A two-player abstract strategy game of perfect information played on an 8x8 board, where each side maneuvers six types of pieces to checkmate the opponent's king.
Turn timer
Keep turns moving with a per-player clock for Chess.
Standard chess under the FIDE Laws of Chess. White moves first; players alternate moves; the goal is to checkmate the opponent's king. Played without a clock or with a long classical time control.
Chess is a two-player abstract strategy game of perfect information. Each player commands sixteen pieces of six types (king, queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns) on a checkered 8x8 board. White moves first, and players alternate single moves. There is no hidden information and no luck: every position is fully visible to both players, which makes chess one of the purest tests of skill in board gaming.
Place the board so each player has a light square in the near-right corner. Set up pieces on the two ranks nearest each player: rooks in the corners, then knights, then bishops, then queen on its own color and king beside it, with pawns across the second rank. White always moves first.
King: one square in any direction.
Queen: any number of squares in a straight line (rank, file, or diagonal).
Rook: any number of squares along a rank or file.
Bishop: any number of squares diagonally.
Knight: an L-shape (two squares one way, one square perpendicular); jumps over pieces.
Pawn: forward one square (two on its first move), capturing diagonally one square forward. Special moves: en passant, promotion on reaching the far rank, and castling (king + rook).
Players alternate making exactly one move. A move that places the opponent's king under attack is check; the opponent must respond to remove the check.
A game ends in checkmate (king attacked, no legal move escapes), resignation, timeout in timed games, or a draw (stalemate, insufficient material, threefold repetition, the fifty-move rule, or mutual agreement).
FIDE classifies games by clock: classical (typically 90-120+ minutes per player), rapid (more than 10 up to 60 minutes), blitz (10 minutes or less, e.g. 3+2, 5+0), and bullet (under 3 minutes). Increments add a few seconds per move.
No points within a game. The recorded outcome is win (1), draw (0.5), or loss (0). Higher value is better for ranking. Draws are possible (stalemate, repetition, fifty-move rule, insufficient material, or agreement).
This variant records win/loss/draw only; it is not scored. The optional player_color side metric records White vs Black and does not affect ranking by itself.