And now for something completely different: The Baronet, a free chess app!

Hi all,

This post is a bit of a departure from the usual FotoSketcher news, but I hope you will indulge me.

I have just released The Baronet, a free desktop chess application for Windows and macOS. It is a pet project with a long history: I started it almost twenty years ago after stumbling upon a book called How Computers Play Chess by David Levy and Monty Newborn. That book got me hooked on the idea of writing my own chess engine in Delphi, and I spent many evenings tinkering with it before life and FotoSketcher took over. Recently I dusted it off, rewrote large parts of it and brought it up to a modern standard.

Like FotoSketcher, The Baronet is completely free for everyone, on both Windows and macOS, with no ads and no catches.

What it offers today

The Baronet has a polished, customisable interface and can play at a wide range of strengths, from a gentle beginner level all the way up to over 2500 ELO (roughly Grandmaster strength), so it should provide a decent challenge no matter your level.

What is coming

I have plans to add learning and study features in future updates: opening explorers, game analysis, puzzles and that sort of thing. It is still early days, but the foundation is solid and I am looking forward to building on it.

For FotoSketcher users

If you ever fancy a quick break from photo editing and artistic filters, The Baronet provides a nice chess escapade 😊

You can download it for free here: the-baronet.com

I will be back very soon with more FotoSketcher news. In the meantime, feel free to let me know what you think of The Baronet!

Best regards,

David