The Android port of Komodo 10.3 is now available on GOOGLE PLAY. After this update, Android equals Windows in terms of the released version.
January 29, 2017
January 28, 2017
Android UCI engine update: Ethereal 8.02 by Andy Grant
A minor update which should not imply an ELO boost. According to the author, the update adds PV tracking feature. I guess Android users will not notice anything different.
GET Ethereal 8.02 for arm7 32-bit PIE
Meanwhile, two older versions recompiled by Andy may be interesting for collectors. They were not working at the time they were released. Now the problem is fixed and they both work with Android GUI's.
GET Ethereal 7.75 for arm7 32-bit PIE (fixed)
GET Ethereal 7.76 for arm7 32-bit PIE (fixed)
In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.
Android UCI engine update: Stockfish dev't 8.0.20170121 OEX installers by Javiolo (PIE only)
These are the most recent Stockfish builds available for Android at the time i'm sharing this post.
You can download Stockfish OEX installer for PIE devices from GOOGLE PLAY.
You can download Stockfish OEX installer for PIE devices from GOOGLE PLAY.
NOPIE versions still remained on 2016.12.17:
You can download Stockfish OEX installer for NOPIE devices from GOOGLE PLAY.
In case you want to install the binaries yourself, here's a package with all architectures:
Stockfish 8.0.21070121.JV PIE (only the binaries): HERE
Don't forget that these binaries will only appear in the GUI's from which you install them, if you prefer a direct installation.
CEPA 0.5.2 by Javiolo
Javier choosed to release engine binaries in separate apps which install OEX compatible engines. Therefore, the latest release of CEPA feature several improvements on the main GUI features but nothing about engine builds. He's now recommending the installation of the Stockfish engine through the OEX installer that he's updating regularly.
I think such procedure is quite logical and effective.
- Change Engines, Oex Eng, and Analysis Revised
- Support Android 7
- Sound and Increment to probe no free
See new price
Please update SF to 20170121 release work fine with analysis.
You can get the latest CEPA from GOOGLE PLAY.
Chess Online 10.0.2 by Miroslav Kisly
This is yet another standalone app to play chess online via an Android device. It comes with an embedded engine for offline play too.
This app is not new to me and it had many updates in the past. The reason for mentioning the last release here is mainly the engine strength which increased since the previous version.
Dedicated chess freaks may install the app from GOOGLE PLAY.
Lichess 4.10.2
Lichess is the Android version of the favorite app of most online chess players. If Lichess didn't show up in Chesstroid until present day, the main reason was that it didn't have its own engine for offline play...
...which appeared to be wrong. Indeed, it had an engine on its own and time controls are available too.
So, meet Lichess for Android at GOOGLE PLAY....which appeared to be wrong. Indeed, it had an engine on its own and time controls are available too.
DESCRIPTION:
Built for the love of chess, this app is open source and free for all.
- 150 000 individual users daily and growing fast.
- Play bullet, blitz, classical, and correspondence chess
- Play in arena tournaments
- Find, follow, challenge players
- See your games stats
- Practice with chess puzzles
- Many variants, available online and offline: Crazyhouse, Chess 960, King Of The Hill, Three-check, Antichess, Atomic chess, Horde, Racing Kings!
- Game analysis with local computer evaluation
- Server computer analysis with move annotations and game summary
- Opening explorer in all variants
- Endgame tablebase explorer for standard chess and atomic chess
- Play against offline computer
- Over The Board mode to play offline with a friend
- Standalone chess clock with multiple time settings
- Board editor
- Available in 80 languages
- Designed for both phones and tablets, supporting landscape mode
- 100% free, without ads, and opensource!
Chess variants are supported, either in online and offline modes! Try them all:
- Crazyhouse: every time a piece is captured the capturing player gets a piece of the same type and of their color in their pocket.
- Chess960: pieces on the home rank are randomised.
- King Of The Hill: bring your king to the center to win.
- Threecheck: check the opponent king three times.
- Antichess: lose all your pieces to win.
- Atomic Chess: nuke the opponent.
- Horde: destroy the horde to win.
- Racing Kinkgs: race to the eighth rank to win.
Just like http://lichess.org, this application is open source, and respects user freedom. It is entirely free and without ads, now and forever.
