# Mate in 2 Chess Puzzles — user reviews > 134 indexed App Store user reviews of Mate in 2 Chess Puzzles by Gano Technologies LLC, rated 4.80/5 from 70 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mate-in-2-chess-puzzles/id368403957/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mate-in-2-chess-puzzles/id368403957.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 62 · 4★ 7 · 3★ 0 · 2★ 0 · 1★ 1 ## What do users think of Mate in 2 Chess Puzzles? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🧠 Excellent puzzle collection with 1000+ problems - 💰 Great value for money at low price point - 🎯 Wide range of difficulty levels for various skill levels - 🎨 Clean, well-designed user interface - ⏱️ Built-in timer for tracking solve times - 💡 Helpful hint system with adjustable assistance levels - 🔄 Multiple attempts allowed per puzzle - 📚 Historical puzzle information and provenance - ⚡ Smooth, fast performance without bugs - 🏆 Addictive and engaging gameplay experience - 🎮 Works seamlessly across iPad and iPhone **Cons** - 🔥 App causes phone to heat up during extended use - ❌ Inconsistent puzzle accuracy and validity - ⚠️ Sudden difficulty jump between Mate in 1 and Mate in 2 - 🤔 Some puzzles rely on opponent making unforced errors - 🚫 Cannot explore alternative black responses - 📱 Limited orientation support (landscape/portrait) - ❄️ Occasional freezing and crashes - 🎯 Many puzzles too difficult for intermediate players - 🔍 Difficult to understand puzzle solution logic **Commonly reported bugs** - App freezes or goes haywire requiring restart - Occasional crashes during gameplay - App skips puzzles when navigating - Game Center prompts become annoying - Performance issues on older devices **Most requested features** - Ability to freely move pieces and explore variations - Sandbox mode to test alternative moves - Play as black against white - Hint that only shows which piece to move, not destination - Landscape and portrait orientation support - Puzzle tracking by number of moves - Mark puzzles solved with hints vs. solutions - More gradual difficulty progression - Page scroll feature for navigation - Disable Game Center prompts - Show why opponent made specific moves ## Newest reviews (18 of 134) ### 4/5 — A very good training tool *2026-06-06, version 4.4* I think this is a great interactive app that has 1000+ mate in 2’s. My only criticism is that the app doesn’t force you to find all variations, but apart from that I love the problems. ### 4/5 — Excellente application ! *2018-05-29, version 4.0* Des mats à foison ! ### 5/5 — Very good *2017-07-11, version 3.2.1* Well worth the few pennies. Excellent mate in 2 problems, and many of them. ### 4/5 — Good, but could be better *2017-06-27, version 3.2.1* Really nice 1,000 puzzles, good ones. Only thing is, it won't let you see what happens if, after white's best move, black were to make a move other than the one it considers "best". Sometimes it's far from obvious how to mate then. ### 5/5 — Difficult! *2017-06-13, version 3.2.1* These are incredibly difficult. They are designed rather than taken from actual games. I have a collection of mate in 4 that I can relatively easily solve and I am stumped by these. So, once I get used tu them I'm sure they'll provide a lot. Right now it's mostly frustrating. So if you feel similarly, I suggest Chess King's Mate in 3-4 and Chess Tactics Art (1400-1600) and (1600-1800). You'll like all three. Then maybe later I can solve these... C ### 5/5 — Seder *2017-05-25* Awesome. Very mentally challenging. ### 5/5 — Addictive! *2017-03-23* I really enjoy this app. Sometimes I find it very hard to put down. I just know I'll do better on the next puzzle! I do wish that, after a puzzle is solved, I could reverse some black moves and try different responses. Sometimes it seems black may have made a poor choice, resulting in the mate. ### 5/5 — Excellent mate un 2 puzzles *2016-10-15, version 3.2.1* Good puzzle historical info with hints ans solutions. Great for a mind workout. ### 5/5 — Really helpful if you want to proceed in chess(-) *2016-09-01, version 3.2.1* . ### 5/5 — Fun chess problems *2016-06-21* Good chess problem app. I enjoy using it ### 5/5 — Very helpful *2016-06-14* This is helping me improve my skills - thank you! ### 4/5 — Great app, but makes the phone heat right up *2016-05-08, version 3.2.1* Love this app - nice clean design and good puzzles, but it makes the phone heat right up so I don't use it for very long at a time. ### 4/5 — Mate in 2? *2016-04-27* I enjoying using mate in 2, I only wish that there was an option to play black against the white, because sometimes I'm sure it's not a true mate in 2 game, only an error on blacks move. ### 5/5 — Challenging, but not impossible *2016-04-26* I've been working one or two if these puzzles every evening for several months. I typically spend between 10 and 30 minutes figuring each puzzle out. Very engaging! ### 5/5 — Mate in two *2016-01-25, version 3.2* Плохо что русского нет, а программа прекрасная! ### 5/5 — Wonderful *2015-06-21, version 3.2* Wonderful, simple to use and a wide range of skill level. Thanks. ### 5/5 — Ottimo *2015-05-30, version 3.2* Molto bella l'antologia di studi sui matti in 2 ### 5/5 — Great puzzles! *2015-05-06, version 3.2* 1,200 puzzles of varying difficulty. Fantastic training. Must-buy if you want to get better at chess. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Lost confidence in the puzzles *2024-12-11* If I’m going to spend hours trying to figure out a “mate in 2” puzzle, then it better really be that… puzzle #17..illustrated London news is bogus…the “solution’ is in NO way a forced mate on the other side..it relies on black making an UNFORCED dumb move to “solve” it… I even used a chess engine to double check that the puzzle is bogus… ### 1/5 — This will mess up your chess *2016-02-16* This app will mess up you chess, because many solution require a move that will make it a mate in two but is NOT forced. So really the puzzles are wrong because there are delay moves, as well as moves that would avoid the mate. So if you enter some of the puzzles into a chess engine and ask it to solve it, you will find too many puzzles are bad. But if you are looking to mess up your chess this is a great app for that. garbage. .whats worse is the apps still has the same issue since ipad one. and its july 2015 and non of their apps are fixed. update 2016 and still not fixed ### 2/5 — Oops *2015-04-08, version 3.2* As a beginner, I bought this game to practice. The scenarios are unrealistic. In a lot of these the solution requires a move that doesn't make sense, but just happens to invoke the right response from the AI.it kinda felt like i was looking for the one random move that caused the AI to malfunction. Don't buy this for practice ### 2/5 — ただのパズル *2013-07-01* まったくのパズル。