Masterful Aesthetic.
Powerful Analysis.

Analyze, train, and play with full-strength Stockfish 18 and Maia (LC0) engines — entirely offline, no account required — on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android.

Game setup screen
Gameplay screen
Analysis screen
App screen

Elevate Your Game

Dual-Engine Analysis

Full-strength Stockfish 18 for tactical precision and Maia (LC0) for a human-like neural perspective — both running locally with zero network lag.

Top move lines Stable engine sync Skill + Elo

Fully Offline & Private

No account, no server, no data collection. Every game, analysis, and puzzle lives entirely on your device.

All data on device Auto-save progress No duplicate saves

Opening Book

Polyglot-format opening book with ECO classification provides in-game guidance and post-move opening review.

Fast book lookup Varied book moves Win/draw/loss stats Pro game metadata

Tactical Puzzle Training

Seven puzzle modes including personal blunder extraction from your own games, Streak, Storm, Blind, Thematic, and No-Tactic modes.

Fast theme filter 8-step review cycle Move quality labels Personal puzzle generation

Intelligent Sparring

Play against local engines with adjustable difficulty from beginner to master strength.

21 skill levels Maia Elo presets Time-aware engine moves

Hint & Threat Visualization

Green hint arrows show the best continuation; red danger arrows expose threats — all driven by live engine analysis.

Sticky helpers Deeper hint quality Check-safe threat view Multiple arrow types

Flexible Chess Clock

Choose from five time controls — Sudden Death, Increment, Delay, Hourglass, and Zen — before each game to match your preferred pace.

Smooth live clock Start on first move Hourglass time transfer Zen count-up clock

Game Library & PGN Tools

Store thousands of games locally with full PGN and FEN import/export support.

Rich game search Full PGN compatibility Time control in PGN Duplicate game protection

Chessnut Board Support

Native BLE connectivity for Chessnut Air and GO boards with LED highlights, RFID piece recognition, and move synchronization.

Takeback window Battery level LED animations Smart board detection

Every Way to Play

One interface, three modes — each purpose-built for a different kind of session.

vs Engine

Face Stockfish 18 or Maia (LC0) with adjustable difficulty. Choose your side — white, black, or random — and configure a clock before the game begins.

Maia Elo presets 21 skill levels Natural move pacing

Two Players — Local (Mobile)

Pass-and-play on one mobile device with three board orientation options and an optional helpers toggle for casual games.

Shared perspective One fixed board — both players look at the same orientation.
Flips each turn Board rotates automatically after every move so each player always sees their own side.
Dual boards Two simultaneous boards displayed side by side, one mirrored per player's perspective.
Per-player controls Shared center toolbar Dual-board layouts

Analysis Mode

Load any saved game or imported PGN and step through every move. Navigate backwards and forwards freely, and launch a live game from any position mid-review.

FEN import Auto-fix castling rights Auto-fix incomplete FEN Replay move history
Two-player game setup
One-player game setup
Time control picker

The Training Room

Seven specialized modes to sharpen every dimension of your tactical skill — rated and tracked entirely on-device.

Unlimited

No time limit, no lives. Puzzles are drawn from a continuously refilling queue matched to your Glicko-2 rating. Train at your own pace indefinitely.

Adaptive rating updates Stable rating range Confidence-based scoring

Streak

Keep your streak alive through four escalating difficulty phases — from easy openers to puzzles 400 points above your rating. One wrong move ends your run.

Saved high score Up to 2x combo

Storm

Solve as many puzzles as possible before the clock hits zero. Consecutive correct solves without hints earn time bonuses. Three lives keep the pressure on.

3 min (configurable) +3s combo bonus High score

Thematic

Focus drill on a specific motif — fork, pin, skewer, back rank, and more. Puzzles are filtered by theme and tightly matched to your current rating band.

Fast theme search Theme accuracy tracking

Personal Blunders

Puzzles generated from your own game history — positions where Stockfish flagged a blunder or critical mistake. Train the exact moments that cost you games.

Difficulty from mistakes Engine-verified spots No repeat extraction

Blind

Memorize the position during a brief timed window, then the board disappears. Solve entirely from memory. Harder positions with more pieces get a longer window.

