DGT Centaur Chess Computer

My first impression was that Centaur was bigger than expected - even though I had measured it size against a chess set before I made the purchase. It is unusual underneath (transparent showing the lights) - the opening sequence must be impressive on a glass table! All this is fine, but a slight drawback is that the pieces easily slip across the surface when the board is moved. The pieces are nicely sized but are lighter than weighted wooden pieces of the same height - though I do not consider this a significant problem. There is a small lcd display to the side of the board which is too small for my eyes at standard sized text. It is possible to make the text bigger but very little is displayed as a result. I would like the lcd display to be bigger (though it would make the device wider). It would ideally be twice the length and breadth. Having said all the above its easy to make the moves and to follow / make the moves the computer indicates - this is excellent. It is so much more pleasant than playing on a tablet or computer - I find it much easier to ‘see’ moves on a real board. I should mention that the LCD provides a view of the board so if the board is knocked its easy to replace the pieces. Clock times and a list of moves made are also shown, though as the latter only shows a few moves scrolling is necessary. Menu options allow hints to be displayed, playing black, selecting one of three levels, setting up a position and various display, sound, light and language options. It is possible to take back moves though there is no take back mode you just have to reverse the move sequence using the move list if necessary. Not ideal if you need to go back a long way. The Centaur has no connectivity so it can not be used to play games on the internet or against chess engines apart from the inbuilt Stockfish 9 engine. Of course Stockfish is one of the world’s strongest chess engines. On the Centaur the Stockfish engine reputedly delivers above 3000 ELO which means it’s good enough to win matches against the best players in the world. It has 3 levels ‘Expert’ which delivers the full power of the machine and two levels based on its in game assessment of your play. The ‘Friendly’ level might be about 200 ELO points below the player’s level while the ‘Challenge’ level might be 200 points above. This is based on my estimate of scoring 75% against the former and 25% against the latter. I have not played enough games to be sure of this for the challenge mode as I normally play at the friendly mode to get an enjoyable game with a good chance of winning! A point made in other reviews that I would agree with is that it would be better if in addition the Centaur had inbuilt levels say at 100 ELO point intervals. As always when a chess engine is ‘slugged’ to reduce its standard of play the moves it plays at times are strange (very poor) most noticeably in the end game. Having said that I never complained when a human opponent made a loosing move!

The DGT Centaur has three levels of play, a friendly level, a challenging level and finally an expert level. It’s very strong even on the friendly level, and is Grand Master strength on the expert level, it does not have 60+ levels like other chess computers because DGT wanted to make it simple and easy to use. It has a very nice setup feature, when you enter setup mode you can just remove the pieces you don’t need from the board and the display updates itself automatically, then you can just move the pieces you have left to the problem solving position you want, or a previously played position you want, and start it playing, really simple, you can of course clear the board and select the pieces you want to place from the menu. In setup mode it will not allow more than one king per side (duh) … but it did allow a maximum of fifteen queens per side (it should technically be eight with all pawns promoted), and it would play it … go figure. The board is sensitive, so you don’t have to press at all, just move the piece, and when the DGT makes a move, it lights up the ‘from’ and ‘to’ squares and you just move the piece. Despite claims on youtube about the pieces being chipped and are automatically recognised when you place them, this is not accurate, it remembers where a piece is, and when you move it to another square it will automatically update the display, but if you remove a knight from the board and replace it with a pawn, the display will still show a knight on that square, so the pieces are definitely not chipped. It’s nearly the full size of a tournament board, the board and pieces are plastic but are of very high quality, the King is about 3 1/2 inches tall. All in all a very nice chess computer … a snip at £316.95 (what I paid) including delivery.

I love this chess computer. Haven’t tried it on expert yet, can’t beat it on challenging! Make no mistake this thing would make a Chess Master cry. I was however a bit gutted because the price dropped significantly just after I bought it.

My experience with the Ceteur product wasn't great. I expected it to perform well since it’s a DGT product, but unfortunately, it didn't meet my expectations. The board started to glitch when moving the pieces quickly, making it impossible to play at a fast pace. After using it for a few days, the Raspberry Pi board kept scanning and wouldn’t stop. I tried resetting it, but nothing worked. I contacted the seller, and while they offered a refund, they didn’t have the product in stock anymore. I really think DGT should work on better testing before launching products like this.

I bought the DGT centaur to practice with at home because my chess club is only open twice a week and it's really hard for me to find people willing to play slower time controls on the Internet. USB or the included wall adapter can charge it. I recommend ordering the extra set of plastic pieces sold separately by the seller co-trade for $20 if you ever want to promote your pawns to a Knight Rook Queen or Bishop it's going to be an issue for you when you don't have them. The centaur is a better chess computer than some of the cheaper ones sold on Amazon that are designed for complete beginners and have limited elo. You don't have to install any apps on a computer or smart phone to use it and it requires no Internet connection.

Je n'ai le DGT Centaure que depuis peu mais si vous avez un petit niveau comme moi (entre 1300 et 1500 Elo sur chess .com) cet échiquier ne vous fera pas de cadeaux, 25 parties et pas gagner un seul foie... Ce produit est clairement adapté aux joueurs de club mais pas à des joueurs occasionnels comme moi. Après plusieurs mois, j'ai pu comparer avec les robots de chess et à mon avis le niveau minimum du Centaur est autour de 1600 Elo... Je trouve cela dommage...

Lo llevo usando un par de días. Me encanta. Respuesta rápida y clara a través de las luces. Lo que menos me gusta, las piezas de plástico. Sorprende un poco que no puedes elegir el nivel, sino que se supone que lo va adaptando el computador, pero la experiencia de juego es muy buena y es verdad que se va adaptando a tu nivel. Al principio yo no ganaba nada y, poco a poco, he ido ganando. Recomendable. Actualización. Lo llevo usando dos meses y es fantástico. Cuanto más lo uso, más me gusta. La experiencia de juego es increíble.

I am almost a beginner - learnt the rules when I was a kid but hardly played at all. I bought this about 6 months ago when I retired. I played about 10 games and lost them all so gave up. I then started using chess.com to do some basic lessons, do some puzzles and play some games against the computer. I can now consistently beat 850 rated computer “players” and this week I beat a 1000 rated computer player. So today I tried the Centaur again and I WON! My conclusion is that this is a great product but not for absolute beginners. It does not seem to have the ability to adjust down to a very low basic level. But now I love it! I have had no problems at all with the quality of the board, pieces or technology.