Play Chess Online with other players. See game instructions below.
Loading chess…
Gameplay
- Players type their name, which shows next to their side along with the pieces they’ve captured.
- Find a match, Create a game, an open-games lobby and invite links work the same as in the checkers plugin. Colors are assigned at random.
- Tap a piece to see its legal moves highlighted, then tap a square to move. Your king glows red when in check, and the last move is highlighted.
- Pawn promotion lets you choose queen, rook, bishop or knight.
- Players can resign, offer or accept a draw, and request a rematch, which starts a new game with colors swapped.
Rules and testing
- The server enforces every move: castling, en passant, promotion, check, checkmate, stalemate, threefold repetition, the fifty-move rule, and insufficient material.
- I ran the PHP engine against standard published move-count tests on five tricky positions and it matched them all. I also confirmed that fool’s mate, stalemate and promotion are handled correctly.
- The game screen itself is untested in a every browser, so please try a full game with the browser of your choice with two devices/players. Most modern browsers should work fine!
Limitations
- There are no game clocks, so a player can take as long as they like. If an opponent disappears for about a minute, a claim win button appears to end the game so others can also join the match que and play.
- Chess pieces use your device’s built-in symbol fonts, so they may look slightly different on different devices.
