A rating you can check
Rated games are refereed by the contract, move by move. It writes the result. Nothing in your browser can touch the number, including us.
An ITZApp - live on the ITZA chain
Chess with a rating you can prove.
A whole chess club in one app: ten opponents with faces, contract-refereed tactics puzzles, thirteen guided lessons, and bullet games that land in under half a second. Every rated game is refereed move by move by a contract on the ITZA chain, so your rating is a matter of record rather than a number on somebody's server.
Free to start No ads, ever Plays offline
Morphy against the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard, Paris Opera House, 1858. Replay only - the block numbers illustrate how a live game is recorded.
10Opponents
13Guided lessons
5Board themes
5Piece sets
960Chess960 starts
0Ads, ever
What you get
Everything a serious chess app should have - and one thing none of them do
The board, the coach, the lessons and the review are all here. What is new is where the result goes.
A coach that shows its working
Teaching mode colours every legal move from red to green and tells you, in plain English, what makes it strong or weak.
Ten opponents, not one slider
From Professor Ponder, who has read every chess book and remembers none of them, up to Old Bram, who cannot name an opening and will beat you anyway. Each one plays like themselves.
Two boards, one game
Switch between the flat board and a full 3D table mid-game. Position, clocks and move list carry straight across.
Lessons that end in checkmate
Seven openings and six mating patterns, stepped through move by move, with the story of where each one came from.
Every game reviewed
Each move graded from brilliant to blunder, accuracy for both sides, and the move you should have played - then step through it.
Installs like an app
Add it to your home screen on iPhone, Android or desktop. Lessons, practice games and your history keep working with no signal.
Your account travels with you
Scan with your ITZA Vault, or use a username and password. Your games and your rating follow your account to any device.
The board
Set it up the way you actually like it
Five board themes and five piece sets, chosen and remembered. Classic Green is the default because it is the one most people already have in their head.
- Drag a piece, or click from and click to - whichever you prefer.
- Premove while the clock is on your opponent.
- Confirm-move for shaky thumbs, with a promotion picker that waits.
- Right-click to draw arrows and mark squares.
- Coordinates inside or outside the board, and colourblind-safe highlights.
- An illegal drop buzzes and flashes red, so a rejected move is never silent.
Classic Green
default
Walnut
warm
Brown
classic
Slate
cool
High Contrast
low vision
♖♘♛
Classic
♜♞♝
Modern
R N Q
Letters
♔♗♕
Ornate
The ladder
Ten opponents, each with their own bad habits
Every one of them has a face, a way of playing and a rating of its own. They sit on nine engine levels, and two of them share level 5 at different ratings, because how hard someone is to beat is not the same as how they play.
Every one of them is a person, not a difficulty
Tap a Challenger and you get the whole card: the portrait, how they play, their level and their rating. Old Bram farms turnips and will take your position apart. Professor Ponder owns every chess book ever printed and will hang his queen on move six.
Which you meet is up to you, within the band the contract allows around your own rating.
L1
Professor PonderAnalysis paralysis
The Professor has read every chess book ever printed and recalls precisely none of them when it counts. He will deliver a ten-minute lecture on the Sicilian and then hang his queen on move six. Never beaten a computer before? Start here.
L3
Deb from AccountingEverything balances
Deb does not take risks. Deb reconciles. She will trade the board down to a spotless symmetrical endgame and offer a draw with the enthusiasm of someone confirming a calendar invite. She simply declines to lose until boredom makes you do something silly.
L5
One-Eyed PeteSac first, ask later
Pete holds that every piece is expendable and defence is for cowards. He hurls knights and bishops at your king like cannonballs and either mates you by move 20 or scuttles his own ship trying. There is no third setting.
L5
Master KaitoThe wall
Kaito is in no hurry. He will not attack you, dazzle you, or make a single move anyone would call fun. He builds a wall, absorbs everything, and waits for the endgame. Attacking him is like punching fog: exhausting, pointless, and somehow you end up on the floor.
L9
Old BramThe turnip terror
Bram has farmed the same field for sixty years and played chess on an upturned barrel the whole time. He cannot name a single opening and he will still squeeze your position flatter than a pressed flower. Every move looks like a happy accident. None of them are.
The difference most people miss
A subscription is a fee. A stake is a wager.
