Note: we get nothing from this blog post financially. This review is our own.

So it's a straight-forward question. Do you play Chess? If so, this article is for you, if not, this article is more for you. Maybe the better question to ask do you want to be better at chess? either learning the basics or learning specific openings. Well, we just got a new electronic chess board that is amazing.

The Chess Up board from Bryght Labs is one of the most impressive pieces of gaming hardware we've seen in awhile. It all started with a question of She-Hawk. "Do you want a chessboard?" She had been learning chess via various apps including duolingo (yes, they do a chess teaching tool as well as languages). The response we got was " I only want a chess board that lights up with all valid moves when I touch a piece" 

I took that as a challenge... admittedly not a hard challenge, but a challenge and I started searching the internet. I stumbled upon ChessUp Version 2. These guys had been on Shark Tank and got funded. So we bought a board. We also got the checkers and the promotion pieces along with a canvas bag. Heck we are a sucker for a bundle...

Man oh man... this is no normal chessboard. Not only does it light up the squares with all valid moves as requested, but it does so much more.

First, it officially supports chess.com matches both rated and non-rated games. So you can play games against online opponents (friends or random matches) and you can play OTB (over the board) while they play online. As the online move their pieces, the board lights up with their moves and the OTB player moves thier pieces. Conversely the OTB player takes a move and that is reflected online.

We just played our first game against each other in this way to see how it worked and it was surprisingly quick and flawless. In fact, of the half dozen games we'e played so far, it was the only game I won. we'll get to the reason's why in a second.

Second, two player matches are more fun especially when you have one person who knows chess and the other who is learning. This is the case with myself and She-Hawk. I know the basics of chess and she is learning. So in a two-player game you can apply Artificial Intelligence in 1-6 levels of skill to either player. For our first match, I played with no assistance and we set She-Hawk at Grand Master Level. Let's just say the match lasted under 5 minutes. Now the board does not immediately tell you which move is the absolute best move take, but on Grand Master level if you go around touching every piece on your turn, only one piece will show a green square as a valid move. This is the move a Grand Master would take in that situation. It also shows purple square (where you start from), blue (good valid moves), or red (bad valid moves). 

Now you are free to take any move you want and the AI will adapt to your move. Each of the weighted Chess pieces has a small microchip in the base that interacts with each square on the board. 

For the next game we brought She-Hawk's AI assistance down to Advanced. This shows multiple green squares (good moves) across all the pieces. We also added AI to my side up to intermediate and for myself, green was good moves, but not necessarily the best move, which balanced the game out between us.

The third amazing thing about this board, Lessons. Built into the ChessUp app are video lessons showing a board with a instructor. Not only do the lessons happen in the app, but if you have board turned on, the board will also light up and you can physically follow along. This works also to pause the narration until you put the piece where the lesson wants it. We have noticed occassionally a random square lights up and sometimes we have to place a piece on that square to advance the narration automatically. You can get around that by hitting the play button in the app though. The lessons cover everything from the basics to the openers to the more obscure rules... "En passant" (which I had no idea about). 

Fourth, do you not have any friends online at the moment or just want to play a game of chess by yourself? Well... Bots are the answer. You can use either the Chess.com bots or the Chess Up bots and you can set their level. All you have to do is move their pieces.

Finally, you want to make sure all the rules of chess are followed and you don't accidently break a rule, this chess board keeps you honest. It only shows legal moves, does not allow illegal moves and never allows you to put your king in check intentionally. Also if you are in check, you must get out of check either by taking the piece that is checking you, blocking it, or moving your king. 

One additional nice feature is that you can set the number of hints you can ask for in a turn. so you can set it to allow 1-6 hints and it will remember the pieces you touched for AI assistance but after your hint limit you only see the valid moves of the rest of the pieces.

Overall this is an amazing chessboard and not only does it allow two people with different skill levels to play each other, essentially offering a handicapping mechanism but players can play alone and hone their skills by playing bots of various skill levels. Oh and I didn't talk about checkers... basically you just set it to checkers mode and put the pieces out. It shows only valid moves (no AI assistance yet) and makes sure you play by the rules. As in if you take your finger off a piece, you can't go back. Or the force jump rule... If you have a valid jump you must take it!.

Again we do not get anything for reviewing this board or any of our other reviews. That said, check out their website if you want to know more https://playchessup.com