Developer David Horne discussed 1K ZX Chess and published the full source code as a type-in program in a series of articles in Your Computer in 1982 and 1983.

It approved of the computer displaying moves while considering them and noted "the skills which went into writing a chess program in 1K of machine code.

The magazine praised the game's quick loading speed, and found that it "makes its moves very fast for the amount of memory available for it".

[3] Home Computing Weekly gave the game three out of five stars, criticizing the confusing user interface but stating that "it still produces play which needs some thought to beat".

While describing 1K ZX Chess' quality of play as "so appalling that it would be hard to make it beat you" and criticizing the backward algebraic notation, he concluded that "the program is nevertheless a fantastic technical achievement".