Chess applications?

[karlth]

Coming from the Windows platform there seems to be a serious dearth of Chess application for OSX. Also when it comes to playing online on the major 3 servers: ICC, FICS and Chessbase there didn't seem to be anything available that ran on Lion.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

[ScoobyMcDoo]

I have a chess game on my mac that says it came from Apple. I don't remember if it came with the machine, or if I downloaded it later. They have the source code for this game available.

 

[karlth]

I have a chess game on my mac that says it came from Apple. I don't remember if it came with the machine, or if I downloaded it later. They have the source code for this game available.

Yes it comes with OSX but it isn't a serious chess application.

 

[JPGR_Fan]

I discovered the same thing when I started to study chess about a year ago. It is the only reason I have an MSI i5 Win7 machine sitting next to my trusty, 6 year old Core2Duo MacBookPro.

Mac playing software can be found at http://www.hiarcs.com/mac_chess_hiarcs.htm and database software at http://www.exachess.com/. For watching many important tournaments you can go to http://livechess.chessdom.com/site/.

Unfortunately, without a Win machine you miss out on Rybka and Fritz, Chessbase and Chess Assistant, as well as the Convekta (http://chessok.com/) series of training software such as CT-Art 4.0.

The good news is that while these mostly Eastern European developers have ignored Mac OSX, they are starting to develop for iOS. I particularly like playing games with tChess Pro (American developer), and ICC and ChessBase also have a presence, as well as a number of other training programs.

Hope this helps.

 

[karlth]

Thanks. I've noticed, as you say, that support for iOS is good but OSX is seriously lacking.

 

[georgee2face]

Thanks. I've noticed, as you say, that support for iOS is good but OSX is seriously lacking.

However, I have used these software packages very well in Leopard and lion in a vmware XP virtual windows.

While not as seamless as a ported application, they work fine with no problems

 

[ScoobyMcDoo]

Yes it comes with OSX but it isn't a serious chess application.

Oh.. sorry, I'm not a serious chess player. Have you ever looked at gnuchess. It along with xboard and zippy might give you what you want.. Just a suggestion - like I said I don't really know that much about the world of serious chess playing.

 

[karlth]

ICC seems to have created a very nicely designed client for the Mac:

http://www.chessclub.com/helpcenter/interface/ICCforMac.html