Chess

How to Play Chess

Chess is a two-player strategy game on an 8x8 board. Each side commands sixteen pieces - eight pawns, two knights, two bishops, two rooks, a queen, and a king - and the goal is checkmate: attacking the enemy king so that it has no legal escape. Click one of your pieces to see its legal moves, then click a highlighted square to move. Every rule of tournament chess is here, including castling, en passant captures, pawn promotion, and draws by stalemate, insufficient material, or the fifty-move rule.

On PlayVersusAI you play White against a Black-piece AI engine that actually searches ahead - it evaluates material and piece placement, prunes bad lines, and punishes hanging pieces. You can also challenge a friend in real-time online multiplayer, where the host takes White and the board flips so each player sees their own army at the bottom.

Strategy Tips

• Fight for the center - pawns and pieces on and around e4, d4, e5, and d5 control the most squares. Open with a center pawn and contest the middle from move one.
• Develop before you attack - get knights and bishops off the back rank and castle early. An attack launched before development usually collapses against accurate defense.
• Don't hang pieces - before every move, ask what your opponent can capture. Most games below master level are decided by a single piece left undefended.
• Look for forks and pins - knights love forking king and queen; bishops and rooks pin pieces against more valuable ones behind them. One tactic often wins the game outright.
• Activate your king in the endgame - once queens come off, the king becomes a fighting piece. March it toward the center and escort your passed pawns to promotion.