Terms of use

Short, because a free chess board does not need a long contract.

What you may do with play-chess.io

Play as much chess as you like, at any level, in any mode, without paying and without registering. Personal and classroom use are both fine, including on a projector in front of a group, and no permission needs to be requested for either.

Copying the move list of your own game and using it anywhere is fine. The site’s code, written pages, chess engine and graphics remain the property of its author and are not licensed for reuse; ask through the contact page if you want to do something with them.

Fair play in online games

Using a chess engine to choose your moves against another person is the one thing that ruins an online game for everyone, and it is not allowed here. The same applies to scripting or automating play, and to opening many games at once to occupy the matchmaking queue.

There is no rating on play-chess.io, so there is nothing to gain from it, and no enforcement system either — this rule rests on the fact that the person on the other side came here for a game of chess. Games against the computer are exempt for obvious reasons: analysing, taking moves back and trying lines is what that mode is for.

What is not guaranteed

play-chess.io is provided as it is, with no promise that it will be available at any particular moment or free of defects. Games are not saved anywhere, so a closed tab, a crashed browser or a dropped connection ends a game with no way to recover it, and no backup exists on the server.

The chess rules are verified against the FIDE Laws and the method is published on how the engine is tested, including two documented departures from those Laws. Nothing on this site is a substitute for an arbiter in a rated game.

Liability

Liability is limited to what the applicable law does not allow to be excluded. Since play-chess.io is free, holds no account and processes no payment, the realistic exposure of a user is a lost game rather than a lost asset — but nothing here removes rights the law gives you as a consumer.

Which law applies

These terms are governed by the law of the country where the operator is established, and nothing in them removes the mandatory consumer protection you have where you live. If a dispute ever arises, write first through the contact page — for a free chess board there is unlikely to be anything a short exchange cannot settle. Data handling is covered separately in the privacy policy.

These terms may change. The date at the foot of this page is the version in force, and continued use after a change means the newer version applies.

Last reviewed 2026-07-23. Changes to this page are listed by date at the bottom of about play-chess.io.