Learn more about lichess philosophy: http://lichess.org/blog/U4skkUQAAEAAhIGz/why-is-lichess-free
Source code of the mobile application: https://github.com/veloce/lichobile
Source code of the website and server: https://github.com/ornicar/lila
Big thanks to the volunteers behind this app:
- Vincent Velociter (lead dev) https://github.com/veloce
- Renaud Bressand (design) https://twitter.com/RenaudBressand
- Thibault Duplessis (dev) https://github.com/ornicar
- Sébastien Renault (dev of native stockfish plugin) https://github.com/srenault
- Mark Henle (dev) https://github.com/freefal
Check out the app page on http://lichess.org/mobile, and follow us on twitter for updates: https://twitter.com/lichessorg
Android UCI engine update: Stockfish dev't 8.0.20170113.AP
A new Stockfish build is here to celebrate Aprijal's return. Although he's not as active as in the beginning, his arguments must have been reasonable.
Regarding my own delay to post these beauties, i always have dozens of unreasonable excuses as usual. I'd better skip talking about'em :-)
GET Stockfish 2017.01.13 for arm7 nopie
GET Stockfish 2017.01.13 for arm7 pie
GET Stockfish 2017.01.13 for arm8
Nothing compares to a relaxing smile
Hello again in through the dreary "paysage" of this freezing weekend added to the residual fatigue of a couple of hard working days at work, including a 44 hours of sleepless troubleshooting session!
Anyway, who cares about the routine troubles of life?
-Don't cry, instead laugh,
-Don't surrender, instead stand tight,
-Don't hate, instead love,
-Don't wait, instead act,
And... Especially...
-Don't forget to play chess.
Carry on!
January 11, 2017
Acid APE Chess Beta 13.2
No big deal this time, just an information to the users impacted by the feature in subject.
Beta 13.2:
- A regression in user chat has been fixed
Download latest version from GOOGLE PLAY.
Android UCI engine update: Chiron 4
The new Chiron 4 is about 70 points stronger than Chiron 3, according to the author Ubaldo Andrea Farina. Although it's an update to the engine, the Android app is a different one and will keep Chiron 3 alive on the same device. Interested users can even make two versions play each other the same way as it's possible between Komodo versions.
Chiron 4 costs 2.5 EUR only and the licence checking works exactly like Komodo via Google Play.
WHAT'S NEW (10-Jan-17):
– improved automatic tuning of the evaluation
– improved evaluation of passed pawns, mobility, opposite bishops endings
– improved forward pruning in the search
– improved LazySMP for parallel search
– support for Windows Processor Groups (more than 64 threads can now be used)
– NUMA optimization (new UCI and Winboard options “NUMA”)
– minor speed optimizations
– fixed a pondering bug
– fixed two time management bugs under the Winboard protocol
Chiron 4 is available for Windows and Android.
Buyers of the Windows version will also receive a code to get the Android one for free.
Chiron 2/3 Customers can buy Chiron 4 with a discount through the link they have reiceved. Whoever has bought Chiron 3 in the last month will receive Chiron 4 for free.
Download Chiron for Android on GOOGLE PLAY.
Android UCI engine update: Ethereal 8.01
After Jim Ablett, Aprijal has pushed the pause button too in December. Back in quiet times, we had just a few updates from Javier. That's why i'm happy to see the new version of Ethereal by Andy Grant coming with Android port included in the package.
The last update integrates the hash setting which should add more fuel in the tank. Andy estimated +20 ELO for v8.0. I guess there will be more with the hash feature of 8.01.
The Android port should give around 2400 ELO. I hope it hits 2800 soon, refering to an expression i like: "To believe is half the success".
GET Ethereal 8.01 for arm7 32-bit
In case of trouble downloading from your PC, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.
Android UCI engine update: Sayuri 2016.12.30
Yet another update of Sayuri HERE. This arm5 build dated 2016.12.30 didn't work on my devices, like many previous ones made by the author. Anyone able to get it running well, please comment here about your hardware/software environment.
In case of trouble downloading from box, use your mobile device or refer to THIS POST.
January 8, 2017
Chess Tiger 2017.01 for IOS by Christophe Theron
If you own an IOS device like iPhone or iPad, Chess Pro must be on your device. Although the app is not free and costs 10 bucks, i think it pays itself very well for any human player because the engine, the famous legendary Chess Tiger is not bad with multi thread feature (around 2700 ELO on an iPhone 5s). You must be a Top-100 GM to cope with it.
