How can Bertie help?

No. Open the app and start the first lesson. There’s no sign-in, and your progress stays on your device.

iPhone and iPad with iOS 18 or iPadOS 18 or later. On iPhone it runs in portrait. On iPad it works in any orientation, and in wide windows the board sits beside the coach. The app is in English.

Onboarding asks how well you know chess and suggests a first lesson: All Aboard on the Foundations Line if you’re new or play casually, the Classical Line for club players, Trap Street for tournament players and Endgame Junction for experts.

Your level doesn’t lock anything, so you can start any line whenever you like.

Not after onboarding, but you don’t need to. Your level only chooses the first lessons Bertie suggests, and every line stays open.

With no time limit:

• 20 lessons: nine of the thirteen Foundations lessons, and the first lesson of every other line
• The Commute, your daily review, with no limits
• Game Checkup and the Repertoire Explorer
• Three Rush Hour runs a day
• Today’s Mind the Gap puzzle, plus two more
• The first three sparring levels, up to Club Player
• Four board themes

The first name you gave during onboarding, if you gave one. Change or clear it in Settings › Profile. Settings is the gear at the top right of the You tab.

It’s your daily review, about five minutes. Positions you’ve learned come back just before you’d forget them, scheduled by FSRS-5. Bertie grades each answer !!, !, ?! or ?, and the grade decides when that position comes back.

Set how many positions a Commute has in Settings › Practice › Commute length, and how much you want to remember in Settings › Spaced repetition › Memory intensity.

A day counts towards your streak once you earn 10 XP, going by your local calendar. The daily Mind the Gap puzzle changes at midnight, your time.

Yes: Settings › Reset all progress › Reset everything. It removes your lessons, learned positions, XP, streaks and badges, and keeps your settings, name and purchases. It can’t be undone.

Yes. Every square on the board can be played with VoiceOver or Switch Control, moves are read out, and Rush Hour gives you 3 minutes instead of 1. Most text follows your text size setting, and Reduce Motion stops the animations.

Yes. Everything works without a connection except the Chess.com lookup in Game Checkup, and buying or restoring the Season Ticket.

All 100 lessons, every Mind the Gap puzzle, unlimited Rush Hour, the County Champion, Master and Grandmaster sparring levels, and the Midnight, Royal Mile and Portland Stone boards.

It comes as a yearly subscription with a 7-day free trial, a monthly subscription, or a one-off Lifetime purchase. The Terms of Use explain how each one works.

If you haven’t subscribed before, the yearly plan starts with 7 days free. Cancel at least 24 hours before the trial ends and you won’t be charged. If you’ve used the trial already, the App Store shows the full price before you confirm.

Sign in with the same Apple Account, open the app’s Settings (the gear at the top right of the You tab) and tap Restore purchases in the Season Ticket section. There’s also a Restore purchases button at the bottom of the Season Ticket screen.

Open the Settings app, tap your name, then Subscriptions, and choose London System Chess. The Season Ticket keeps working until the end of the period you’ve paid for. Apple’s guide: Cancel a subscription from Apple.

Yes, if you had one. Lifetime is a separate purchase, so a yearly or monthly subscription keeps renewing until you cancel it.

Apple handles payments, so refunds come from Apple. Ask for one at reportaproblem.apple.com, or see Apple’s guide, Request a refund. If the refund goes through, the Season Ticket switches off.

The website shows prices in US dollars. Before you confirm, the App Store shows the price in your currency, set for your country.

Open Drills › Game Checkup. Enter your Chess.com username and tap Check my games, or switch to Paste PGN to paste or import games from anywhere else.

Game Checkup looks at up to 30 of your newest games in which you played White, and shows where each one that opened 1.d4 left the book.

Yes, as a PGN. On Lichess, open a game, choose Share & export and copy the PGN, then paste it into Game Checkup.

Game Checkup reads your most recent Chess.com games, going back up to three months, and keeps only the 30 newest where you had White. A game that didn’t open 1.d4 shows as Not a London and isn’t checked.

Only your Chess.com username, on your device, so it’s filled in next time. The games aren’t saved. The privacy policy has the details.

Bertie offers one as you start, at a time you pick. Later, go to Settings › Reminders, turn on Daily Commute reminder and pick a time (7 pm unless you change it). It comes at that time and says what’s waiting, with the first position Bertie will ask and its board, and it skips a day you’ve already finished. Tap it to go straight to your Commute, or touch and hold it for Remind me in an hour. While reminders are on, the app’s icon shows how many positions are due.

With Second looks on, Bertie also nudges you when positions you slipped on come back later the same day, never before 8 am or after 9:30 pm.

If you said no to notifications earlier, allow them first in the Settings app, under Notifications › London System.

Touch and hold an empty spot on your Home Screen, tap Edit, then Add Widget, and search for London System.

Your Commute shows the positions due and your streak, and it also comes in three Lock Screen sizes. Streak shows your streak and today’s goal.

Settings › Feedback has Sound effects and Haptics. Silent mode on your iPhone mutes the sounds too.

Yes. Settings › Board has seven themes: Study, Walnut, Thames Fog and Club Green are free, and Midnight, Royal Mile and Portland Stone come with the Season Ticket. You can turn the coordinates on or off there too.

Nothing, unless you email us. The app has no account and no server: your progress, settings and name stay on your device. The privacy policy has the details.

No. Progress stays on the device where you made it. Your Season Ticket works on both: use Restore purchases on the second one.

Moving to a new iPhone? Set it up from a backup of your old one, and your progress comes with the app.

Settings › Reset all progress erases your progress, and Settings › Profile clears your name. Deleting the app removes everything it stores, including a Chess.com username.