Two hundred and fifty million people play chess online. A great many pay a monthly fee for the privilege, and at the end of every month that money is gone. Not invested, not held, not recoverable. It bought permission to use a board, whether you played once or a hundred times, won or lost.
ITZA Chess is not built that way. Playing is free and always will be: unlimited games against people at every time control, the whole bot roster, the thirteen guided lessons, and no advertising anywhere. The tools that make you sharper - deep analysis, puzzle volume beyond a daily allowance, coaching, the rated ladder - are paid, the same line the big platforms draw, and cheaper than theirs.
When staked play arrives it will be a wager, not a fee. You can win and you can lose - that is what a wager is, and anybody describing it otherwise is not being straight with you. What you will never do is pay us for the right to sit down.
And in the launch period, new players start with free credits and earn more by playing. Get in early and you can build a stack before that window closes. As the platform grows, demand for credits can grow with it and their value can rise over time - a mechanism that depends on the platform succeeding, not a promise, and something that can just as easily go the other way. How the head start works.
We are not claiming you will win. Chess is a skill game, stronger players take money from weaker ones, and there will be sessions where you lose your stake. Only ever wager what you can afford to lose. The narrow point stands: none of it is a fee for access, because access here costs nothing.
- Monthly fee
- None, on any tier
- Play vs bots
- Free, whole roster
- Play vs people
- Free, all time controls
- Deep analysis
- Paid, cheaper than rivals
- Advertising
- None, ever
- Playing offline
- Free forever
- Staked play
- Coming. A wager: winnable and losable
Training
The board tells you what it thinks, before you commit
Turn Teaching mode on and every square you could legally move to is marked with a coloured dot, graded from red through amber to green by how good that move is. Tap one instead of moving and it tells you the move's name, grades it, and explains why in plain English, with a Play button if you agree.
Get better
Three ways to stop making the same mistake
Guided lessons
Seven openings and six mating patterns. Step the line move by move with the idea on a card beside the board, then open Extended for the full story of where it came from.
Teaching mode
Every square you could move to gets a dot coloured by how good the move is. Tap one instead of moving and hear why - under Classical Development, Centre Control, King Safety, Material & Tactics or Space & Activity.
Learner mode
Move without hints. Afterwards two squares are marked: yours, and the one the coach wanted. Keep your move or take the better one - the computer waits until you decide.
Nine badges to win
L1
L2
L3
L4
L5
L6
L7
L8
L9On the chain
What actually happens when you move
In a rated online game your move is not a message to our server. It is a transaction, and the contract is the referee.
You move
The move is packed into sixteen bits and signed by your account. Small enough that one move can afford to be one transaction.
The contract checks it
It runs the same rules your browser runs - literally the same engine code. An illegal move is rejected and the game state is left untouched.
The chain records it
The game object updates and both players are notified off the back of the same block, which the cluster settles in about a hundred milliseconds.
The contract settles
Mate, timeout, resignation or draw: the contract decides, writes the result, adjusts the rating and files the game to your history.
| ITZA Chess | A typical chess site | |
|---|---|---|
| Who decides the result | The contract that refereed every move | Their server |
| Who can edit your rating | Nobody - there is no entry point for it | Whoever runs the database |
| Where your games live | With your account, readable from any device | In their account system |
| Signing in | A username and password, or an ITZA Vault scan | Email and password held by them |
| Move legality | One engine, shared by the browser and the chain | Checked server-side; you take their word |
| Advertising | None | Usually, unless you subscribe |
| With no connection | Practice, lessons, review and history all work | Little to nothing |
| Price | Free offline, free to start on chain | Free tier, paid upgrades |
Take it with you
Add it to your home screen and forget it is a website
ITZA Chess installs on iPhone, iPad, Android and desktop, and runs standalone with no browser furniture around it. The Install button knows which browser you are using and tells you exactly what to tap.
- Games against the computer, lessons and your history work with no signal.
- Nothing to download from an app store, and nothing to update by hand.
- Only online play needs the chain.
Where it installs
- iPhone & iPad
- Safari -> Share -> Add to Home Screen
- Android
- Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Samsung
- Desktop
- Chrome & Edge install prompt
- Anything else
- Works in the browser as-is
News & development
What changed lately
Every release, fix and experiment, in the open.
Your move.
Free to start, nothing to download unless you want to. Open the board and start a game in about ten seconds.