Chess

The best mobile app for chess lovers! only for Android mobiles, and with lots of possibilities:

Play against AI

Selectable ELO Levels to adjust playing strength, from 1000 to 2100, on 50 ELO points steps
Selectable time per move: changing the ELO and the time per move, lots of difficulty levels can be selected
Opening book with more than 30.000 positions: ensures variated funny games
Can undo/redo all moves (you can also undo/redo moves by making a gesture from left to right/right to left on any unused part of the screen)
Send PGN by email: This way, you can analyze later your games on your PC
Graphical setup board, also can edit position’s FEN notation
On closing, saves the current game and it is loaded when the application is restarted

Play Online

Play on internet at freechess.org (FICS) or at chessclub.com (ICC)
Play as guest or as a registered user (on ICC only as registered user)
Seek/offer match rated and unrated
View seeks posted by other users. Can sort seek list by username, rating or game time
Takeback, draw, abort, resign and rematch options when playing
Console to see server output and to send commands, also for chatting with other users
Play, Finger and observe, can also observe LectureBot on FICS or play ProblemBot on ICC
Examine games (works with puzzlebot or the “exl” command to examine your last played game)
Timeseal (FICS) and Timestamp (ICC): avoids lag problems
Option to confirm moves before sending to the server. Forward and Backward buttons are converted on Confirm/Cancel buttons

Chess Problems

2900+ chess problems to solve looking for the best moves: problems collected by Uwe Auerswald, from Germany
Selectable problem difficult (Easy, Medium and Hard Problems)

And with the Best Interface

Clean, simple and intuitive interface (options appear after pressing the “MENU” key)
Move by dragging and dropping the piece with useful guide lines
Also move by tapping the origin and the destiny squares or with the trackball
Portrait and Landscape mode
Shows legal moves (as yellow traslucid squares)
Highlights last move (with a yellow arrow) (may be disabled with a settings option), also move hints (as a green arrow) after a request in the menu
Four piece sets (Merida, Leipzig, Berlin and Staunton) and five board styles (Blue, Brown, Gray, Marble and Wood)
Shows a dot on the side to move (the point is of the moving side color) and can show board coordinates
Shows captured pieces advantage for each one of the sides (as an example if black captured 3 pawns and whites 2, it shows an advantage of 1 white pawn for blacks)
Speak moves, checks and game results
Sound and vibration
Option to keep the screen on when playing

It is on sale at the Android Market by 1.99 EUR or at SlideMe.org by 2.49 USD.

There is also a free version “Mobialia Chess LITE” with the following limitations:

Only the highest ELO level (2100)
Only the “1 second per move” level
Play on FICS only as guest (ICC only in the paid version)
Supported by Ads

It’s proudly powered by our Open Source Chess Engine Carballo, so any comments about its gameplay will be welcome.

Support

Please send to chess@mobialia.com all the comments, bugs and feature request.

History

Version 3.0: The new 3.x series start with the support for ICC, and many other improvements:

Support to play online on chessclub.com (ICC) with all the options already avaiable on FICS (timestamp, observe, examine, etc.)

New engine Carballo 0.5, 150 ELO points stronger than the previous version

Selectable ELO level for the engine from 1000 to 2100 ELO points in 50 points ELO steps

Graphical setup board

Solves a draw by threefold repetition detection bug

When choosing to play a problem on “play vs android”, marks the “alternate” option on the Opponent setting to play the puzzle with the winning color

Option to disable the arrow showing the last move

Solved bug rotating 270 degrees on Android 2.2

Solved a bug when playing offline and receiving a incoming call, sometimes game was lost THIS BUG IS NOT SOLVED IN THIS VERSION, WORKING

Solved a problem with the gin variable on FICS: now is set to 0 on connecting

And other minor bugs…

Version 2.9: Ending the 2.x series, trying to solve remaining bugs and adding some minor features:

Now you can move the app to your SD card on Android 2.2

New clocks code, when screen gets blank or other activity start, clocks continue to run in background

Added 3 and 7 seconds move time when playing vs Android

Solved force close when setting an incorrect FEN

Removed the black square on d5 when starting a new game or a new chess problem

Chess Problems

Problem summary to be a toast

Included a new menu option on problems “Play Position” to move the current position to the “Play vs Android” board

Online Play

Now you can examinate games (i.e. for puzzlebot or with the “exl” command)

Adjudicate game when clock reaches 0 (autoflag)

Seek dialog now remembers the last seek from the last time

Sometimes, playing on fics with black, the board does not autorotate: changed the method used to rotate

While in view seeks->console, if status changed to playing, go to the board OK

Solved some FCs with NullPointerException

Version 2.8: A big effort to solve all bugs and include petitions from users:

Auto-flip board when playing human vs human

BUG: Clock fails in human vs human mode

BUG: Do not show promotion dialog if invalid move

Allows to pick up pinned pieces or any of your pieces that can’t move, but when dropping set the move as invalid

Background issues: removed background

Online play:

List of pending offers

Reconnect button also when playing

Chat in tabbed console, also supports receiving kibitzes

User finger

New checkbox option in the settings “Confirm Moves”. When checked asks confirmation for each move (the forward and backward buttons change into a confirm/cancel buttons)

Observe games. Can also observe LectureBot

Timeseal option now enabled by default

Seek list sorting configurable by a settings option: by username/by rating/by game time

Seek list shows when a seek is set to manual accept

Seek list styling

BUG: Seek list now distinguish between computer, guest, titled, and registered

Console: word wrap

Console: don’t show seeks

Version 2.7: New features:

Setting to turn off the display sleep timer when using the app

Dialog to ask for promotion piece

Online Play

Timeseal (avoids lag problems)

Removed unregistered title

Continuous gc after closing fics connection (draining battery)

Seek Dialog: manual accept, ratings range and use stored formula options

Version 2.6.1: Version 2.6 had a bug involving forward gesture detection: tapping on any part of the screen was interpreted as forward.
Version 2.6: Lots of changes, many thanks to all the people who contributed with their ideas (some remain for the next version):

On screen backward and forward buttons. Undo removed from menus. Now you can also redo moves in offline and problems

Captured pieces in portrait mode moved up to fit buttons

Sound as an option in preferences

Online Play

Seek list is now refreshed each 5 seconds, makes easier to select a mach offer

FICS console should now stays at the end of the buffer when moved to the end

Now shows player titles (unregistered, computer, GM, etc)

Confirmation to abort/resign the match when pressing back

Takeback option, asks in a dialog if you are going to takeback a half-move or a complete move

If you are checkmated the notification completely obscures the chess board, now you can show the board again with a new button

Chess Problems

Option in Settings to not auto-play problems when best move found, now lets you go investigating move by move

Bugs Solved

Send PGN by email failed on some mobiles. Now saves a mobialia_chess.pgn in the root of the sd card before sending it

Online play en passant not working

FICS reconect failed sometimes

FICS Console failed with an OutOfMemory error

Solved FICS Check after leaving check and duplicated notifications

Version 2.5: Renamed from Carballo Chess. Improvements on FICS play: new match offer, rated/unrated on lists and seek/match offers (disabled for guest), draw and abort offers when playing… Thanks a lot to Steve for his good ideas, I will continue, to work.

Mobialia Chess in Other Pages