Dynamic memory timer Guided blind phases

No Tactic

Half the positions are genuine tactics; the other half are quiet, non-tactical decoys. Identify which is which — this mode trains pattern recognition over impulse.

Real decoy positions No obvious mates Complex positions only Randomized mix
Puzzle board
Puzzle list
Puzzle settings

Progress & Tracking

Glicko-2 Rating

Every solve and failure updates your puzzle rating using the full Glicko-2 algorithm. Rating deviation narrows as you play more, giving an honest measure of tactical strength.

League Progression

Earn lifetime points across all modes to climb five leagues: Wood → Stone → Bronze → Silver → Legend. Points scale by difficulty and reward consistency, with combo multipliers up to 2×.

Spaced Repetition

Puzzles you have solved before return on an 8-level interval schedule — from 4 hours up to 6 months. Solve correctly to push the interval out; fail and it resets to reinforce the gap.

Your Analysis Toolkit

Configurable assistance for every skill level — enable what helps you learn, disable what you want to earn.

Hints

Tap for a one-shot green arrow showing the engine's best continuation. Long-press to enable sticky mode, keeping hints visible across moves until you turn them off.

Position-accurate hints One-tap hints Hint-aware scoring

Threat Visualization

Red arrows expose your opponent's most dangerous available threats. One-shot or sticky — the same toggle pattern as hints. Suppressed automatically when you are in check.

Opponent threat scan One-tap threats

Continuation Lines

See up to three engine-suggested best move sequences at configurable depth. When Maia is active, a single human-like continuation is shown to reflect natural play rather than engine-optimal moves.

Chess notation lines Smoother updates Ranked move lines

Per-Piece Move Eval

Select any piece and each legal target square shows a score chip — the resulting position evaluation or the net gain/loss relative to the board's current state.

Fast square evals Instant + refined results Correct side perspective
Hint arrows
Continuation arrows
Threat dots

Uncompromising Performance

Gambito runs local, full-strength engines — Stockfish 18 for deep tactical accuracy and Maia (LC0) for neural, human-like play. No server lag, no compromised evaluations.

  • Smart Power Management: Analysis pauses automatically during move calculation and resumes instantly — preserving battery life without sacrificing strength.
  • Bundled on Desktop: macOS, Windows, and Linux ship with engines pre-installed. No setup required — just open and play.
  • Native on Mobile: iOS and Android build engine support directly into the app for full offline performance without any third-party dependencies.
SF-18

Help & Support

Do I need to install anything extra to use the engines?

No. Stockfish 18 and Maia (LC0) are bundled directly inside the app on all platforms. Open Gambito and the engines are ready to go — no additional downloads, accounts, or configuration needed.

Is my data private? Does it work offline?

Yes — fully. All engines run locally on your device, all games and puzzles are stored locally, and no data is ever sent to a server. No account is required to use any feature.

Why does engine analysis pause when I make a move?

On mobile, the app shares a single engine between playing and analysis to keep battery usage low. When you make a move the engine focuses on calculating the response, then analysis resumes automatically once the move is complete. On desktop this does not apply — playing and analysis run independently at the same time.

How do I get puzzles from my own games?

Play any game against the engine — Gambito automatically detects blunders and critical mistakes as you go. Those positions are saved to your Personal Blunders pool and immediately available in the Personal Blunders puzzle mode whenever you want to revisit them.

How do I import or export games?

To import, hold down the New Game button — a dialog will appear where you can paste a PGN or FEN string. To export, open any saved game and choose Export PGN. All game data stays on your device.

How do I enable sticky mode for hints and threats?

Long-press the Hint or Threat button to toggle sticky mode. When sticky mode is on, the arrows remain visible on the board after each move until you tap the button again to dismiss them. This is useful when you want continuous guidance throughout a game.

How do I connect a Chessnut board?

Open Settings and navigate to Board Connection. Make sure Bluetooth is enabled, then tap Scan. Supported devices — Chessnut Air and Chessnut GO — will appear in the list. Tap to connect. The app will detect pieces via RFID and sync board state automatically.

How do I contact support?