問題のための問題と言うようで、スキルアップなどの目的には適わない。 ### 2/5 — Not necessarily mate in 2 *2012-07-15, version 2.5* I bought the mate in 1 pack, and was quite impressed, so I bought mate in 2. Unfortunately, many of these puzzles are mate in more than 2. The app assumes black will make a specific move in response to white's first move.. And yes, if we permit that, then it will mate in 2. However, in many cases if black were to make another move (other than that programmed by the app), then the mate will take several more moves, or not at all. ### 2/5 — Too tough for me *2012-02-21* I am an intermediate chess player. I've been rated near 1600, and won a few tournament games (and lost a few). I have several chess puzzle books including some popular books by Bruce Pandolfini, Fred Wilson/Bruce Alberston and Laszlo Polgar. Typically I can solve about two-thirds of the puzzles in these books. I had hoped for similar chess puzzles in this app, but unfortunately, I am dissappointed. Though the "Mate in 1" app is very easy, and the first twelve puzzles in this app are similarly easy, the difficulty suddenly jumps to a level that probably challenges even Grandmaster players to work through. I'm of course guessing about that, but the point is, the difficulty level jumps very suddenly to an extremely high level. A puzzle I recently struggled with had close to 50 candidates for the 1st move, and nearly as many for the 2nd move, giving a total of almost 2500 possible solutions. When you play chess, you don't go through every possibility to find your move -- you consider the best "candidate moves," which are often forcing moves or moves which offer the best possibility of improving your position. But if you simply look at "candidates" in these puzzles, you'll often be frustrated, as the solution frequently involves a move that is most definitely NOT a likely candidate move. After struggling a long time and failing to find a solution in any puzzles (beyond the "Warm-up" puzzles), I resorted to taking the "hint," and even then, it took a while to find the winning move. If you're a Grandmaster, or an amateur hunting for an app to waste a lot of time on, this is the one. If, however, you'd like to develop some useful tactical skill and improve your chess game, I'd recommend you find another app. ### 2/5 — good problems but not good training *2012-01-13, version 2.2* i was looking for problems that would help increase your playing strength such as those in Polgar's famous book these problems are not of this type, partly because they are almost all too diificult instead of being more varied in difficulty partly because they are mostly artificial problem situations which have nothing to do with over the board chess ### 3/5 — Not bad *2013-05-14, version 2.7* Early puzzles are easy and then the end of the puzzles are very hard and they don't give you the answers and you can't move on so you get stuck ### 3/5 — Good Program But Need Play Button *2013-05-07* Updated Review: May 7th, 2013 Reduce stars for no way to play and check alternative answers. I had thought that this program wasn't good. I couldnt solve many of the puzzles and had thought that they were wrong. Puzzle # 17 is a good example of this situation. I spent many hours on it till I set it up on chessgenius where it was solved it in 3 moves. BUT CHESSGENIUS WAS WRONG! The problem is that there are multiple solutions, but they are nevertheless all really mate in 2 moves. I found this out after the programs was updated and the author added a hint/solution option that was surely needed. After the first move, the second move can be multiple move depending on what the computer does. But it will ALWAYS be mate in 2. If they didn't add the hint button I would have never discovered this. So, many cudos and nuff respect to a great chess puzzle program. Everything thing else about the program is good. I like how it has the option to look like a real chess board. It doesn't look cheap. I give maximum stars for the effert that went into creating it. And sorry for my former negative review. Well that new hint button made the difference. ### 3/5 — Very Entertaining *2012-04-28, version 2.4* Excellent concept of mate in two. Enjoy playing the game. Good program but needs to fix bugs. At times the program freezes or it goes haywire. Needs to be restarted or reset. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Well done *2025-01-18* One request would be to have a hint where you just indicate which piece to move, but not where it goes. ### 5/5 — Best problem app *2024-10-29, version 4.4* Great app. Best out there! Thanks ### 5/5 — Fabulous puzzles *2022-11-05, version 4.3* I've always loved chess puzzles in the old day when you would get one a week in a newspaper. There are so many of them in this app they have kept me busy for years. Great value for money. ### 5/5 — You will never get bored *2022-02-23, version 4.3* Perfect way to sharpen your brain. Tons of smart intriguing puzzles Simple but effective playing format. One of my favorites ### 5/5 — The first move is never check :) *2019-08-12* A great chess app that helps teach calculation, especially in complicated positions. ### 5/5 — Superb! *2019-08-08, version 4.2* Wonderful value and years of fun. ### 5/5 — Great collection of puzzles *2018-02-03* Great puzzles, really enjoying this app. But be warned, they are tough. ### 5/5 — I'm apparently not as smart as I thought... *2017-10-14* fun to pass the time away, though! ### 5/5 — Very Nice *2017-09-22* My spouse and I have competitions with each other and it's really enjoyable. The features in the app are great. ### 5/5 — Mate2 *2017-09-10, version 3.2.1* macht Spaß --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-02.*