Board game

Chess

8×8 · FIDE rules · castling · en passant · promotion

Chess guide

What is this game?

Playfulo Chess is classic 8×8 chess. Play against AI or a friend with no sign-up.

We follow the standard FIDE rules: castling, en passant, pawn promotion, checkmate and stalemate, plus draws by insufficient material, the 50-move rule, and threefold repetition.

Choose easy, normal, or hard, or share an invite link with a friend.

How to play

White moves first. Checkmate the opponent's king to win. The king is never captured.

King: one square. Queen: any direction. Rook: rank/file. Bishop: diagonal. Knight: L-shape (jumps). Pawns move forward one (two on the first move) and capture diagonally.
Castle (O-O / O-O-O) if the king and rook have not moved, the path is empty, and the king is not in, through, or into check.
En passant is allowed only on the next move after a two-square pawn advance. A pawn on the last rank must promote to queen, rook, bishop, or knight.
No legal move and not in check is stalemate (draw). Insufficient material, 50 moves without a pawn move or capture, and threefold repetition are also draws.

Controls

Select a piece to show legal destinations, then select a highlighted square to commit the move.
Choose a promotion piece when a pawn reaches the final rank. Castle by moving the king to its castling destination when legal.
While in check, only moves that make the king safe are available. Friend games use a per-move clock.

Strategy tips

Control the center, develop knights and bishops, and castle before starting a wing attack.
Before every move, scan checks, captures, and threats to reduce one-move tactical errors.
Judge exchanges by pawn structure, open files, and king safety as well as material value.

Difficulty differences

Easy randomly chooses from a lower-rated portion of candidate moves and can even miss mate in one. Normal searches two plies, while Hard searches three plies to compare longer tactical continuations.

Common beginner mistakes

Leaving the king in the center invites early tactics — castle quickly.
Attacking without checking checks, captures, and threats loses pieces.
Pushing pawns aimlessly creates weak squares — start with the central pawns and develop your pieces.

Chess diagram — grabbing the pawn, or the fork

Black's knight is on f6. White has a queen on c3, a rook on f4, and a pawn on g4. The pawn can be taken, but the rook recaptures the knight. d5, guarded by the c6 pawn, attacks the queen and the rook at once. Black's AI played this position 40 times at each difficulty.

Start

Knight on f6: take the pawn or fork

g4 (red) captures a pawn. d5 (green) captures nothing yet. A one-move score sees the pawn grab as a gain.

Same knight: the fork and the pawn grab

On the left the knight has not captured yet, but next move it wins at least the rook. On the right the pawn is gone and the knight is already lost to the rook.

Hard 40/40

Fork on d5

One square attacks the queen and the rook. Normal also played d5 in all 40 trials.

Easy 27/40

Capture on g4

Right after the move it looks like a pawn won. White's next move is the rook taking the knight, so the capture loses material.

What Playfulo's chess AI did on this position

Black to move, 40 calls per difficulty. The move counter was set to 12 so Hard would use the depth it uses after the first three full moves.

EasyKnight to g4 in 27 of 40 trials; the d5 fork came up only twice. Easy only scores the position after its own move, so it misses recaptures. It also finds a mate in one only about half the time. The window is usually 50 points, sometimes 150 (about a pawn and a half).
Normald5 in all 40 trials. g4 never appeared. A 2-ply search drops the line that wins a pawn and loses the knight. The window is 30 points for the first four full moves, then 20.
Hardd5 in all 40 trials. From full move 4 the search is 3 plies with a 12-point window. Unlike Easy, a mate in one is always played.

11 Oct 2026: Playfulo's chess AI, 40 calls per difficulty on this position. Easy and Normal draw among close scores, so a fresh sample can shift a little. Depth and mate handling are what the engine does.

FAQ

What chess rules are used here?

White moves first on an 8×8 board. Checkmate wins. Castling, en passant, and promotion are included. Stalemate, insufficient material, the 50-move rule, and threefold repetition are draws. Playfulo follows the standard FIDE rules.

Can I play chess with a friend?

Yes. Create a room and share the invite link. The host plays White. The winner of a game plays White next. Each turn has a 60-second limit.

Can I replay my chess game move by move?

Yes. After the game, tap 'Replay game' in the result card to review your chess game from the first move. The from and to squares of every move are highlighted, and you can step back and forward, jump to the start or end, autoplay, or drag the move slider. Replay works in both AI and friend games.

How do I tell checkmate from stalemate?

If the king is in check and no legal move escapes that check, it is checkmate and that player loses. If the king is not in check and neither the king nor any other piece has a legal move, it is stalemate and the game is a draw. Before the last move, check both whether the king is currently in check and whether it has a flight square. Tightening a king that is not in check can turn a win into a draw.