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Free Chess Software

Want to practice your budding skills on a silicon opponent? Playing chess against your computer is a good way to test your skills and practice tactics and strategies. Here are two free downloads that are HIGHLY recommended!

Smart Chess Viewer - Trial Version
Smart Chess Viewer is a powerful and flexible utility for replaying and annotating chess games in .pgn (portable game notation) format. Download the full version for a FREE 7-day trial period. Now you can access the millions of .pgn games stored on the internet, or simply play over your latest club victory. But this unique program not only reads .pgn game scores - with Smart Chess Viewer you can comment on every move of the game, using a complete array of graphical marks. Click here to learn more, and purchase your registered version.

Shredder for MAC
You can download a slightly restricted test version of the world champion chess program Shredder Classic MAC FREE of charge and try it out for 30 days without obligation. Shredder Classic runs on all Windows PCs with at least Windows 98. The FREE download of the chess program Shredder Classic MAC is 4 MB. You can see all the new features of Shredder 9 MAC here

Fruit 2.1
Fruit is a chess engine. If you seek maximum playing strength, Fruit is your choice!. Fruit is vice world computer chess champion and one of the strongest chess programs in the world, if not the strongest. Fruit has a unique playing style, making it a good addition to any chess-engine collection. Many thanks to Joachim Rang and Fruit Chess for allowing Chesscentral members this awesome free download. Click here to learn more about Fruit 2.2.

Chess Scan
Finally a way to get those newspaper and book diagrams into  your computer for analysis. Use Chess Scan when you want to save those diagrams in digitized format in your computer. Here is how it works:

Scan a chess diagram.
Use Chess Scan intelligent as 'OCR' tool.
Save the position as a computer readable file (FEN, EPD, PGN, BRT, TeX, ...)!

Many thanks to Gerhard Trippen for this great free download. Click here to learn more.

Keeps & Moats Chess Software
Keeps & Moats is a 4-player variation on the classic. It uses the unique Keeps & Moats game board along with adjusted movement and capture rules to create an exciting new take on chess. It plays much more like a war game than traditional 2-player chess — faster and more aggressive. Many thanks to Matt Worden for the free chess software

Fantasy Chess
Play the game of chess while transforming into fantasy creatures. Choose from different character sets for your chess pieces including dinosaurs, insects, traditional pieces, and more. This chess set is excellent for learning to play chess in that moves are highlighted and the difficulty levels (ten in all) were designed for beginner chess players. Veteran players will find it a good chess set for practicing strategic moves. Play against another person or the computer. There's also an option for setting up the board with situations. Many thanks to Dataware for the Fantasy Chess software.

Battleship Chess
The classic game of Battleship has grown up! Ships move, World War 1 submarines dive, and minesweepers sweep for mines. A simple upgrade system allows you to advance your ships as the game goes on. Choose from 5 periods in naval history as you fight single or multi-battle wars. All beautifully animated in 3D. For 1 to 2 players. Many thanks to Ape Zone for this demo.

Shredder Classic
You can download a slightly restricted test version of the world champion chess program Shredder Classic FREE of charge and try it out for 30 days without obligation. Shredder Classic runs on all Windows PCs with at least Windows 98. The FREE download of the chess program Shredder Classic is 5 MB. You can see all the new features of Shredder 9 here

Chess Endgame Training Demo
This superior endgame program is designed to teach you different endgame methods. The material written by IM ICCF Alexander Alpert. Includes more than 2450 endgame exercises taken from practical games and endgame studies. Get a great demo of how endgame training was meant to be! You can take a look at the complete version by clicking here.

Pawn V1

Pawn V2

Voice pack

Pawn is for Windows. Since there are many good chess programs available for the PC, Pawn was designed for the quick chess match in between. There are two versions available, the classic v1 and the new v2 featuring two different styles of HiRes board graphics and voice output. The strength of the program should be sufficient for most players. Both Versions include the adjustable beginner's mode was introduced which let's the computer make mistakes. Donations are accepted at Pawn's Homepage.

