Diamond Chess Online2.20 - App Store

Play chess online at FICS, the worlds oldest chess serve, play the Pulsar Engine on or offline with chess and variants like Chess960 with levels, and use the Explorer with an opening tree book based on 640k over the board games and analysis which also works offline. There is In-App help. For online play, if no account, use the Connect as Guest button to play unrated. FICS accounts are life time free accounts. Diamond supports Dark Mode and has no ads.

The On-Board program with difficulty levels available on and offline plays Chess, Chess960, and variants such as Crazyhouse, Losers and Atomic.

The Explorer Tab which works offline or online with certain restrictions while playing, offers an Opening Tree based on 640K over the board games were both players are rated over 2300. The move table view can be toggled to show analysis and PGN games including the players log file can be loaded. Openings are named after a few moves are made. There are 10 PGN game collections available in app that include Morphy 1858, Fischer’s best games, a Capablanca and Kasparov collection, and a range of game collections from classical too modern to be viewed with the opening book and analysis, on and offline.

Guests can play on FICS unrated, and watch games. FICS is the original Free Internet Chess Server, and a sign up link is given in the console when connecting to both servers as a guest as a resource if a user wants to play rated or chat. Guests and members can use the Training tab of Find a Game Board Option.

The Diamond board features engine analysis with one click when observing a game or examining one, such as when going to Actions - Examine last game. There is also has a Load PGN option which includes some grandmaster game collections that can be opened on FICS board as well as in Explorer. Diamond saves all played games. Multiple games can be up at once, with navigation through the next and previous buttons.

Diamond has chess and the server's variants such as Chess960, a form of shuffle chess known as wild fr on FICS, Crazyhouse, Losers, Atomic, and Giveaway or Suicide. Guests can play any unrated game type.

Diamond Chess has an accessible board to use with Voice Over for the visually impaired. With voice over on, if a user taps a square it will speak its contents such as "e4 empty" or "e4 white pawn" and there is a speak move with Voice Over on.

Members on FICS can join channels and chat with players online in the Diamond's Main View by tapping the Channels button. In Shouts on FICS there is also blikII, an AI bot who responds to his name. His last response to me was "blikII(TD) shouts: I appoint you ambassador to Fantasy Island!!!". The in-app help in this view has more tips on how to chat including a guide on which channels chat more.

FICS, the Free Internet Chess Server, is entirely free.

Version History Increased explorer opening book database by 295k games 2.20 08/29/2025 The on-board engine, Pulsar Chess, now writes the log of chess games in standard PGN format to be open by more apps if exported 2.10 08/11/2025 Removed the ICC connection option now that ICC has moved to a new format and no longer supports third party clients. 2.03 09/06/2024 Fix for threading issue with move animation that could cause flickering on some devices 2.02 05/07/2024 Fix for bug in new animate moves feature that it was not saving the value for that setting between runs of app. 2.01 05/05/2024 Added move animation with option to turn this off in settings
New Icon 2.00 05/05/2024 New layout for Opening Explorer on iPhone
Added cancel option to Explorer's Actions Menu 1.80 08/26/2023 Fix so Explorer view does not run over tabs on bottom 1.76 12/30/2022 Added Training Tab to Find a Game board option in place of poolbot with puzzle and endgame positions to train against and solve 1.75 01/16/2022 Fix for crash introduced when playing on-board engine 1.72 09/22/2021 Fix for Explore Tab menu on clicking actions not showing on iPhone
iPhone can now flip upside down
Updated in-app help on game collections 1.71 09/13/2021 Tab three now features an Opening Explorer based on 350K over the board games with both players over 2300 as well as engine analysis to flip to from book view. 1.70 09/11/2021 Change to help messages on login to ICC as a guest 1.69 09/03/2021 if retract move is used in an on-board engine game after move two, the game listing in log file will say unrated.
Fix so Find a Game - Seek Game has all options fitting on one screen on most devices without scrolling 1.68 09/02/2021 fix for issue that seek graph data was not correctly updated after playing or examining on FICS
On FICS now issues command unexamine if user is examining a game and goes to open Board Options - Find a Game or Seek Graph since users can't use these while examining 1.67 08/21/2021 On-Board Engine option moved to top of Connect tab, the tab that shows on App launch, for quicker access 1.66 08/15/2021 In App Help with a Help button on board and another on Main View
Now a sound for game end on FICS. there was one on ICC.
Settings re-organized
On ICC for members tab three becomes Videos to watch ICC Videos
Tournaments Options on Board for ICC Members
Fixed bug in saving the use formula setting of seeking a game view 1.65 07/07/2021 Separate Seek Graph option on board
Custom FICS server option
Seek a Game view will now persist data between app launches
Hardboard keyboard now works with diamond again fixing bug.
Additional Voice over support with the Hardboard keyboard for commands typed in the console documented in Voice Over Help in Settings tab
Safe chat features implemented with block and report and lock chat option in settings as well as clear chat.
Options to allow game console to show more chat types from main console in settings 1.60 06/24/2021 New Name
Bug fixes 1.56 11/28/2020 Option to view one channel in console
can rotate through recent commands by swiping left and right on console
An option to set a custom color for the board squares 1.55 07/19/2020 Fix for bugs in scroll back at end of a played game
Last move highlight will highlight castle moves
Option to add a channel to board console on iPad 1.50 06/20/2020 Fixed bug in play the computer were if user flipped device ( possible on iPad) the view was not updating the layout
when playing the computer chess960 games fixed bug that if computer view was closed and opened it reshuffled the board mid game but kept moves 1.42 05/21/2020 Fix for crash on FICS on console long press menu for actions like profile on a name 1.41 04/20/2020 Play a chess engine option on board available off and online
Main view, console area, better supports dark mode 1.40 04/19/2020 Black Board Background option in settings to better support Dark Mode
Tap Tap move is now default on both iPad and iPhone not Drag Move
Some tappable labels in settings made clearer they are buttons by making the text blue
PreMove now translated same in English Spanish and French, as "PreMove"
Fixes to Previous game button logic to match next game's order 1.32 04/06/2020