Play chess with friends online

Start a game in three steps

1. Choose your settings. Pick Another player as the opponent, then a time control and your color. The name field is optional; leave it empty and you play as Anonymous.
2. Share the invite link. Chessdox creates the room and shows a link with a one-time invitation. Copy it into a chat, an email or a text message. The first person who opens it takes the second seat, and the link stops working for anyone else.
3. Play. As soon as your friend joins, the clocks start and White moves first. Drag a piece or tap it and then tap the destination square; legal moves are shown as dots.

Why a private invite link works better than a lobby

Most chess sites pair you through a public lobby or ask your friend to create an account and send a challenge. Chessdox skips both. The room exists only for the two of you, and the invitation can be used exactly once. Your seat is kept in your browser, so you can reload the page, switch tabs or lose the connection for a moment and come straight back to the same game.

Games between two people are never published. They do not appear in the replay library, they have no public profile and they are not indexed by search engines. When the game is over you can download the complete score as a PGN file and keep it, analyse it in another program or share it yourself.

Clocks for every kind of game

Choose No clock for a relaxed game where you can think as long as you like, or one of the fixed controls: 3 + 2 and 5 + 0 for quick blitz, 10 + 0 for a rapid game, or 15 + 10 for a slower classical feel. Custom lets you set the minutes and the increment yourself. The server keeps the official time, so both players see the same clock even on a slow connection, and the side to move is highlighted next to the board.

Full rules, checked by the server

Every move is validated on the server, including castling, en passant and promotion. Check, checkmate and stalemate end the game automatically, and the draw rules work the way they do over the board: you can offer a draw, accept or decline your opponent's offer, and claim a draw by threefold repetition or the fifty-move rule when it applies. Either player can resign at any time.

While your friend is thinking you can queue a premove, draw arrows and circles to plan, and step back through the move list to look at earlier positions without leaving the game.

Phone, tablet or laptop

The board fits any screen. On a phone it fills the width, and pieces respond to both dragging and tapping. You and your friend do not need the same device: one of you can play on a laptop while the other uses a phone on the train. Nothing has to be installed.