En Croissant

Chess is a sport that has seen a noticeable rise in popularity in recent years, no doubt in part due to a certain Netflix show, as well as the efforts of various streamers to make the game more palatable to a wider audience.

En Croissant happens to have quite the name for a chess GUI. If you’re interested in a program that offers you the chance to play against an engine of your choice, analyze a game or position, train your skills through puzzles, and explore populous databases , this one’s a very polished solution.

Chess is indeed difficult, but if you’re willing to hone your skills and adapt your strategy when a game calls for it, the feeling of accomplishment you get when you prevail is unmatched. In this situation, you can play against any engine you wish, with Stockfish, Komodo, and Leela being the main options, but you may also import the ones from ChessDB and Lichess Cloud. Local engines can likewise be used.

You can play as many games as you desire to see how you stack up. Note that some engines let you configure them quite extensively: you can modify Stockfish’s ELO, skill level, overhead, probe limit and depth, and much more. For starters, changing the ELO should be enough to increase or lower the difficulty.

Learning from your mistakes is paramount in chess, primarily if you want to improve your game. Downloading an engine will enable you to analyze any matches or positions you want, giving you just the pointers you need to advance your understanding of the game.

The engine will run cost-benefit analyses for each move on the board, inform you on the most optimal moves, and generate a report you can revisit anytime.

Training through puzzles is another possibility, with the Lichess database being the only available option at the moment. Even so, you can customize the rating range to get puzzles appropriate to your knowledge level, and there’s generally a wide enough variety that will prevent you from getting bored.

The database menu is interesting in its own right. Their selection may seem limited at first glance, but a quick look at the games and players for each option should dispel that notion right away. This menu should facilitate studying pro players, and why not, learn something you can apply yourself in your future games.

En passant memes aside, En Croissant is a very well-put-together software application for anyone interested in chess. Whether you’re looking to play against some computer engine, analyze your games, do puzzles, or study the pros, it’s quite impressive how this one app manages to encompass it all under a single interface.