Your first game

Interactive guide and downloads · Practice

Your first game

Open Practice and choose White or Black. Random legal is a deliberately simple opponent for learning the controls. Use Start a new game to choose a color or practice position. Choose Both sides to explore a position yourself. Practice is untimed and stays in this tab; download the game before closing it.

Make a move

Click a piece, then a highlighted destination. You can also drag it, or enter a coordinate move such as e2e4. The board accepts only legal moves. After your move, wait for the opponent before choosing again.

Try e2e4 as White: the pawn moves from e2 to e4. This occupies a central square and opens lines for the queen and bishop. The visual opening lesson continues with e7e5, g1f3, and b8c6. It is a teaching sequence, not a required opening.

When a pawn reaches the farthest rank, choose Queen, Rook, Bishop, or Knight. The promotion example lets you try each choice. The move a7a8n promotes to a knight. In that example, only the kings and one knight remain, so the game draws.

Notice check

Check means your king is attacked. Your next move must remove that attack: move the king, capture the attacker, or block where possible. If there is no legal escape, it is checkmate. You never capture the king.

Watch the checkmate lesson: f2f3 e7e5 g2g4 d8h4. Black's queen gives check, and White has no legal reply. The result follows the board position, rather than a model's explanation.

Finish and review

Play until checkmate or a draw, or choose Resign. When a draw claim is available, the interface offers it explicitly. Choose Review game to step backward and forward. Download the replay or Portable Game Notation (PGN) for later inspection. Use a new game to try one different decision.

For timed human games against Stockfish or a model, developers with repository access can run:

nix develop
scripts/setup.sh
scripts/play-local

The launcher opens an opponent chooser and saves game artifacts under build/local-play. Model choices use the provider credentials configured in that launcher. Browser practice requires no provider credentials.

Next: Pieces and moves.