10 best chess games for Android

Chess is one of the oldest board games. You can play relaxing games with friends, or you can engage with a very active competitive chess community. What’s truly remarkable about chess is that it’s easy to learn yet difficult to master. You can learn new things about this game years after first starting. If you’re here to learn or hone your skills at chess, here are the best chess games for Android that will help you do so.

Watching chess games enables you to learn advanced chess strategies and interact more with the game. Therefore, we’d like to highlight FollowChess (Google Play). While it’s not a chess game, it lets you watch chess games from most major tournaments allowing you to step up your game a bit.

The best chess games for Android

Chess by AI Factory Limited

Price: Free, Ad-free version for $0.99

Chess by AI Factory Limited is one of the most popular multiplayer games on mobile. It contains all of the basic stuff, including 12 levels of difficulty, casual and pro-play modes, achievements, leaderboards, and even cloud saving. Their interface is simple. They offer eight chessboard themes. The free version has no in-app purchases, but it does have ads. You can buy the $0.99 version to remove them. However, it is only available for Android users. Chess by Chess.com is another good app in this genre with similar features.

Chess Clash 

Price: Free, In-App Purchases from $0.99-$12.99

For lovers of multiplayer chess games, Chess Clash is a classic app to test your skills. This platform allows you to play against the grandmaster players from around the world. You can even invite your friends and family to play in a game and win exciting prizes and rewards. Chess Clash offers two modes, Classic Chess for a relaxed match and Quick Chess for a fast-paced and nerve-wracking game. Winning matches to earn coins allows you to buy fancy chess boards and pieces, some of which have unique benefits, allowing you to alter gameplay in different ways. It also supports offline play in computer mode. 

Chess Tactics Pro

Price: Free, In-App Purchases from $3.99-$19.99

Chess Tactics Pro is unlike most chess games. It isn’t much like standard chess. However, it does have tons of chess puzzles. It features offline puzzle packs (available as in-app purchases), daily online puzzles, and more. It claims the difficulty of some challenges can get to ELO 2000+ and that’s about as far up as it can go. It’s a good way to challenge your skills and learn new tactics. The game is free to download. You can purchase additional content through in-app purchases.

CT-ART

Price: Free, In-App Purchase of Full Course for $12.99

CT-ART is among the best chess games for those who want to improve their skills. It features 2,200 basic exercises, and 1,800 auxiliary exercises, which are divided into 50 topics to learn. Each exercise has a different goal and is meant to teach you different chess strategies. Additionally, the game will keep track of your ELO improvement as you progress through the app. It might be better classified as an instructional app rather than a game. However, learning all the little tactics does require you to play chess.

Lichess

Price: Free

Lichess is another one of the most popular chess games on Android, accessible through both the App Store and Google Play Store. Its main premise is playing chess online against other players. The game boasts a player base of over 150,000 players. Their vast player pool ensures that everyone can find a match against someone of a similar skill level. It also has several game modes and tournaments, and you can view your game statistics. You can also play offline against a computer bot if you choose. The app also boasts of being available in 80 languages. Its most appealing aspect is its price. It’s free with no ads or in-app purchases. The app is also open source in case you want to see how it runs.

Mate in 1

Price: Free, In-App Purchase of Full Course for $1.99

Mate in 1 is a chess puzzle game from the developers of CT-ART. It gives you 2,500 puzzles where you can score a checkmate in one move. Each one is double-checked for correctness, gives players hints if errors are made, and you can bookmark your favorites. It’s a fairly fun chess game to play to hone your skills. Plus, the number of puzzles you get for $1.99 is worth it. The game has some scoring bugs the further you go, but it does not significantly affect the overall experience.

Chess Universe

Price: Free

Chess Universe is another popular chess game on Android, although it’s available both on the App Store as well as on Google Play Store. It offers free unlimited chess games to play, online and offline. With every win, you rank up and unlock chests with amazing prizes. The higher your chess rating, the more difficult your opponent gets. Chess Universe offers 4 different game modes: easy, rapid, bullet and blitz chess. Each mode comes with its own level of specification allowing only one minute for each move. To add on, users can also visit Chess Universe’s chess lessons to learn the basics of chess.

Really Bad Chess

Price: Free, In-App Purchases from $0.99-$3.99

Really Bad Chess is one of the newer chess games for Android. It looks like a fairly standard chess game. However, this one lets you play with completely random pieces. You could have five knights and three bishops or 3 queens and 2 pawns on the board for all the game cares. The free version lets you battle it out with the AI in a few different game modes. The premium version adds a versus mode, removes advertising, adds theming, and some other minor changes. This is a chess game for those who always wondered what it would be like if delicate balance and perfect strategy didn’t matter.

Shredder Chess

Price: $3.99

Shredder Chess is not the most popular chess game on the list. However, people seem to like it. The game has over 1,000 chess-related puzzles, adjustable playing strength, and even save and load states like video game console emulators. Shredder Chess has both a desktop and an Android version. If you buy the desktop version you get the Android version for free. However, there have been reported issues with the Android version not working well. Despite its occasional bugs, the platform’s AI replicates human-like behavior, contributing to an enjoyable gaming experience.

Stockfish Engines OEX

Price: Free

Stockfish Engines OEX includes Stockfish engines 11 and 15. You can load these engines into a GUI such as Chess for All, Chess PNG Master, and a few others. You can find the list in the Google Play description for this app. People enjoy the Stockfish Engines because they are among the highest quality of any engine. This app doesn’t let you play chess. It just provides the chess engine for you to load in a different app. Still, having Stockfish 15 available for free and at will is something we think serious chess players will enjoy.

If we missed any of the best chess games for Android, tell us about them in the comments. You can also click here to check out our latest Android app and game lists.