Me vs. Nook Color Chess App

       If you are like me, the wife has denied me television remote privileges between the hours of 6pm and 10pm on most nights which means watching stuff like So You Think You Can Dance, America’s Got (no) Talent and a series of movies where women always seem to be killing their husbands on the LMN channel.  This is where the chess app on my Nook comes in handy.
      The Barnes and Noble Nook Color and the Tablet have a chess program pre-installed.  The program is limited to just a few difficulty levels (beginner, intermediate, and expert) and you can’t make moves for both sides.  Thus you are limited to just playing games against the program.  The time controls are none, 5, 10 and 15 minutes and can be set for one or both sides. Also, I’ve noticed that, at least at the 5 minute level, it frequently exceeds the time limit.
       Despite these limitations it does play a decent game and is handy for those idle moments when you have nothing better to do…like being compelled to watch stuff like I just described on tv, waiting in the dentist’s office to get your teeth cleaned or perhaps even while sitting on the john.
       Just for fun here’s a game I played against it.  In order to give me time to write down the moves, I set my time for 10 min. and the program for 5 min.  As you will see, it didn’t have much feel for the position and it made quite a few tactical mistakes when it got short of time but, all-in-all, it can challenge you.