Comparison

Chess Problems Lite vs Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Chess Problems Lite

Sharpen your chess skills with directmate puzzles. This app offers 10 interactive problems, from easy mate-in-one to challenging mate-in-four moves. It features a revamped chess engine, a timing clock, customizable piece sets and color schemes, and social leaderboards with Facebook integration.

Highlights
  • Directmate chess puzzles
  • Mate in 1 to 4+ moves
  • Revamped chess engine
  • Timing clock for puzzles
  • Customizable piece sets and color schemes
  • Leaderboards and Facebook integration
Features
Read full description

A lite version of the Ultimate mate in 1 to 4+ chess puzzle apps! Sharpen your chess skills! Beginners and experienced players will enjoy solving these chess problems! This app has 10 interactive chess problems ranging from easy mate in one move problems to very challenging mate in four moves. The object is to finish each game by forcing a checkmate in a given number of moves. In the full versions of this app there are a much larger number of classical puzzles collected from a variety of sources. These puzzles are fun to play and can be enjoyed at your leisure on your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Chess problems are especially useful for learning to play chess or anyone wanting to improve their skills. New features added include: ------------------------------ - Completely revamped chess engine that is much stronger - Timing clock is displayed while you are working on each puzzle. How long you take to solve a puzzle is stored. - New options: more chess piece sets (total of 7) and more colors schemes (total of 7) including wood and marble. (Improved the options menu as well) - Social Gaming: Leaderboards to compare the number of puzzles you have solved with your friends and other players. Facebook integration - including the ability to post your progress and ask your friends for help on a puzzle. - Universal app - works on iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad - high resolution graphics all around (where supported). For even more chess puzzle challenges check out these apps: - Mate in 1 Puzzles - Mate in 2 Puzzles - Mate in 3 Puzzles - Mate in 4+ Puzzles

About

Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion

Master chess tactics and strategy with interactive lessons and exercises based on the games of a legendary World Champion. Improve your game with personalized coaching, hints, and explanations.

Highlights
  • 2600+ games from a World Champion
  • 260+ training exercises
  • Interactive theoretical lessons
  • Personalized coaching with hints
  • Refutation of common mistakes
  • Rating (ELO) monitoring
  • Offline play
Features
Read full description

About 2600 games played by the legendary World Champion. And about 260 exercises in which you should play like Tal. This course is in the series Chess King Learn (https://learn.chessking.com/), 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. Attack on the king 1.1. Attack on the uncastled king 1.2. Both opponents castled to the same side 1.3. Positions with opposite side castling 2. Correct intuitive sacrifices 3. Tactical blows 4. Strategical methods 5. Endgame technique 6. Tal 6.1. 1949-1959 6.2. 1960-1964 6.3. 1965-1969 6.4. 1970-1974 6.5. 1975-1979 6.6. 1980-1984 6.7. 1985-1992

Screenshots

Chess Problems Lite4 screens
Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Chess Problems Lite at none against Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion's 1. Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion's advantage is rating (4.7 vs 4.3) and review sentiment (100% vs 83%). On price, update cadence, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Chess Problems Lite asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 8 and 34 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 83% of Chess Problems Lite's written reviews are positive against 100% of Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Chess Problems Lite ships an update every 7 months, Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Chess Problems Lite versus Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterChess Problems LiteMikhail Tal. Chess Champion
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.3 (8 ratings)4.7 (34 ratings) — better
Positive reviews83.3% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings834 — better
Update frequencyEvery 7 monthsEvery 4 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS13.08.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size7 MB50 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperGano Technologies LLCChess King

Customer experience

Chess Problems Lite

All ratings8 ratings
Positive87.5%
Neutral12.5%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews24 reviews
Positive83.3%
Neutral8.3%
Negative8.3%

Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion

All ratings35 ratings
Positive88.6%
Neutral8.6%
Negative2.9%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Chess Problems Lite

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion

One-time1
  • Full course$3.99

Questions

Is Chess Problems Lite free?
Chess Problems Lite is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion free?
Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Chess Problems Lite or Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion?
Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion is rated higher. Chess Problems Lite averages 4.3 out of 5 from 8 ratings, while Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion averages 4.7 from 34 ratings.
Do Chess Problems Lite or Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion have ads?
Neither Chess Problems Lite nor Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Chess Problems Lite or Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion?
Chess Problems Lite ships an update every 7 months, and Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion every 4 months. Most recently, Chess Problems Lite was updated on October 23, 2026 and Mikhail Tal. Chess Champion on October 24, 2026.

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