Play Chess With Friends: Private Games, Pass-and-Play and 2-Player Boards
Playing a stranger rated within fifty points of you is efficient. Playing your brother in Manchester, your colleague two desks away, or your niece on the same tablet is something else entirely — it comes with history, a running score and the kind of trash talk no matchmaking algorithm can generate. This guide covers every practical way to get a game against someone you actually know: private online links, two-player boards on a single device, correspondence games that fit around work, and running a small tournament among a group.
On this page
Private game links: the simplest method
Every reasonable chess platform offers some version of the same feature: you create a game with your chosen settings, the platform generates a link, and whoever opens that link becomes your opponent. No friend request, no account matching, no coordination beyond sending a message.
The typical flow takes under a minute. Choose a time control — 10+0 rapid is the safest default for a casual game. Choose your colour or leave it random. Decide whether the game counts towards ratings; between friends, unrated usually keeps things friendlier. Then copy the link into WhatsApp, a Slack channel or a text message. The game starts the moment they click.
Because these links generally work without either party creating an account, this is the fastest way to get a game going with someone who has never played online before. Send them a board where they can immediately play chess in the browser and the entire setup conversation disappears — no app store, no registration email, no password reset ten minutes later.
Practical tip: agree the time control before sending the link. Half of all abandoned friendly games are one player expecting a leisurely think and the other having set a three-minute blitz clock.
Pass-and-play on one device
Pass-and-play — sometimes written as two-player or 2-player mode — puts both players on the same screen, taking turns to move and handing the phone or tablet across. It sounds primitive next to networked play, and it is genuinely the best option in several common situations: two people on the same sofa, a train journey with one device between you, or teaching a child who needs you sitting beside them rather than in a chat window.
What a good pass-and-play board gives you over a physical set is rule enforcement. Nobody argues about whether en passant applies, nobody accidentally castles through check, and the takeback button ends disputes instantly. Better implementations rotate the board between turns so each player sees the position from their own side, which matters more than you would expect for beginners still learning the geometry.
The main limitation is the shared-screen problem: both players see everything, which rules out any format involving hidden information, and it makes it hard to think for long without the other person watching your eyes. For serious play, use two devices.
Correspondence chess for busy people
Correspondence chess gives each player days rather than minutes per move. A game runs over a fortnight, both people move when they get a chance, and the notification does the reminding. For friends in different time zones or with incompatible schedules, this is the only format that reliably works.
It also produces better chess. With a day to consider a move you calculate properly instead of guessing, and games between two ordinary club players in correspondence conditions are usually of far higher quality than their blitz games. The convention worth agreeing up front is whether opening books and databases are permitted — in traditional correspondence play they are, in casual friendly games most people prefer not, and engines are off-limits in every context.
A practical arrangement many friends settle on is two or three simultaneous correspondence games plus an occasional live rapid game when both are free. The correspondence games maintain the rivalry; the live games settle it. Our guide to playing chess online explains time control notation in more detail if the difference between 15+10 and 3+2 is not yet obvious.
Over the board with a physical set
Nothing online replicates a physical board on a kitchen table. If you are buying a set for casual play between friends, the practical specification is simple: a board with 50–55mm squares, a Staunton-pattern set with a king around 85–95mm, and a weighted base so pieces do not skitter when someone moves quickly. Roll-up vinyl boards are cheap, indestructible and used at almost every tournament in the country.
Two accessories change the experience. A digital clock turns a leisurely game into a competitive one and eliminates the friend who thinks for eleven minutes every move. And a score sheet — or simply a phone app recording the moves — means you can enter the game into an analysis tool afterwards and finally settle the argument about whose blunder it really was. Reading and writing moves takes ten minutes to learn; the notation section of our page on how to play chess covers the whole system.
Handling a big skill gap
The most common reason friendly chess dies is that one player wins every game. Nobody enjoys a rivalry with a fixed outcome, and the stronger player rarely notices the problem until the weaker one stops suggesting games. Four fixes, in ascending order of severity:
- Time odds. The stronger player gets three minutes, the weaker gets ten. This is the least intrusive handicap and often the most effective, because it pressures the better player exactly where their advantage lies.
- Material odds. The stronger player removes a knight, or a rook, or in extreme cases the queen. Traditional and surprisingly balanced — a knight is worth roughly 300 rating points at club level.
- Move odds. The weaker player gets two moves at the start, or plays White every game.
- Different formats. Puzzle races, or both players facing an engine and comparing results, sidestep the mismatch entirely.
If the gap comes from experience rather than talent, the fastest way to close it is structured practice rather than more losses. The routine on our learn to play chess page is designed for exactly that, and drilling against an adjustable bot as described in our guide to playing chess against the computer lets the weaker player improve without an audience.
Running a tournament with friends
Six to ten people, one evening, and a small trophy produces a surprisingly serious event. Two formats cover almost every group:
- Round robin. Everyone plays everyone. With six players that is fifteen games; at 10+0 rapid, roughly three hours. Fairest possible format, and the final table is beyond dispute.
- Swiss system. Players are paired each round against someone on a similar score, without repeats. Five rounds accommodates up to about thirty players and is what almost every UK club and congress uses.
Scoring is one point for a win, half for a draw, nought for a loss. For ties, the standard tiebreak at club level is Buchholz — the sum of your opponents' scores — which rewards whoever faced the harder field. Set a clear time control, agree that phones stay in pockets during games, and appoint one person as arbiter for disputes. Online, the same event can run as a private tournament with automated pairings, which removes the administrative work entirely.
Rules, etiquette and the running score
Friendly chess runs on a handful of unwritten conventions. Touch-move is the standard rule in serious play — if you touch a piece you must move it — but between friends it is worth agreeing explicitly rather than invoking it mid-game as a weapon. Takebacks are fine if both agree in advance and nobody exploits them. Analysing together afterwards is the single most enjoyable part of playing someone you know, and the part most people skip.
Whatever format the group settles on, the barrier to entry should stay at zero: send a link, let everyone play chess in whatever browser they already have open, and nobody drops out over an install or a forgotten password.
Finally, keep the score. A running head-to-head record over months turns individual games into a rivalry, and a rivalry is what keeps two people playing long after the novelty wears off. Most online platforms track this automatically between accounts; a note in your phone works just as well.