™ Chess vs Pocket Chess
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
™ Chess
Engage in the timeless strategy of chess on your mobile device. Play against sophisticated AI opponents across multiple difficulty levels, or challenge friends and family. Features include an undo option, board editor, and customizable themes for a personalized experience.
- Play against AI
- Multiplayer matches
- Undo feature
- Board editor
- Customizable themes
- Game save/load
- Timed games
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Chess is a classic board game for quiet study, quick practice, local play, and relaxed online matches through Game Center. Play your way: - Start an online game through Game Center and play a casual no-time-limit match. - Practice against multiple AI difficulty levels. - Solve thousands of chess puzzles, including 777 newly added tactical positions. - Play local two-player games on the same device. - Save and load games when you want to continue later. - Set up custom positions with the board editor. - Customize boards, pieces, avatars, sounds, and themes. - Try timed games when you want a sharper challenge. This update also adds a seasonal football-themed board background and avatar for the 2026 world tournament season. Whether you want to train tactics, learn openings, play against AI, share a local game, or challenge another player online, Chess is built for comfortable play at your own pace.
Pocket Chess
Enhance your chess skills with hundreds of challenging chess problems and puzzles. This app focuses on simplified boards to help you quickly recognize chess patterns and improve your game.
- Hundreds of chess problems
- Checkmate in 2 and 4 puzzles
- Simplified boards for pattern recognition
- Improve chess game
- Learn chess patterns faster
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Pocket Chess helps you improve and brush up on your Chess by offering hundreds of thought provoking Chess problems and Chess puzzles. From Checkmate in 2 to Checkmate in 4 and much more! Pocket Chess is a new way to learn and improve at Chess. Featuring boards that are small and simple, important pieces are in focus so that you can learn to recognise Chess patterns faster and quicker. Improve your Chess Game and Download Now for free!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: ™ Chess at none against Pocket Chess's shown. ™ Chess also leads on iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15.0). Pocket Chess's advantage is review sentiment (61% vs 37%) and update cadence (every 2 months vs every 4 months). On price, rating, ratings volume and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. ™ Chess sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Pocket Chess sells 7 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.5 for ™ Chess against 4.6 for Pocket Chess. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 10K and 15K respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 37% of ™ Chess's written reviews are positive against 61% of Pocket Chess's.
™ Chess ships an update every 4 months, Pocket Chess every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 19, 2026 and October 20, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | ™ Chess | Pocket Chess |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (10K ratings) | 4.6 (15K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 37.5% of reviews | 61.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 10K | 15K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Best chart rank | — | #200 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 112 MB | 199 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | VM Mobile Team | Lessmore GmbH |
Customer experience
™ Chess
Pocket Chess
User reviews
™ Chess
From 10K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Challenging gameplay
- 🚀 Quick response times
- 💡 Variety of difficulty levels
- 🤩 Enjoyable for chess lovers
Room to improve
- 🐛 Inconsistent difficulty levels
- 🤬 Overpowered AI on easy mode
- 💰 Too many ads
- 🤯 Frustrating for beginners
Pocket Chess
From 15K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Improved chess skills
- 👍 Challenging yet fun puzzles
- 🤩 Addictive and engaging
- 🧠 Helps develop tactical thinking
- 📈 Tracks progress and skill level
Room to improve
- 🙄 Excessive ads
- 💰 Expensive to remove ads
- 🐛 Some puzzles have issues
- 🤔 Opponent moves don't always make sense
Bugs and requests
™ Chess
Reported bugs
3 issues- Illegal moves allowed by AI
- Incorrect draw detection
- Castling not functioning properly
Requested features
4 requests- Add more difficulty settings
- Allow under-promotion
- Improve AI difficulty scaling
- Reduce ads or offer paid version
Pocket Chess
Reported bugs
3 issues- Progress data loss
- Incorrect checkmate solutions
- Game freezing after certain moves
Requested features
4 requests- Ability to review past puzzles
- More advanced puzzles and levels
- Option to disable audio/music
- Sync progress across devices
In-app purchases
™ Chess
- Premium$3.99
Pocket Chess
- Small Coin Bundle$1.99
- Remove Ads2 variants$4.99
- Starter Package2 variants$4.99
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- Event Offer$4.99
- Medium Coin Bundle$5.99
- Large Coin Bundle$11.99
- Super Coin Bundle$25.99
Questions
Is ™ Chess free?
Is Pocket Chess free?
Which has better reviews, ™ Chess or Pocket Chess?
Do ™ Chess or Pocket Chess have ads?
Which is updated more often, ™ Chess or Pocket Chess?
Other comparisons
