Think Like a Master vs AI Chess
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Think Like a Master
Read full descriptionHide full description
Can you think like a chess legend? Think Like a Master puts you in the shoes of José Raúl Capablanca — one of the greatest chess players who ever lived. Study his real games, guess his moves, and discover what separates world-class chess thinking from the rest. HOW IT WORKS Each session replays a real Capablanca game from his historical record. After a short opening, you take control. For every position where Capablanca had to make a decision, you make your move first — then see how the master responded. Did you find his move? Did you find something even better? Were you close, or did you miss something critical? WHAT YOU'LL LEARN • How a world champion evaluates positions and selects moves • Which moves Stockfish considers the top candidates in any position • Where your thinking diverges from elite-level play • How to spot the tactical and strategic patterns used by the greats THE CAPABLANCA AI CHALLENGE At the heart of the app is an AI model trained exclusively on Capablanca's games — not just to find good moves, but to find his moves. The model has studied his patterns, his style, his preferences. It knows he favored clean piece activity over speculative attacks. It knows he simplified when ahead. It knows how he thought. Every time you guess a move, the AI is guessing too. You're not just competing against Stockfish's cold engine evaluation — you're trying to outthink a model built in Capablanca's image. Did you find the move the engine rates highest? Or did you find the move that he would have played? Sometimes those are the same. Often they're not. That tension is where the real chess learning happens. FEATURES • 597 real games from Capablanca's complete career • Stockfish-powered analysis shows the top 5 candidate moves for every position • AI style model trained on Capablanca's games predicts his preferred move • See when you think like the engine, when you think like the master, and when you found something neither did • Post-game report card grades your performance with detailed statistics • Deep analysis mode reveals continuations after every key decision • Fully on-device — no internet required for analysis • Covers his full career from 1901 through 1939 YOUR REPORT CARD After each game you receive a full breakdown: • How often you matched Capablanca exactly • How often your move was in the top 5 candidates • How often you found something better than the master • Your blunder count and where you went wrong MORE MASTERS COMING Capablanca is just the beginning. Future updates will bring more legendary players from chess history — each with their own AI model trained on their unique style. Every great player thought differently. Every one is worth studying. FOR ALL CHESS PLAYERS Whether you're learning the game or pushing toward a higher rating, studying master games is one of the most effective ways to improve. Think Like a Master makes it interactive — not passive. Stop watching. Start thinking.
AI Chess
Read full descriptionHide full description
Play chess against a real chess engine — one built from scratch, running entirely on your iPhone. No account. No internet required. No ads. AI Chess is powered by Andromida, our own engine written from the ground up in Swift. It isn't a wrapper around someone else's engine: the search, the evaluation, and the opening book are all ours, tuned through hundreds of measured self-play matches. A REAL ENGINE, NOT A TOY • Alpha-beta search with quiescence, transposition tables, null-move pruning, late move pruning, and reverse futility pruning — the same family of techniques the strongest engines use, implemented and measured one at a time. • Andromida starts from a 72-position opening book and quietly learns which lines work against you, favouring them over time. • Twenty strength levels and five play styles, from Passive to Aggressive — a fair fight whether you're learning the pieces or you're rated. • Two engine flavours, classic and bitboard, if you like to tinker. YOUR OWN CHESS COACH Turn on Coach Mode and every move you play is rated the moment you make it — Best, Good, Inaccuracy, Mistake, or Blunder. • On-board arrows show the move you should have played, and the reply your opponent was threatening. • Plain-English reasons: "Hangs your Knight." "Missed a forced checkmate." • Heads-up prompts before pivotal moves, so you get the chance to spot the tactic yourself. • Spoken coaching in four voices — pick the coach whose pace and tone suit you. • Every mistake is remembered. The Practice screen groups your recurring patterns and drops you back into the exact position to try again. PLAY HOW YOU LIKE • Play White, play Black, pass-and-play with a friend, or move both sides yourself in Analysis mode. • Time controls from 1+0 Bullet to 30+20 Classical — plus Custom and Unlimited for when you'd rather think than race. • Hints and live analysis, with evaluation and best-line arrows on the board. • Set up any position with the built-in editor. • Save, load, and e-mail your games as PGN. • Board themes, coordinates, figurine notation, legal-move dots, take-back and step-forward. OPTIONAL AI OPPONENTS Would you rather play a large language model LLMs? Bring your own API key (BYOK) and face Claude, GPT, Grok, Gemini and other providers — or download an on-device model and play a neural opponent with no internet at all. Your key is kept in your device's Keychain and used only to talk to the provider you picked. PRIVACY BY DEFAULT No account. No sign-up. No analytics, no tracking, no data collection. Your games, your settings, and your AI Provider API keys stay on your device. FREE AND PRO The on-device AI opponent is free to play, indefinitely. An optional AI Chess Pro subscription unlocks the Andromida engines, Hint, Analysis, and Coach Mode. Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial — cancel any time before it ends and you won't be charged. Subscriptions ; users still pay their AI provider directly for model usage. This apps is offering following auto-renewable subscriptions. 1. AIChess- Pro - Yearly Subscription - Title of auto-renewing subscription : Yearly - Length of subscription - Yearly auto renewal subscription - Price of subscription - $99.99 USD / Year - App privacy policy - https://aidigiapps.com/aichess/privacy.html and - Terms of Use (EULA) - https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ 2. AIChess- Pro - Monthly Subscription - Title of auto-renewing subscription : Monthly - Length of subscription - Monthly auto renewal subscription - Price of subscription - $9.99 USD / month - App privacy policy - https://aidigiapps.com/aichess/privacy.html and - Terms of Use (EULA) - https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: AI Chess at none against Think Like a Master's shown. On price, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement 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. Think Like a Master sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and AI Chess sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
| Parameter | Think Like a Master | AI Chess |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | — |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 16.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 72 MB | 52 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Kenneth Sparks | Mahesh Shinde |
In-app purchases
Think Like a Master
- Remove Ads$2.99
AI Chess
- Monthly$9.991 Month
- Yearly$99.991 Year
Questions
Is Think Like a Master free?
Is AI Chess free?
Do Think Like a Master or AI Chess have ads?
Other comparisons