Winboard  4.2.7
Latest version of Winboard that is a graphical user interface for chess. It will play a good game of chess against you! It displays a chessboard on the screen, accepts moves made with the mouse, and will load and save games in Portable Game Notation (PGN).  

CT-Arts
This program is the 3rd revised and expanded edition of the ever popular Chess Tactics Art by the Russian GM of Correspondence chess, Maxim Blokh. The material was chosen for a wide variety of player strengths from 1600 ELO to 2300 ELO. The level of difficulty of the examples is aimed at beginner and intermediate strength chess players, but even masters will find themselves challenged by the hardest ones. Click here to learn more about CT-ART3.0 software program.

R3D Chess
This freeware version of "the game of kings" is not only fully 3D, but also boasts a whole host of features. Variable opponent strength, online mode via internet (including chat), replay function, undo move, and save/load game. You can even design your own pieces and appearance using publicly available tools. In addition you get full support. That should not detract you from the eye candy you are getting: Reflections, lighting, move animation and end of game sequence.

Your computer needs to be DirectX 9 compatible, have a 3d card (TNT2 or better) and run on Windows XP, ME or 98.

Version 2 of R3D Chess is already in the making and will take the game forward into becoming your all inclusive chess solution. You can find out more and get online support at
http://www.r3dchess.com/download.html or email at support@r3dchess.com. The only thing the authors ask for is a donation if you like the game. This software should not be distributed without prior permission from the authors.

Winboard
Winboard is a FREE graphical user interface for chess. It will play a good game of chess against you! It displays a chessboard on the screen, accepts moves made with the mouse, and will load and save games in Portable Game Notation (PGN).  

Many thanks to Tim Mann and  the many contributors for developing this terrific program. If you have any questions about Winboard click here for helpful hints. and click here for Tim Mann's Homepage

ChessBase Light
A MUST for anyone interested in improving their chess skills. Though you can not play against the software, it is essential for studying games and articles such as you will find in our ChessCentral Member's area. To learn more about ChessBase 8.0 the database management software click here.

ChessBase Light is basically limited to 8000 games per database. Within the 8000 games barrier there is no limit to save, copy, convert, annotate, print, search, analyze, merge and classify games. Click here for your free download of ChessBase Light

Advanced Chess School Demo
Advanced Chess School is an interactive tutorial for those players, both children and adults, who have learned the rules of chess and now wish to become stronger players. this demo contains many lessons including Basic Pawn Endings, Fundamentals of Chess Tactics, The Stages of the Chess Game and more. Click here to see the complete features of Advanced Chess School.

New Upgrade - Chess Assistant 7 Light
The people at Chess Assistant are so confident you will like their product that they have a FREE slim version of Chess Assistant. In the free version you will get:

Click here for more information about Chess Assistant

Chess Strategies Demo
A great fast way to get better at chess is to do chess exercises. This demo of Chess Assistant's Chess Strategy will give you the exercise you need! Click here to learn about Chess Strategy

NagaSkaki Chess
NagaSkaki is a free, fully functional chess program for Windows 9x, NT and XP. Features include: Opening Book, Levels like Seconds/Move, Blitz, Tournament and Beginner. Chess Clocks, Load/Save pgn files, Hash table, and shows best move and evaluation of position. A real gem!

Knight's Tour
The Knight's Tour software is a simple game of skill. The object is to move a Knight across the chessboard so that every square on the board is covered once and only once. It's not as easy as it might sound. There are multiple solutions to the Knight's Tour; however, after trying and failing to cover every square a few times, you may have a hard time believing it! A nifty program that will enhance your powers of visualization!

Some other free software we found (but have not tried!)

Chenard - Win95 by Don Cross (With Source-C++!) - also Dos Version Freeware
Crafty - by Bob Hyatt ftp site for Crafty
Gromit  - one of only two freeware programs to use endgame tablebases, by Frank Schneider
The Crazy Bishop - Freeware program, by Remi Coulom (French)

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