How to play Chess
Chess on 4Games is a complete game against a genuine chess engine that runs entirely in your browser — nothing about a game against it is sent to a server. Choose your colour and a difficulty, and play a full game with legal-move highlighting, pawn promotion, undo, and automatic saving so you can leave and come back. To play a friend instead, choose Two players and pass the device back and forth: the board turns to face whoever is to move, and that game stays on your device too.
How to play
- Pick your colour and a difficulty, then start the game.
- Tap one of your pieces to select it. Dots mark the squares it can move to and rings mark captures.
- Tap a marked square to move there, or tap the piece again to deselect it.
- When one of your pawns reaches the last rank, choose which piece it becomes.
- Undo takes back your last move together with the computer’s reply. Resign ends a game against the computer.
- To play a friend on one device, choose Two players. The board turns after every move to face whoever is to move, Undo takes back one move at a time, and New game ends a game (there is no Resign).
- From 7 December, the Daily puzzle tab gives everyone the same position each day: your opponent has just moved, and you find the winning line in two to four moves. Three misses end it, and any checkmate wins. It doesn’t count toward streaks or the Daily Four.
Tips & strategy
- Develop your pieces before you attack — knights and bishops off the back rank, then castle to tuck your king away.
- Control the centre. A pawn or piece influencing the middle four squares is worth more than one on the edge.
- Before every move, ask what your opponent’s last move threatens. Most losses come from answering a threat you never saw.
- Trade pieces when you are ahead in material and avoid trades when you are behind.
- Start at a lower difficulty and move up. Playing a level that punishes you for real mistakes teaches faster than one that cannot.
Accessibility
Move targets are marked with dots and rings rather than colour alone, and your game saves automatically so nothing is lost if you need to step away.