Chess Premium vs Sealed Move
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Chess Premium
Enjoy a classic chess experience without ads or internet. Play against a challenging AI with adjustable difficulty or a friend offline. Features stunning visuals, instant auto-saves, and undo support for uninterrupted gameplay.
- No ads or internet required
- Adjustable AI difficulty levels
- Offline two-player mode
- Stunning Retina display visuals
- Instant auto-save
- Undo support and score tracking
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Chess Premium — The Chess Game Your iPhone Deserves No ads. No internet required. Just chess, beautifully designed for your iPhone and iPad. Whether you're picking up chess for the first time or looking for a worthy opponent at 2am, Chess Premium delivers. Play against a sophisticated AI with adjustable difficulty — from patient teacher to ruthless opponent — or hand the phone to a friend for a classic two-player match. What makes it Premium: • Stunning visuals built for Retina displays — not ported from another era • AI engine that actually challenges you, with difficulty levels that grow with your game • Offline play, always available — no Wi-Fi, no account, no nonsense • Auto-saves instantly when you take a call or switch apps • Undo support, configurable player names, and full score tracking No subscriptions. No ads. Buy once, play forever. Download Chess Premium and play your first game in seconds. ———— Love classic games? Optime makes a full suite of board and card games — including Backgammon Pro, Checkers Premium, and Sudoku. Search ""Optime Software"" to see them all.
Sealed Move
This app provides personalized chess coaching by explaining engine evaluations in plain language. It offers interactive explanations, a lexicon of chess terms, and game review features. Practice against an AI that mimics human play and export games as videos.
- AI-powered chess coaching
- Plain-language explanations of engine moves
- Interactive lexicon of chess terms
- Game review timeline
- Export games as videos
- Human-like AI opponent
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Sealed Move is a chess coach on your phone. Stockfish makes every factual claim about your game, and a coach who talks like a person turns those claims into plain speech. The coach never analyzes the board on its own, which means it cannot invent a variation. THE ENGINE JUDGES. THE COACH EXPLAINS. Every evaluation, best move, tactic, and opening name comes from the engine. The coach's job is the words: what your move accomplished, what it missed, and what deserves your attention now. When the game genuinely shifts, the coach steps in with a short recap of the moves that caused the swing, then leaves you to play. FEEDBACK THAT WAITS ITS TURN Coaching arrives as cards docked under the board. Read the newest at a glance, tap to expand it, and swipe back through earlier notes whenever you like. Ask a question and a full conversation opens; close it and the board is yours again. TAP THE COACH'S WORDS Every square, piece, and move the coach mentions is live. Tap f7 and the board shows you f7. Tap a move and an annotation pen draws the same red arrow a coach reaches for at a demo board. A LEXICON WITH MOVING PARTS When the coach names a fork, a skewer, or a Najdorf, the word links into a Lexicon of 153 entries: a plain definition plus the pattern played out on an animated board. Every demo line was checked by the engine before it shipped. HINTS THAT LEAVE THE FIND TO YOU Stuck in a sharp position? The coach will tell you what kind of idea you are missing and let you find it. The eval is the engine's, the nudge is the coach's, and the find is still yours. REVIEW THE GAME AS A TIMELINE After the game, the review lays your moves on a scrubber with a dot at each moment that mattered: green where the game swung your way, red where it slipped. Press play and the coach walks you through the moments, two moves of run-up at a time, at reading pace. EXPORT THE GAME AS A VIDEO Turn any finished game into a vertical video. The moves play out on the board with the coach's red arrows or classic highlights, and the coach's notes hold on screen at reading pace. Trim the clip to the stretch that decided the game, then share it or save it from the share sheet. SCAN A BOARD Photograph a puzzle from a book, a newspaper, or a screenshot. Sealed Move reads the position right on your phone, nothing is uploaded, and puts it on an editable board so you can fix any square. Then play it out, have the coach solve it, ask why the key move works, or export the solution as a video. AN OPPONENT WHO PLAYS LIKE A PERSON Practice games run against Maia, a neural network trained on millions of human games, so your opponent misjudges positions the way people do. The level moves with you as you improve. FREE AND PRO The free coach runs entirely on your phone. Nothing leaves the device, there is no account, and free play stays free. Pro Coach ($5.99 a month, first 7 days free) adds our sharpest coaching through cloud AI, with deeper explanations and richer game stories. Positions reach the cloud only on Pro Coach, and only after you agree. OPEN WHERE IT COUNTS Sealed Move embeds Stockfish 11 under the GPLv3 and honors the license fully: the complete client source is public at github.com/tjameswilliams/sealedmove-app, tagged for every release. The claim that the coach cannot invent a line is one you can audit. The name comes from the adjournment era, when a paused game meant sealing your next move in an envelope and going home to analyze. Secret preparation, deep analysis, the resumed game: that is what your coach does between your moves. Terms of Use (Apple standard EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy policy: https://sealedmove.com/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Sealed Move at Free against Chess Premium's $9.99. Sealed Move also leads on update cadence (weekly vs every 3 months). Chess Premium's advantage is rating (4.7 vs 3.0) and in-app purchases (none vs 1). On 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
Sealed Move is free to download; Chess Premium costs $9.99 up front. Sealed Move sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $5.99 per month. Chess Premium asks for nothing beyond the download.
Chess Premium holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 3.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Chess Premium has 5.2K ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Chess Premium ships an update every 3 months, Sealed Move weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 18, 2026 and October 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Chess Premium | Sealed Move |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $9.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.7 (5.2K ratings) — better | 3.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 80.3% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 5.2K — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Freemium — better |
| Best chart rank | #38 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 39 MB | 10 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Optime Software LLC | Tim Williams |
Customer experience
Chess Premium
Sealed Move
Bugs and requests
Chess Premium
Reported bugs
5 issues- Incorrect checkmate detection
- Pawns moving in illegal ways
- Pieces randomly disappearing
- Slow performance after upgrade
- Ads still showing after purchase
Requested features
6 requests- Option to turn off stalemate
- Ability to save and load games
- Notation or move history display
- More board and piece theme options
- Tutorials or strategic tips
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- Ability to play against friends
Sealed Move
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Chess Premium
No in-app purchases
Sealed Move
- Pro Coach$5.991 Month
Questions
Is Chess Premium free?
Is Sealed Move free?
Which has better reviews, Chess Premium or Sealed Move?
Do Chess Premium or Sealed Move have ads?
Which is updated more often, Chess Premium or Sealed Move?
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