Promote to
White wins
📖 What is different here
It is normal chess (all the usual rules: castling, en passant, promotion, check, checkmate, draws by stalemate, repetition, 50 moves and not enough pieces) with extra ways to play. Mix them as you like.
Blind chess 🙈
- Hide pawns: you can see every piece except the pawns. Remember where they are!
- Only pawns: you see just the pawns. The kings, queens, rooks, bishops and knights are invisible.
- Hide all: the board is empty. Each time a piece moves (yours or the computer's) it shows for a few seconds (Settings: 1 to 10 s) and then disappears.
- Peek 👁: shows the whole board for a moment. You get a limited number per game (Settings: none, 1, 3, 5 or unlimited).
- Optional: keep your own pieces visible so only the enemy is blind (vs computer). Everything shows again when the game ends.
- Move dots are only shown for pieces you can see, and the move list and captured pieces are hidden while you play blind (you can turn the move list on). Check is announced in words, not on the king.
Secret piece 🕵
One pawn on each side is secretly a Queen, Rook, Bishop or Knight (you choose which, or Random). Everyone, including the rules of check, treats it as a pawn. It moves like a pawn until the moment you move it like its real piece: then it turns around and shows itself (marked with a * in the move list). If it reaches the last row as a pawn, it just promotes. If it is captured while disguised, the secret comes out. Against the computer your own secret pawn has a gold ring and a letter. In 2-player mode press My secret to see yours for a moment (hand the device over first!). The computer knows its own secret piece too and plays it as a normal piece.
Chess960 start 🔀
Chess960 shuffles the eight back-row pieces with the two normal restrictions: the bishops stand on opposite colours and the king is between the rooks. White and black mirror each other. Castling is switched off in this start. Pick Standard to go back to the usual setup.
Board editor ✏️
Press Start: Custom, put any pieces where you like, choose who moves next and the castling rights, then Play this position. You can also copy or paste a position as FEN text. The editor refuses impossible positions (no king, kings touching, the side not to move already in check, pawns on the end rows).
Good to know
- Move by dragging a piece or by tapping it and then the square. A hint (💡) shows only the squares.
- Undo takes back your move and the computer's reply.
- The computer is the chapter-5 engine: Easy sometimes plays a random move, Hard thinks for about 2 seconds.
- When the computer plays blind with you, it still sees the board perfectly. That is the price of being a computer.