Chess games
Trap your opponent's king so that it cannot escape check.
Both are played against a computer player at five levels, from Beginner to Expert, with every rule of the game: castling, en passant, promotion and the draws. Chess starts from the standard position, and Chess960 shuffles the pieces on the back rank into one of 960 starting positions.
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Chess
The standard starting position, with castling, en passant and promotion.
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Chess960
The pieces on the back rank start in one of 960 shuffled positions.
About these games
In both games each side has a king, a queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns, and White moves first. You win by checkmate, and a game is drawn by stalemate, by the same position coming up three times, after 50 moves each with no pawn moved and nothing captured, or when neither side has enough pieces left to checkmate.
Chess is the place to start. Chess960 keeps every rule but sets the back rank at random, the same for both sides, so opening moves learned by heart are no help and you work out the position from the first move.
Every game is free in your browser with no sign-in needed. Choose your colour and the computer's level in the menu beside New game, and Undo takes back your last move. Signed in, you can open an online table for two with a chess clock, from 3 minutes a side to 30, and play a friend with the table's code.