Most young chess fans may not be aware that this engine had topped the computer chess rankings many times before Fruit era, in the 90s. I remember that i've been playing with it on a Palm III, my first PDA on a monochrome screen in 1999. Oh those old days...
Beside the above average engine, the beautiful graphics and user friendly menus make this app on of my favorites on IOS.
WHAT'S NEW (Version 2017.01):
- More customized styles.
- Improved chess engine.
- New friendly features and options.
Download latest Chess Pro from iTunes
Acid APE Chess Beta 13.1
Beta 13.1:
- Fixed a problem with relayed games
Beta 13:
- Analysis can now use multiple engines simultaneously
- Sounds can now be toggled in the settings
- Vibrations have been added (disabled by default)
- Miscellaneous improvements
Download latest version from GOOGLE PLAY.
Chess Free AI 2.54
* Internal book improvement
WHAT'S NEW 2.53.1 (Updated on 24-Dec-16):
* Ad stability update
Download latest version from GOOGLE PLAY.
ChessBase Online 3.7.1.2446 ft Stockfish 8
ChessBase has released two minor updates to their app since the introduction of 3.7.1 that featured Stockfish 8. These were labeled 3.7.1.2323 and 3.7.1.2446.
I guess there's nothing but minor bug fixes not clearly announced by the developers. However, i've noticed that Stockfish builds bundled had different CRC's each time. After analyzing, i've decided they should be based on the same code but with updated compile date. I was curious about a hidden update of Stockfish to a newer version. Apperently not the case.
So can it be that the same engine source code is recompiled with every ChessBase Online build update?
Download latest version of ChessBase Onlne from GOOGLE PLAY.
Droidfish 1.66
Following 1.63 posted in Chesstroid, there have been three more updates by Peter. As i didn't write anything about 1.64.and 1.65, let me recover all three for the cost of one.
By the way, the latest features added to Droidfish makes it even more attractive. If only it could introduce engine to engine tournaments...
WHAT'S NEW (03-Jan-2017):
Version 1.66
- Spanish text to speech support.
- Workaround for Samsung text to speech bug.
Version 1.65
- Truncate long analysis lines by default.
- English and German text to speech support for move announcements.
- Made it possible to explicitly set the game result when editing PGN headers.
Version 1.64
- Opening names (ECO classification).
- Made it easier to use large MultiPV values.
- Fixed PGN file parsing problem.
- Fixed problems sharing games with other chess apps.
GET latest Droidfish from Google Play
GET Droidfish 1.66 in case you need to keep a copy in your archive
GET Droidfish 1.64 in case you need to keep a copy in your archive
Cfish 2016.12.18 OEX installer by Javiolo
After Stockfish, Javier spent valuable efforts to compile Cfish and make it part of an OEX compatible installer. Now, Andoiders may enjoy running the strongest engine available under OEX compatible GUI's thanks to Javier. The app needs Android 4.1 and up.
You can download the latest version from GOOGLE PLAY.
After installation, the engine should normally show up automatically among installed engines in these GUI's, though Javier has already reported problems with Chessbase Online.
There's however possibility to install the builds manually into your GUI in case you prefer to take control of everything. For this, GET the package including different versions of Cfish 2016.12.18
Stockfish 8.0.20161225 OEX installers by Javiolo (PIE only)
These new Stockfish builds by Javier may be considered a nice gift for the new year. Am i too late to tell this? Yes, obviously, a little bit...
Only PIE builds released so far:
Download Stockfish OEX installer for PIE devices from GOOGLE PLAY.
NOPIE versions remain on 2016.12.17:
Download Stockfish OEX installer for NOPIE devices from GOOGLE PLAY.
In case you want to install the binaries yourself, here's the package with all architectures:
Stockfish 8.0.210612125.JV PIE (only the binaries): HERE
Don't forget that if you install binaries directly, they will only appear in the GUI's from which you install them.
Mobialia Chess Free 5.3.4
- UCI engines can be used now to play against them in the offline mode:
- Added a preference option under "Offline" to choose the chess engine
- If the engine supports the UCI_Limitstrength option, the engine ELO can be chosen as usual
- Fixed a bug causing an error using the chess engine Komodo
- Fix the mate evaluation sign in analysis
- Some fixes in the PGN game list: scroll to the last game opened, load file without blocking the interface
- Added offline sections to the online sidebar
Download latest version from GOOGLE PLAY.