Brass Pawn: Chess Trainer

Almost everybody who plays chess would like to get better at it. Almost nobody has somebody sitting beside them who can say why a move worked.

Brass Pawn is that seat. Play a move and it is read straight away: the stronger move named, what it was worth in pawns, and the line that would have followed. Turn the values on and every square you could move to carries its own number, so you can weigh a move before you play it rather than wonder about it after.

TWO ENGINES, NOT ONE Stockfish and Reckless both live inside the app. Pick one in Settings and it plays, grades and labels everything; switch and you have a second opinion on the same position. They are not the same opponent — Stockfish can be asked to play anywhere from about 1400 upwards, Reckless plays at full strength or not at all.

FOURTEEN THOUSAND PUZZLES, CHOSEN FOR YOU Tactics picked from what you have been finding hard rather than at random. Rush, for when you want the clock. Fifteen endgame drills against an engine that will not let a draw slip past you. A hundred and sixteen positional exercises. And Guess the Elo: sixteen hundred real games, and you say how strong the players were. It is more fun than it sounds, and harder.

NINE HUNDRED GAMES WORTH WATCHING Every one decisive, between two named players, and either finished inside twenty-five moves or famous enough to have a name of its own. Look up a player, watch the game unfold, and when you reach a position you would have played differently, take it over and carry on from there yourself.

SOMEBODY REAL, ON THE CLOCK Game Center finds you an opponent who chose the same time control — 3, 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes. It is the one mode with no engine anywhere near it: no hints, no move values, no coaching, because help that only one side gets is not a game. There is no server; the two devices talk to each other and both run the rules.

A BOARD YOU WANT TO LOOK AT A photographed set on a lit board, in the round or laid flat, with nine board styles and five piece sets. Set a position up by hand or paste a game in, and carry on from there.

NOTHING LEAVES THE DEVICE No account, no sign-in, no analytics, no advertising. Both engines run on your phone, so all of it works with the aeroplane mode on. Nothing is collected, which makes for a shorter privacy policy than most. Thirty-one languages.

WHAT IS FREE Playing is free and stays free: against the engine, against a real opponent over Game Center on the clock, and all nine hundred games in the library, with no limit on any of it. The training is what is metered — five a day of each kind, enough to see whether it suits you, resetting at nine each morning. A subscription lifts the limit. There is no advertising at any point.

Brass Pawn is open source, under the GNU AGPL v3.

SUBSCRIPTION Playing is free and stays free, with no limit and no advertising. Brass Pawn Pro lifts the five-a-day limit on training; there is a monthly subscription and a one-off unlock that never renews.

Payment is charged to your Apple Account on confirmation of purchase. A subscription renews automatically unless it is cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period, and your account is charged within the 24 hours before it renews. Manage or cancel it in your App Store account settings.

Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://brasspawn.com/privacy