Chess960 (Fischer Random) Online
Play Fischer Random chess free — the back rank is shuffled into one of 960 legal positions, so opening theory is useless and you think from move one.
- Family
- Chess & setup variants
- Origin
- International
- Board
- 8 × 8, shuffled back rank
- Players
- 2
- Difficulty
- Beginner
Choose a mode inside the board: two players, vs computer, or online with a room code.
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About Chess960
How the position is chosen
Bobby Fischer proposed Chess960 in 1996 to take memorised openings out of the game. The pawns start normally, but the back-rank pieces are shuffled under three rules: the bishops must sit on opposite colours, the king must stand somewhere between the two rooks, and Black's setup mirrors White's.
Those constraints leave exactly 960 possible starting positions — one of which is ordinary chess. Every game asks you to evaluate a fresh position from the first move.
Castling in Chess960
Castling exists but ends in the standard squares regardless of where the king and rook started: king on g1/g8 with the rook on f1/f8 for kingside, king on c1/c8 with the rook on d1/d8 for queenside. The usual conditions apply — neither piece has moved, the squares between are free, and the king never passes through check.
Everything else — en passant, promotion, checkmate, the fifty-move rule — is unchanged from FIDE chess.