If youive been wanting to learn how to play Chess on your Mac, Mac OS X already comes with a very good Chess program, as noted by an article posted at Apple UK on Sunday. GNU Chess is in the Applications folder and can be set, in the preferences, to play a stronger or weaker game depending on your skill level.

Other Chess programs available for download include the venerable Chessmaster 9000 which traces its roots back to 1986 on the Mac and Sigma Chess which is free.

For those who want to meet other human Chess players on the Internet and test their skills, there is Big Bang Chess. Itis part of the games suite included with new MacBooks, iMacs, and Mac mini computers. One can even use iChatAV to find an opponent.

Many who get hooked on Chess start to follow international tournaments in which computer Chess programs play against one another. There is also the occasional match when supercomputers are pitted humans of world-class grand master caliber. In December 2006, a Mac Pro, running the Chess program DeepShredder, placed second at the 16th International Paderborn Computer Chess Championship in Germany. The winning computer, running the “Rybka” software used twice the number of cores as the Mac Pro to achieve its number one spot.

Chess programs have been very popular on the Mac going all the way back to the illustrious Sargon on Mac in the 1980s. (Before that early versions of Sargon were on the Apple II.)

Here are some resources for those interested in computer Chess on the Mac:

• US Chess Federation
• Computer Chess History
• Macintosh Chess Software
• Apple’s Chess Page

GNU Chess in Mac OS X

This article was updated by the author for clarity.