Play chess online with friends

What is chess?

Chess is a two-player strategy game on a board of 64 squares. It grew out of games played in India and Persia more than a thousand years ago. Each side starts with 16 pieces: a king, a queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns.

There is no luck in chess: both armies are on the board from the first move, so the better plan usually wins. A chess clock adds the tension of finding that plan before your time runs out.

How to play chess

The basics, for beginners:

1. White moves first, then the players take turns, one move each.
2. The king moves one square in any direction. The queen moves any distance in a straight line or along a diagonal; rooks move in straight lines and bishops along diagonals.
3. Knights move in an L shape (two squares one way, then one to the side) and are the only pieces that jump over others.
4. Pawns move one square forward, or two from their starting square, and capture one square diagonally forward.
5. You capture by moving onto a square held by an opponent's piece.
6. Attacking the king is check, and the player in check must get out of it at once. Check with no way out is checkmate, and it wins the game.

Special moves

• Castling: the king moves two squares toward a rook, and the rook jumps to its other side. Neither piece may have moved, the squares between must be empty, and the king can't castle out of, through or into check.
• En passant: a pawn that moves two squares and lands beside an enemy pawn can be captured by it as if it had moved one square, on the very next move only.
• Promotion: a pawn that reaches the far side becomes a queen, rook, bishop or knight. You pick which.

How a game ends

• You win by checkmate, when your opponent resigns, or when their clock runs out. If their clock runs out while you have only your king left, it's a draw: a bare king can't win on time.
• It's a draw by stalemate (the player to move has no legal move but isn't in check), when neither side has enough pieces left to checkmate, or by agreement.
• Claiming a draw: after a threefold repetition, or 50 moves by each side with no capture or pawn move, the player to move can press Claim draw. A fivefold repetition, 75 such moves or 600 half-moves draw the game automatically.

Playing on Ping44

Tap a piece, then a highlighted square: only legal moves are offered, and the server checks each one again. Check is announced, and each side's captured pieces show by the players' names. A draw offer stays open through your own move until your opponent accepts, declines or moves.

Chess modes on Ping44

The host picks how you play under Play as in the lobby. With two players you always play one match.

Teams

Team chess puts 2 to 8 players on one board, up to four a side. The seats alternate between the white team and the black team (a random draw decides which plays white), and teammates take their team's moves in a fixed order, so on a smaller team each player moves more often.

Each team shares one clock. Only the teammate whose turn it is can move, offer or answer a draw, or resign for the team. A teammate who leaves is skipped; a team everyone has left loses.

Tournament

A tournament takes 2 to 32 players in one-on-one matches. The host picks the format:

• Groups + knockouts (the default): balanced groups of the size the host picks (3 to 6 players, 4 by default, never fewer than three) play a round robin. A win is 1 group point and a draw ½. The top two go through; ties go to head-to-head points, then wins, then the random seed drawn at the start.
• Knockouts: a straight bracket from the first round.

In the knockouts, group winners are seeded ahead of runners-up, the first round avoids rematches from the same group when it can, and byes fill an uneven bracket. A drawn knockout match is replayed once with the colors swapped and full clocks; a second draw goes to a coin toss. Every match starts after a 10-second countdown.

Clocks and watching

The clock per player (per team in Teams) is 1, 3, 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes, with none, 1, 2, 3, 5 or 10 seconds added per move. The default is 5 minutes plus 2 seconds. Your clock only runs on your move.

Anyone without a match of their own being played (waiting, knocked out, or just watching) can open any live or finished match, and the Standings and Fixtures tabs show every result.

Scoring on Ping44

• Tournament: each match you win scores 10 room points, and the champion gets 25 more. With two players the one match is the final, so its winner scores 35. Group points only decide who goes through.
• A match counts only once each side has made a move. Byes, and matches decided before then by someone leaving or a clock running out, score nothing.
• Teams: every member of the winning team scores 10 points. A draw scores nothing.
• If the host ends a tournament early, points for finished matches stay, but nobody is crowned champion.

Room scores add up across all the games you play in the room.

Tips and strategy

• Match the clock to the group. 1 or 3 minutes makes a frantic blitz night; 10 to 30 gives beginners time to think. An increment stops a won game being lost on time.
• Follow the opening basics. Fight for the center, bring out your knights and bishops, and castle early.
• Read your opponent's last move. Ask what it attacks before you make yours.
• In team chess, play moves that stand on their own. Your teammate may not see your plan, so don't leave a piece hanging for them to rescue.
• In a tournament, a draw isn't wasted: it's worth ½ in the groups, and a replay in the knockouts.

How to start a game of chess on Ping44

1. Go to ping44.com, sign in (free, with email or Google) and create a room.
2. Share the invite link, the room code or the QR code. Friends can join as guests by just picking a name.
3. In the lobby, choose Board games, then Chess in Game settings.
4. Under Play as, pick Teams or Tournament, then set the format, the clock and the time added per move.
5. Start the game. Everyone else in the room can watch.

Why play chess on Ping44

• A private room that only the people you invite can join, with voice and text chat built in.
• Fair play. The server checks every move and keeps the clocks.
• Any group size. One game for two, team chess for up to 8, or a tournament for up to 32, with everyone else free to watch any board.
• More games in the same room. Switch to draughts, Barricade, Four in a Row or the other board games without leaving.
• Free, with no ads, in the browser, with nothing to install.

Frequently asked questions