Unlimited chess in every time control, eleven official variants, puzzles that fight back, engine analysis on tap and a community of millions. Every feature, free, forever — no plans, no paywalls.
Play is split into two worlds: Live Chess, where both players are online and the clock is merciless — and Daily Chess, where each move can wait until you've had coffee, dinner, and a good night's sleep.
Pick how many days each move may take. Think for an hour, come back tomorrow, and run as many games in parallel as you can handle.
Face named, themed bot personalities with distinct styles and strengths — the full roster of 100+, including celebrity, streamer and sports-star bots rotating monthly, open to everyone. The dedicated Coach bot explains its reasoning as it plays and speaks in configurable coaching personalities — play it as often as you like.
Every variant, unlimited, for everyone. Each has its own rating, its own leaderboard, and its own way of breaking your brain.
Fischer Random: back-rank pieces shuffled into one of 960 mirrored setups — bishops on opposite colors, king between the rooks. Castling lands on the normal destination squares.
Normal chess — but march your king to d4, d5, e4 or e5 and you win instantly, whatever else is happening on the board.
Deliver check three times and the game is over. Checkmate still wins too, but why wait?
Captured pieces join your bank. Instead of moving, drop one on any empty square — even with check. Pawns can't drop on the 1st or 8th rank.
Two boards, four players, two teams. Your captures go to your partner's hand on the other board. The match ends the instant either board does.
Every capture explodes, vaporizing the capturer and all non-pawns on the 8 surrounding squares. Kings can't capture. Blow up the enemy king to win.
White: 36 pawns, nothing else. Black: a normal army. White mates the king; Black must eat every last pawn.
Captures are mandatory when available. Lose all your pieces (or get stalemated) to win. Pawns may promote to kings. No check, no castling — no mercy.
No pawns; everyone starts on ranks 1–2. First king to the 8th rank wins. Giving check is illegal — this is a footrace, not a fistfight.
You only see squares your pieces could legally move to. No check or checkmate — the game ends when a king is actually captured. Good luck out there.
Four armies on a cross-shaped board. Solo (only 1st wins), Free-For-All (top two win), or Teams with your diagonal partner.
No-Castling, Torpedo, Sideways Pawns, Capture Anything, Duck Chess, Spell Chess and more rotate in and out of events — check the Variants page for what's live.
Positions pulled from real games, a rating that rises and falls with every answer, and two race modes where three mistakes end everything.
Five minutes on the clock (or the untimed Survival mode). Puzzles get harder as your score climbs. Three wrong answers and you're out — your score is everything you solved before the third strike.
You and a matched opponent get the same puzzle sequence, live scores side by side, three minutes to out-solve each other before 3 strikes or the clock. Own rating, own leaderboard, monthly season points — win streaks multiply what you earn.
Single tactical positions from real games. Solve to raise your separate Puzzle Rating, miss and it drops. Unlimited, for everyone.
One puzzle for the whole world, released at midnight Pacific, with its own comment section. Keep your streak alive — a 48-hour grace calendar catches you if you slip.
Untimed, unrated drilling. Pick your themes — forks, pins, back-rank — and difficulty range, then grind until the patterns are reflex.
Structured sets for openings, tactics and endgames — every position unlocked from day one.
A pure calculation mode: find the forced sequence of captures, no opponent required.
How fast can you find e4? Square-and-coordinate speed training to make notation second nature.
Interactive lessons with move-by-move feedback, master-authored courses, and a video library deep enough to get lost in.
Learn by playing the moves, not just watching them. From the New to Chess guide to advanced endgame technique — the entire library is open.
Premium opening and strategy courses authored by titled players, folded right into the platform. Build a personal Opening Repertoire by mixing sections from multiple courses into one custom study plan.
Grandmaster breakdowns, opening speedruns, endgame technique — watch as much as you want.
Rules, terms, strategy concepts and how-tos — the written reference hub for everything on the board, free for every member.
Stockfish-powered Game Review classifies every move, scores your accuracy, and has the Coach explain each decision in plain language.
Every move classified, an accuracy percentage per player, and an evaluation graph across the whole game — with natural-language Coach explanations on every one of your moves and customizable analysis settings. Unlimited reviews for everyone.
Dashboards across all your games: performance by opening, time control and time of day, time usage, accuracy trends, recurring mistake patterns.
How has this position been played across millions of games? Win/draw/loss rates and popularity trends, by masters or the whole player pool — unlimited depth, and run it on your own games too.
Millions of searchable games from titled players — Carlsen, Kasparov, Fischer and every star since — updated with the latest events. Free for everyone.
Every game you've ever played on the site, searchable, filterable and reviewable forever.
A free-standing board: set up any position, explore lines, flip the engine on or off. The whiteboard of your chess life.
Tune Game Review to taste — analysis depth and presentation, your way.
Clubs, forums, blogs, live TV and a trophy cabinet with your name on it — the clubhouse is open to everyone.
Player-run communities with their own forums, club tournaments and team matches. Create or join as many as you like.
Public discussion boards for every topic — openings, drama, and everything between.
Every member gets a built-in blogging tool. Publish your journey, your analysis, your hot takes.
Private inbox to reach friends and members directly.
Follow activity, compare stats, and fire off challenges with one click.
Rankings per time control, variant and puzzle mode — global, by country, or just among friends.
Badges for tournament wins, daily-puzzle months, mating with a specific piece, and dozens more.
Send small tokens of respect to friends and opponents after a game.
Live broadcasts of top events, title matches and creators, right on the site.
Event coverage, strategy pieces, interviews and community updates from the editorial team.
Coaches organize students, assign lessons and puzzles, track progress. Open enrollment or invite-only — your call.
Custom boards, pieces, backgrounds and flair icons beside your name — all of it free.
Enter and host as many tournaments as you like — and the biggest events pay real prize money.
The long-running weekly Blitz battleground for titled players and qualifiers. Cash prizes every week, with results feeding into Esports World Cup qualification. Grandmasters, prodigies and chaos — every Tuesday.
The Global/Open Championship, Speed Chess Championship, Community Championships, Freestyle Friday and more — elite invitationals and open qualifiers, broadcast live, often with serious prize pools.
Played out over days or weeks at Daily time controls. Enter as many as you like — and host and manage as many as you can handle.
Rapid, Blitz and Bullet events in Arena format — score as many wins as you can inside the window — plus Swiss, Round-Robin and Knockout brackets.
Club-vs-club showdowns with members paired across dozens of simultaneous boards.
No plans, no paywalls, no daily limits. Every bot, every puzzle, every drill, every analysis tool — open to everyone from move one.