice-app-nice-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/richimages.net\/?p=7069","title":{"rendered":"Chess.com – Nice App, Nice site"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone out there using the Chess-With-Friends<\/em> app? \u00a0It’s pretty basic. \u00a0Not exactly an exciting<\/em> app. \u00a0It servers the purpose – but native resolution\u00a0on the iPad would be nice – the 2x magnification on the iPad looks pixelated, and the layout looks like waste of space. \u00a0The board colors\u00a0seem monotonous. It would be nice to select different board colors every once in a while. I’ve been waiting on a\u00a0Chess-With-Friends<\/em> update for quite a long time now.<\/p>\n

News Flash! \u00a0It’s not coming!<\/em><\/p>\n

Want a breath of fresh air?\u00a0 May I recommend the Chess.com<\/em> app? \u00a0Here’s some iPhone screen shots of come of the hundreds of available board styles, or\u00a0“themes”<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

[slideshow_deploy id=’7060′]<\/p>\n

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Themes\u00a0can be highly customized. \u00a0There are four selections that make up a theme:\u00a0 pieces styles, board colors, backgrounds, and sounds. Most themes are prebuilt with matching elements – but you can select the board color from one, with the background of another, etc – to create your own combination. Once a theme is chosen, it becomes part of the user’s environment. \u00a0Just sign in, and you’re immediately greeted with webpages, and\/or \u00a0an app environment that reflects your theme. All games, lessons, tutorials, etc … will use that theme.<\/p>\n

Now, if you’re like me, you may be reluctant to creating an account. My first thought was: This app looks\u00a0too serious<\/em>! \u00a0I’m going to get stomped by anyone playing here.<\/em> \u00a0But the attractive boards caused me to give it a try anyway. \u00a0And, I’m glad I did. \u00a0Those initial fears have been relieved. \u00a0I can assure you – you can feel at home whether you’re just getting started learning\u00a0how the pieces move, or whether you’ve been into serious tournaments for years!<\/p>\n

In the app, (and, on the web site), there are lessons in the form or exercises, videos, and web-tutorials. \u00a0These fall into basic, intermediate, and advanced categories. \u00a0No matter where you’re at, your skills are bound to improve. \u00a0Play a few tutorials and strategy exercises, and you’ll get a rough rating assigned to you. \u00a0That’s actually a good thing. When you are paired off for game challenges, you’ll be playing against those with similar ratings. (Chess is most fun when you’re evenly matched and anyone can win the game.) The more games you play, and exercises you participate in, the more accurate your rating will become.<\/p>\n

Another feature I like: During game play, you can break out from the game into a scratch board. The scratch board hold the complete history of that game, but t’s opened at the current state. You can run through various move combinations in turn by turn as far as you like, back up, change things, as much as you want – before closing down the scratch board and returning to the game. Scratch boards are available for the turn-by-turn games.<\/p>\n

There are lots of ways to play a game, but they all fall into two basic forms:<\/p>\n