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The full rules, no shortcuts

Chess online

Play chess online with a friend or against a bot. Castling, en passant, promotion and every draw rule — in your browser, no download and no sign-up.

Chess is the one game on Lethalgames whose rules we did not write ourselves. We use chessops, the library behind Lichess, because chess has so many exceptions — castling through check, insufficient material, threefold repetition — that a home-grown version means months of hunting bugs a mature library already fixed.

Players2 players
Game length15 minutes
H
Your name
Bot difficulty
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How to play

  1. White moves first, then players alternate single moves.
  2. Every piece moves differently: rooks along ranks and files, bishops on diagonals, the queen both, knights in an L, the king one square.
  3. Pawns advance but capture diagonally. From their starting square they may go two, and en passant lets them take a pawn that just slipped past.
  4. The king may castle with a rook if neither has moved, nothing stands between them, and the king does not pass through an attacked square.
  5. A pawn reaching the last rank promotes to a queen, rook, bishop or knight.
  6. Checkmate wins. Stalemate, insufficient material, fifty moves without a capture or pawn move, and threefold repetition are all draws.

Strategy

  • Control the centre and develop your pieces before attacking. Bringing the queen out early usually just loses tempo.
  • Castle within the first ten moves. A king stuck in the centre of an open position is the most common way to lose quickly.
  • Before every move, ask what your opponent is threatening. Most games are lost to oversights, not bad plans.
  • In the endgame the king is a strong piece — walk it up the board and push a pawn to promotion.

Frequently asked

Do you implement the complete rules of chess?

Yes. Castling, en passant, promotion to all four pieces, checkmate, stalemate, insufficient material, the fifty-move rule and threefold repetition. Move legality is decided by the server, not the browser.

How strong is the bot?

On Hard it searches three plies and resolves captures at the leaves so it does not drop pieces. It will not beat a club player, but it punishes every hanging piece a beginner leaves.

Can I replay my games?

Every finished game is stored as a starting position plus the list of moves, so it can be reconstructed move by move.

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