The 5 Best Chess Apps to Train Tactics on Your Daily Commute
The daily commute: long and laborious, or your chance to master chess tactics?
As chess grows in popularity, the apps available for learning and practice keep getting better and better. The following are the best options for transit training.
Tactic Training Tips
Before we look at the apps themselves, let’s take a quick look at how training tactics actually works. f
Learning to spot tactical combinations is a unique aspect of chess training. A focused, daily practice can quickly make you a stronger chess player, but unfortunately it takes more than playing a few games. Here are the top ways to train tactics.
Learning Motifs and Combinations
At a basic level, studying tactics comes down to recognizing a set of motifs. The list is pretty long, but it includes forks, pins, skewers, X-rays, double attacks, attraction, interference, intermezzo, and sacrifice.
A good portion of tactics is learning these motifs and how to see them on the board. Once you have this down, looking at more complex tactical combinations will help you calculate longer series of moves.
This puzzle is based on the motifs of attraction and sacrifice. Re8 is a sacrifice designed to stop the Black rook from preventing the pawn’s promotion. If Black ignores the sacrifice, the pawn is protected on its path to promotion. Black's only real option is to capture with the king, but this stops the rook from defending the back rank. This is an attraction technique, forcing the king to move to a bad square and allowing White to promote.
Related: The Best Chess Tactics For Beginners
Puzzle Training
Spotting a simple fork is one thing, but finding tactics in real games often takes more calculation, visualization, and awareness. Puzzles are a great way to practice these skills. Many of them are based on tactics, forcing you to look for moves that are not immediately obvious. Even the more positional puzzles challenge you to scan for possible tactics to rule out ideas and combinations.
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Puzzle rush apps and games are great for working on quick identification of tactics for blitz games.
Studying Chess Theory
Your ability to find and execute chess tactics in matches advances when you begin to understand theory at a deeper level. For example, strong chess players often think more in terms of important squares and activity on the board. When you learn to see the invisible patterns of possible moves on a chessboard, tactics start to jump out at you. This is why a combination that might be difficult for you or me is as plain as day to a grandmaster. Studying chess theory with a chess set or analysis board is one of the key ways you can develop these high-level skills.
The way to test your theoretical knowledge is through gameplay. That said, if you’re aiming for fast improvement, playing chess should be combined with plenty of study and focused training.
The Apps
Without further ado, here are the top apps for tactical training. Some have been selected for having multiple crucial functions for tactics training, while still being easy to use in transit. Others offer something unique or hard to find elsewhere. Explore and find the best option or options for you.
Chess.com
It won’t come as a surprise to find Chess.com on this list. This is the most user-friendly app, offering the most ways to study and play chess. When it comes to training tactics, you can use:
- The Lesson Library. This has many tactical lessons and includes interactive boards with comments from a digital chess coach and video lessons.
- Puzzles. This includes daily puzzles and puzzle rush. The unique daily puzzle is a great way to practice, as is the timed puzzle rush challenge.
- Forums and clubs with player advice. Chess.com is the most widely used chess app globally and hosts lively forums. This comes in handy when you have a specific question or are looking for advice from other strong players.
Overall, you can open Chess.com and, within a few minutes, find some very helpful material or training exercises.
Downsides:
Certain useful features for tactical training are not available on the mobile app. While you can still use the game review and analysis engine, you cannot use the full editable analysis board on your phone. Additionally, some of the coaching features and access to the unlimited puzzles are only available behind a paywall.
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Lichess
Lichess is the other major, comprehensive chess app. It offers a wide variety of features and is completely free. Most notable for its tactics training is its huge selection of puzzles and puzzle-training activities.
Under the Puzzle Themes section, at the time of writing, they are offering 6,404,540 chess puzzles. Even better, they are divided into categories and subcategories based on phases, motifs, mates, special moves, and more. The motif section is excellent; you can pick specific types of tactics and practice for hours without making a dent in the puzzle database.
Additionally, they offer:
- Puzzle Streak, in which you see how many correct puzzles you can get in a row.
- Puzzle Storm, in which you see how many you get against the clock
- Puzzle Racer, in which you compete with other players, trying to solve the game puzzles.
Lichess keeps almost all of its features on the mobile app. This includes the editable analysis board, which is not usable on the Chess.com app. Having a chess engine for mobile use is great, allowing you to set up your own positions, review previous games, and generally find your own way to train tactics.
Downsides:
In the endless Chess.com vs. Lichess debate, two of the main sticking points are the former's paywall and the latter's less user-friendly interface. It is true that the Lichess interface is a bit less intuitive and can take more getting used to than Chess.com. However, it is perfectly usable once you get accustomed to it.
Chessable
This chess app offers a huge bank of free and paid chess courses. One of the main sections is tactics, and there’s a large and diverse selection to choose from. This gives you the benefits of a real chess coach and a more human feel to your study. Many of the Chessable mobile courses are taught by top grandmasters, so there is plenty to learn even for advanced players.
The app also offers the MoveTrainer System, a special method for chess learning that quizzes you and explains moves. The Profile & Statistics page helps to gamify the experience, giving you XP and insightful data on your performance.
Downsides:
There’s plenty to learn on Chessable, but it is limited in terms of play and practice options. Combined with other chess apps, it’s a great way to learn but doesn’t give you everything in one place.
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Learn Chess with Dr. Wolf
While Chess.com and Lichess are certainly the most comprehensive options, you may want something more focused. The Dr. Wolf chess coach app is great for tailored and interactive lessons. Aimed at beginner and intermediate players, it offers AI chess coach features including audible commentary during practice games, move corrections, adaptive difficulty levels, and different coaching personalities.
The main benefit of this app is live in-game commentary. Other chess apps aren’t doing this, and it is hugely helpful to have useful advice as you play and practice. Overall, it's a great way to work on your tactical thinking.
Downsides:
The standard gameplay and beginner lessons are free, but in-game commentary requires a subscription after the free trial. It's an effective way of learning chess, but not for everyone. As such, I would recommend trying the free version or trial before purchasing the premium chess app subscription.
DGT Chess App and E-board
This is somewhat less simple and accessible than the other options, but great for high-level training. DGT is a companion app to an electronic board, like the DGT Pegasus e-Board below. This smart board with Bluetooth connectivity gives you the functions of a computer and online chess with a physical board and pieces. Basically, you can play against real opponents and engines by connecting through the app to Lichess or Chess.com.
In many ways, there is no substitute for using a real chess set. This holds true with practicing spotting and calculating tactics. If you have a good amount of space on your commute and a longer journey, this can be a great option.
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Downsides:
This is a pricier option with the need to purchase an E-board. Additionally, if you only have a few minutes to practice chess on the go, this won’t be practical for you.
Related: What to Look For When Buying an Electronic Chess Board
The Best App For Your Commute?
The best option for you depends on your commute, learning goals, and chess level. Fortunately, most of the options we’ve looked at are free or offer free trials. Download a few and see what works with your morning routine.
If you’re a regular chess player, Lichess or Chess.com will likely already be on your device. However, you may not be making the most of them. Try exploring some of their additional features, from puzzle rush to coordinate training.