Chess — play online free with friends
The royal game — castle, promote, and hunt the enemy king to checkmate.
The royal game. White and black take turns moving one piece; put the enemy king in a position it cannot escape — checkmate — and you win. All the classic rules are here: castling, en passant, promotion, and the standard draws.
Play Chess now — it's freeCreate a room in one tap and share the invite link — friends join instantly in their browser or in the TableTop app, no account needed to play.
How to play Chess
How the pieces move
- Pawns push one square forward (two from their starting square) and capture one square diagonally forward.
- Knights jump in an L shape and are the only piece that can leap over others.
- Bishops slide diagonally, rooks slide along ranks and files, and the queen does both.
- The king moves one square in any direction — and may never move into check.
Special moves
- Castling: if neither piece has moved and the path is clear and safe, the king slides two squares toward a rook and the rook hops to the far side. You can’t castle out of, through, or into check.
- En passant: a pawn that just advanced two squares can be captured by an enemy pawn beside it, as if it had moved only one — but only on the very next move.
- Promotion: a pawn reaching the far rank becomes a queen, rook, bishop or knight of your choice.
Check and checkmate
- When your king is attacked, you are in check and must escape it immediately — by moving the king, blocking, or capturing the attacker.
- If there is no way out of check, it is checkmate and the game is over.
Draws
- Stalemate: the player to move has no legal move but is not in check.
- The same position occurring three times, or 50 moves by each side without a capture or pawn move, is an automatic draw.
- If neither side has enough material left to ever checkmate, the game is drawn.