Chess Opening Lab (1400 vs Openings Mastermind
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Chess Opening Lab (1400
This app offers a comprehensive chess opening manual with theoretical reviews and instructive games from grandmasters. It features detailed classifications, evaluations, and characteristics of key moves, along with interactive lessons and over 350 training exercises.
- Theoretical review of all chess openings
- Instructive games with detailed annotations
- Interactive theoretical lessons
- 350+ training exercises
- Evaluations and characteristics of key moves
- History and current status of variations
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This is a perfect opening manual. It features a theoretical review of all the chess openings, which are illustrated by instructive games of the greatest chess players. This compact opening manual contains a detailed classification, which makes it useful to players of any level - beginners, intermediate and advanced players. Each opening variation is supplied with evaluations and characteristics of key moves. The history of the variations' development is described, as well as their current status. The theoretic material is nicely illustrated by classic games with detailed annotations that demonstrate the principal ideas and plans of each variation for White and Black. There is also a special training section with more than 350 exercises of various difficulty on more than 40 openings. This course is in the series Chess King Learn, which is an unprecedented chess teaching method. In the series are included courses in tactics, strategy, openings, middle game, and endgame, split by levels from beginners to experienced players, and even professional players. With the help of this course, you can improve your chess knowledge, learn new tactical tricks and combinations, and consolidate the acquired knowledge into practice. The program acts as a coach who gives tasks to solve and helps to solve them if you get stuck. It will give you hints, explanations and show you even striking refutation of the mistakes you might make. The program also contains a theoretical section, which explains the methods of the game in a certain stage of the game, based on actual examples. The theory is presented in an interactive way, which means you can not only read the text of the lessons, but also to make moves on the board and work out unclear moves on the board. Advantages of the program: • High quality examples, all double-checked for correctness • You need to enter all key moves, required by the teacher • Different levels of complexity of the tasks • Various goals, which need to be reached in the problems • The program gives hint if an error is made • For typical mistaken moves, the refutation is shown • You can play out any position of the tasks against the computer • Interactive theoretical lessons • Structured table of contents • The program monitors the change in the rating (ELO) of the player during the learning process • Test mode with flexible settings • Possibility to bookmark favorite exercises • The application is adapted to the bigger screen of a tablet • The application does not require an internet connection The course includes a free part, in which you can test the program. Lessons offered in the free version is fully functional. They allow you to test the application in real world conditions before releasing the following topics: 1. Rare variations 1.1. 1. g3, 1. b4, .. 1.2. 1. b3 1.3. 1. d4 1.4. 1. d4 Nf6 1.5. 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 2. Alekhine's defense 3. Benoni defense 4. Bird's opening 5. Bishop's opening 6. Blumenfeld counter-gambit 7. Bogo-Indian defense 8. Budapest gambit 9. Caro-Kann 10. Catalan system 11. Center gambit 12. Dutch defense 12.1. Dutch defense 12.2. Ilyin-Genevsky system 12.3. Leningrad system 12.4. Staunton gambit 12.5. Stonewall variation 13. English opening 14. Evans gambit 15. Four knights' game 16. French defense 16.1. French defense 17. Grünfeld defense 18. Italian game & Hungarian defense 19. King's Indian defense 20. Latvian gambit 21. Nimzo-Indian defense 22. Nimzowitsch defense 23. Old Indian defense 24. Philidor's defense 25. Pirc-Robatsch defense 26. Queen's gambit 27. Queen's Indian defense 28. Queen's pawn game 29. Reti opening 30. Petrov's defense 31. Ruy Lopez 32. Scandinavian defense 33. Scotch gambit & Ponziani's opening 34. Scotch game 35. Sicilian defense 36. Three knights' game 37. Two knights' defense 38. Vienna game 39. Volga-Benko gambit 40. The complete course of openings
Openings Mastermind
Master chess openings with this app. Import studies, explore with advanced engines, and practice specific lines through repetition. Track your progress and improve your game.
- Import Lichess Studies or PGNs
- Explore openings with Stockfish 15
- Practice openings by repetition
- Smart practice queue
- Track learning progress
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Get ready to take your chess game to the next level with Openings Mastermind, the ultimate chess opening app! Some of the features include: - Import Lichess Studies or custom PGNs - Explore openings with Stockfish 17 and the Lichess position database - Practice openings by repetition against your own custom openings database - Take advantage of the smart practice queue and improve your learning - Observe your learning progress in different openings With our app, you can take your opening game to the next level by practicing against the specific lines you want to master. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced player, our app is the perfect tool to help you improve your opening moves and become a better chess player. Planned Features: - Continue against engine, after study line ends - Analysis of your games from Lichess and Chess.com compared to your openings database
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Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Openings Mastermind at none against Chess Opening Lab (1400's 1. Openings Mastermind also leads on update cadence (fortnightly vs every 3 months). Chess Opening Lab (1400's advantage is rating (4.7 vs 4.3) and ratings volume (593 vs 6). On price, ads and device support 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 Opening Lab (1400 sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Openings Mastermind asks for nothing beyond the download.
Chess Opening Lab (1400 holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Chess Opening Lab (1400 has 593 ratings behind it against 6, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 66% of Chess Opening Lab (1400's written reviews are positive against 50% of Openings Mastermind's.
Chess Opening Lab (1400 ships an update every 3 months, Openings Mastermind fortnightly. Both last shipped on October 24, 2026.
| Parameter | Chess Opening Lab (1400 | Openings Mastermind |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (593 ratings) — better | 4.3 (6 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 65.5% of reviews — better | 50.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 593 — better | 6 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 8.0 — better | 18.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 45 MB | 88 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Chess King | Christian Heise |
Customer experience
Chess Opening Lab (1400
Openings Mastermind
Bugs and requests
Chess Opening Lab (1400
Reported bugs
9 issues- Recorded moves not highlighted or disappear
- White spot instead of recorded move
- Have to buy full course multiple times
- App forgets purchase
- Animation speed doesn't decrease
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- Cannot skip or save variations
- Too many variations distract from main line
- Cannot replay exercise from beginning
- App deletes and asks for repurchase
Requested features
9 requests- More exercises for different openings
- More examples of opening systems
- Give 20 or more examples of different openings
- Explanations in French
- Reference books
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- Translation to Spanish
- Translation to Turkish
- Show colorful lines in animation
- Include lines for Sicilian defense gambits
Openings Mastermind
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Chess Opening Lab (1400
- Full course$12.99
Openings Mastermind
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Chess Opening Lab (1400 free?
Is Openings Mastermind free?
Which has better reviews, Chess Opening Lab (1400 or Openings Mastermind?
Do Chess Opening Lab (1400 or Openings Mastermind have ads?
Which is updated more often, Chess Opening Lab (1400 or Openings Mastermind?
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