Chess Coach

Chess Coach is for the club player who wants an opening repertoire they can actually rely on.

Pick an opening. Play it against the coach. The coach answers from a real opening book rather than from an engine, so the game stays in the opening you came to learn instead of wandering off after three moves. When the book runs out it says so, and from there you keep playing to try to win against an engine set to whatever strength you choose.

TWENTY TWO OPENINGS, TEN OF THEM FREE

Free as White: Italian Game, Ruy Lopez, Queen's Gambit, Scotch Game, London System.

Free as Black: Sicilian Defense, French Defense, Caro-Kann Defense, Scandinavian Defense, King's Indian Defense.

Those ten are the openings that actually turn up in club games, so the free half of the app is the half most people need.

Premium adds twelve more. The English, the Vienna, the Catalan, the King's Gambit and the Four Knights as White. The Nimzo-Indian, the Slav, the Queen's Gambit Declined, the Pirc, the Modern, the Dutch and the Alekhine as Black.

REAL VARIATIONS, NOT ONE LINE

Every opening carries its real variations. Drill one on its own when you want to nail a specific line, or play the whole opening and let the coach vary its reply so you meet everything you would actually face over the board.

A DIFFICULTY THAT MEANS SOMETHING

Five levels, set on Stockfish's own rating scale rather than an arbitrary slider. Gentle makes mistakes you can punish. Steady plays like a solid club player. Sharp punishes a loose move straight away. Tough is strong enough to be a real test. Full strength is the engine holding nothing back.

PROGRESS THAT IS ABOUT LINES

Play a line twice and it shows up as solid or as needing another pass. No streak counter, no invented rating, no dashboard to decode. Just which lines you know and which ones you still do not.

BUILT TO BE OPENED

Light, quiet and simple. No ads anywhere in the app. Signing in takes an email address and nothing else, and you can delete that account from inside the app whenever you want.

Premium is one monthly subscription that unlocks the other twelve openings, lets you ask the coach for the move at any point rather than only inside the book, and keeps your whole history instead of the last week. Cancel whenever you like and the ten free openings stay exactly where they are.