SmallFish Chess for Stockfish

Really impressed so far! I will always support a developer who respects user privacy.

Excellent chess game for iPhone, better than all other free apps I have tried; able to use independently of Internet connection. Some other games only work in sideways “landscape” mode (3-D is pretty but not for me) and/or bombard the user with stupid annoying advertisements; Smallfish is very clean and honest. Another app I tried prompted (after the first Book opening) to “Upgrade to Pro to play against the engine”. How dumb is that? Moves are created in PGN format; game may be repositioned to any prior move at any time. Some other chess apps do not show previous moves. Moves may be exported (copied) to clipboard and pasted to Notes app; from there may be imported to any other chess engine. May also be saved to in-app game files library. Play against SmallFish engine with 19 levels of difficulty or 2 player with full engine analysis available. Solve any chess puzzle; use blunder checking feature to learn and improve your game. Reset board to original starting for any game or puzzle while not deleting the moves. Auto-play the game for review. Insert comments in the PGN moves at any point for any move. Analysis graph allows you to touch the graph and reposition the game to where you sank the boat. Big thanks to Ted for recent update to import PGN files without headers. Some improvements/fixes should be considered: 1. There is no Resign or offer to Draw feature to end the game. Also engine should offer to resign if checkmate is imminent; 2 or 3 moves to mate? Engine will Draw if same position repeats 3 times. Take back move to before the draw to consider alternate moves. 2. The game board for Setup position is missing row/column coordinates labels. Default position is White at the bottom. (This was fixed early in 2024, thanks Ted! 3. Blunder checking feature inserts line feed for every move after standard book opening resulting in lengthy text file; suggest (user option?) a line feed only after maybe every 10 full moves to visually be more appealing? 3a. Option to “cleanup” all comments and annotations inserted by Blunder Check? Yes there is! Start Blunder Check and immediately hit “X” to stop; all Blunder Check comments are removed. 4. The ••• dots to access Comments, Auto-Play and Blunder checking features menu could be placed in a different area other than directly nearly over-laying the right side of the PGN moves. 5. Other Cosmetic Visual improvements: 5a. Allow chess board to be sized a bit smaller and have the row/column coordinates labels to be outside the board squares, or a choice between overlapping board or outside of board (?) 5b. Time controls are annoying; can they be turned off completely? Clock does not affect who wins or loses; some other apps rudely end and lock the game when clock expires. 5c. Most playing difficulty levels have duplicate descriptions without the corresponding ELO rating levels indicated in the exported PGN files; not that it is important but would be nice not to have to edit these descriptions so I know what level range I constantly lose to. 6. Some clarification could be provided to further explain the settings for Shorten Analysis, Analysis Time and Threads in the Options for the impact on battery drain and engine strength. I have experimented with most of the free apps available and Smallfish is by far the best. Free, no ads, no crashes, import/export any PGN file. In summary this is a top notch awesome game.

You’re going to love it!