What is the best chess viewer?
A chess viewer has become an important tool for the chess player, to the point that any serious chess player has used it sometimes. A chess PGN viewer is a program or software that allows you to reproduce chess games on an electronic board.
It gives the possibility to analyze or view chess games easily from your computer, phone, or tablet. There are many chess viewers to download, and some of them offer different features that will improve the experience.
The purpose of the chess viewer is to analyze chess games at any time more comfortably. There is no need to read long annotations and have a real chess board to move the pieces. You can simply view the games with a click and it will make the move, which is more practical.
Many chess viewers allow you to install an analysis engine, allow you to mark squares, make lines, and more. To the point that now you can do pretty much anything, you need with a chess viewer.
Keep reading this post if you want to know what a chess viewer can do for you, and how to seize it.
Chess viewers on Windows
There are many chess viewers to use on Windows, free software that you can use to train your chess even. Windows, in my opinion, is the best option to go for, the 99% of the good chess viewers are available for windows only.
You can choose from an offline chess viewer or an online one, and both offer different benefits, we’ll talk about that later…
These are some of the best chess viewers there are, following the users’ opinions based on their experience:
- Arena
- Fritz
- com chess viewer
- ChessTempo PGN file reader
Of course, there are many other options, but here, we have the most reliable ones. Two of these chess PGN viewers are online and offline, also, two of them are totally free, while the other two aren’t.
Arena: This is one of the simplest ones, free, and it allows you to use a database, chess engine, engines’ tournament, training, and playing against the machine. It has many functions, is not the prettiest, but is the “freest” you can use offline.
Fritz: It’s the best option for those who are willing to spend a little money on it, it has a lot of features to discover. All you need to analyze and practice with chess games, in one program. This is the one that professional players use, even the world champion, is extremely useful.
Chess.com chess viewer: This is known for being the best PGN file reader online, you don’t need to download it. It has a unique, and practical way to allow players to analyze their game, and has features that are fun and educational. Amazing features, but you have to pay a subscription to have full access to it.
ChessTempo PGN file reader: Chess Tempo is one of the greatest chess websites online, and is famous for the chess tools it offers. You can analyze your games, and have full access to a chess database, for free. You can also modify and create your PGN files and download them.
Chess viewers on Android
You have many options for android, and they are more practical than the ones in windows. Why? Simple: You have it on your phone, your phone is quicker and easier to use, there are many advantages to using this software.
Also, a great advantage of these apps, is that most of them are free on the Play Store or Apple store, so you don’t need to spend money. Here we have some of the most famous options for chess viewers on phone:
Analyze your chess: This app is simple and punctual, is specialized in chess analysis, and has a comfortable and great interface. You just need to download your PGN files or a database and it will be able to read them. You can also install the chess engine and have it function on the app.
Chess viewer: This is relatively new on the app store but is so practical too, you can analyze your chess games better. It comes with a preinstalled chess engine, and with some PGN files of famous games for you to try.
Chess PGN viewer: Finally, we have the PGN viewer, which is a more punctual option for those who want to save space. It’s incredibly light, and you can insert your chess PGN files and display them on a board you can personalize.
Why should I use a chess viewer?
A chess viewer will give you several benefits, in synthesis, you can improve your chess, and train using a chess viewer. You only need to know how to do it, even in chess clubs with great reach, you can see they use it to make chess lectures.
You can do this by yourself! Analyze your own chess PGN files and come to the conclusions you need. This is another topic, we are not talking about analyzing chess games on this post, but you have the idea.
Analyzing your games is necessary to grow as a chess player, and having a chess viewer will help you with that.
How to use a chess viewer beneficially?
After a tournament, you should save your PGN files of the games, or at least, have the annotation of the games in a sheet. You will use this to reproduce the games on your board, or in your chess viewer, and have the engine analyze them.
It’s recommendable you analyze first, and then, compare your conclusions with the engines’. This way you will see the difference between your play and the computers’ one, and you have an idea of what you should improve in your game.
Doing this consistently will improve your precision in-game, and it will make you see your weaknesses clearer, so you work on them.
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