Pretty good – SimpleChess (Online) Review

The app works as advertised. It loads and runs very quickly and it is great for a quick game online. The interface is clean and well designed. Response times are excellent. Stability seems very good as well. There seems to be a large number of players online all the time. I never had to wait more than a couple of seconds to find an opponent for a 3 or 5 minute blitz game. The level of the opposition ranges from beginners to strong club players. I did not see any master level or higher players. You can play for free or register ($5/year iPad or iPhone only). So registering is relatively inexpensive and you can have a rating and keep track of your games. Ratings seem oddly inflated. I am a 1700 rated blitz player but here for some reason I rank about 2200! Go figure. Some nice features are clearly missing - maybe they will be added in later versions: there is no chess engine for a quick blunder check or analysis of a previous game. There is no chat feature. And the replay feature, while present, has a very small button for playing through a game. Competing programs, such as Chess.com and Playchess.com seem less attractive to me because the former's interface and offer seem clunkier to me while the latter seems too expensive (and its free trial expires.) The only other nice alternative, in my opinion is CoreChess which works with FICS.
Review by a.becker on SimpleChess (Online).