Let’s face it: Chess is pretty geeky. Then again, so is the iPad (c’mon, it is). Blend the two though, and you’ve got…well, let’s just say that playing chess on an iPad at your local coffee hangout is a Wookie’s fingernail-width less geeky than insert-hyperbolic-geek-stereotype-here.
Who cares though; with its portability, large screen and potential to reach all 600 million chess players around the world, the iPad is the ultimate gadget for playing electronic chess, and the free Social Chess app is the way to play.
As its name probably suggests, Social Chess addresses the social aspect of chess (yes, there is one) better than any other chess app for the iPad — the most important facet of this socialness being the integration of the sophisticated Elo rating system that ranks players based on the value of their wins and losses; for instance, wins against a lower-ranked player would count less than a win against, say, IBM’s Deep Blue. That’s probably the biggest draw, but there’re a lot of other little nuggets that make the app worth checking out. No iPad? No problem — Social Chess works just as well on the iPhone.
When he was eight, Eli Milchman came home from frolicking in the Veld one day and was given an Atari 400. Since then, his fascination with technology has made him an intrepid early adopter of whatever charming new contraption crosses his path. He calls San Francisco home, where he works as a journalist and photographer. Eli has contributed to the pages of Wired.com and BIKE Magazine, among others. Hang with him on Twitter.
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