Chess144 — mini chess on a 5×6 board

Chess144 is mini chess played on a 5×6 board, free in your browser. Each side starts with one king, one queen, one rook, one bishop and one knight, plus five pawns. Play live opponents in ranked 2+1 games, take on the computer across six difficulty levels, or sharpen up with 500 checkmate puzzles. Smaller board, faster games, same chess you love.

Why is it called Chess144?

The name is the math. There are 120 ways to arrange five different pieces along the back rank. We rule out every setup where the king starts right next to its own rook, which leaves 72 legal arrangements. Black's back row can then either mirror White's or reverse it — and 72 × 2 gives exactly 144 unique starting positions. Every one is named after a great chess player. That's the whole idea: a tiny board with a surprising amount of variety. Smaller is better.

How to play

If you know chess, you already know Chess144 — the pieces move the same way, with two small tweaks for the smaller board:

• Pawns move one square at a time (no two-square first move, and therefore no en passant). They still capture diagonally and promote to a queen, rook, bishop or knight when they reach the far rank.
• Castling is allowed: the king moves two squares toward its rook and the rook hops to the square the king crossed, with the usual rules (nothing in between, not through check).
• Win by checkmate. A game is a draw by stalemate, by threefold repetition, or by insufficient material — for example a lone king, or a king with just a single bishop or knight that can't force mate.

Ways to play

Play the computer — six levels from Beginner to Grandmaster, with blitz clocks and a local rating. Play online — pick a screen name and you're matched with the closest-rated live opponent for a ranked 2+1 game, with rematches that swap colors. Solve puzzles — 500 hand-verified mate-in-1, mate-in-2 and mate-in-3 tactics in rapid-fire mode.

Free · no sign-up · plays in any browser · chess144.com