Master the Game: How to Challenge a Friend in Chess.com?

Sign Up for a Chess.com Account

To play friends on Chess.com or any user at all and have the platform save your games and track analysis progress over time, you first have to sign up for an account and log in. To do so, go to www.chess.com, click on the blue Sign Up button, and follow the instructions to use your email address, Facebook account, or Google account to create an account. To play on mobile, download the app from the App Store or Google Play, click on the profile silhouette in the upper left corner, and complete the Sign Up process as indicated on your device.

If you just want to play a one-time game, you can proceed as a guest player, although the features you will have access to will be quite limited. The basic freemium features of Chess.com exist on both desktop and mobile. Once you have a new account, you are automatically assigned a standard starting rating of 1200 for your first game. This can then increase or decrease based on the outcomes of future games.

Verify Your Email Address

You need to verify your email with Chess.com to play a game of chess with a friend. Once you have created an account, click on your user photo, which you will find on the left side of the menu at the top of the screen, and then select the Settings option. On the right side of the page, find the Online Settings section. You’ll see the option to Verify Your Email Address and the system will walk you through the process.

Set Up Your Profile

To be able to play a friend in Chess.com, you and your friend need to have profiles set up with the service. Benefits to having a profile include being better able to assess your own progress in the game and to tell who you and your opponent are playing with. If you are new to Chess.com, here is how you can set up your profile. Instructions are the same for desktop and mobile browsers.

Adding a Friend on Chess.com

To add a friend on Chess.com do the following. Go to the Public Home Page of the person on Chess.com you want to be friends with. Or search their name through the Member Search function. Select the Send Friend Request option if you are not already friends. If they accept your request, they will get moved to your Friends List where you can apply filters to control how they connect with you.

Do these steps to add a friend on Chess.com?

1. On their Public Home Page, select the Add as Friend option in the row of information. You will see this if they are not your friend.
2. In the Add Friend popup that appears, write a personal note (not required), and then press Send Friend Request.
3. If the person you are trying to befriend is not found in the public directories, you may use the Search feature to attempt to find them
   • Search by either User name, email address, or full name.
   • Check the box to search only for your friends.
   • Once you find the search result you are looking for, follow the first step as mentioned above.

You always see how many friends you have and the Friends List allows you to see how much playing time you have had together, any Clubs together, and what your Friends vs. Friends stats look like.

Search for Your Friend’s Username

From the Home or Play tab, search for your friend’s Chess.com username using the search bar at the top of the screen. Once their username appears in the dropdown, click the username or hit enter to find their profile. Click Challenge Me or… to play.

The steps to Challenge me on Chess.com are as follows:

1. From their profile, click the Challenge button if the user is online. If the button is not highlighted green, send the player a motion to see if they accept your challenge. As an alternative, and if you want to play them later, click the Send Friendly Game Request button. Once a button appears to challenge the player in a friendly game, click it.
2. Select how you would like to play. We suggest choosing Live (Blitz, Rapid, or Quick) as this will let you play the entire game without timing out. Turn off time controls to avoid the embarrassment of losing because of time.
3. Readying up and waiting for the player to join is all that’s left.

Send a Friend Request

When you find a user whose profile you want to follow, you can simply add them as a friend. Gangdidh Rangvannuo is going to click on the profile of Alexanna. You can do this by simply clicking on the username. Then click the + next to their username.
… Then click Send Mathilda Friends Request. You can then view all the friendship requests or friends from the Your friends section in the left slide-out menu of the Home section. This is a way to follow users that you want to pay attention to on the site. It is the least direct method of challenging a user to a game and is simply a way to follow their activity.

Accept a Friend Request

If you receive a friend request from another user, you’ll get a notification along with some other notifications. This profile-section notification lets you know when another user thinks of you as disappointing chum. To accept it, click the chess diagram figure in the header bar and then click Friend Requests tab to see the request from the user. Click the green Accept button to make the other user’s sadness go away and welcome them as a friend.

Challenging Your Friend to a Game

To challenge your friend to a live or custom game, you must first have your friend on your friend list. Forming your list follows the simple steps outlined in the previous section (If they are not already on your friend request list, manage this list from the chess.com home page by clicking the friends and clubs square, followed by the See All link, then the Edit Friends tab. Enter one or more friend’s username to the text box, or select from the list that pops up, then click add).

To challenge a friend on their profile page, click either Challenge with Invite or Challenge with New Game Next. You can send them an invite or start a new game, though the pop-up interface for this option may be more confusing than using the New Game dropdown link at the top-right of the chess.com page. This link features an Invite Your Friends button under the New Game tab for all game options.

If your friend sends you a game request, a Custom Challenge notification will appear on the chess.com home page. You can access your home page by clicking the chess piece icon in the top left-hand corner of most chess.com pages. Click the notification. Write your message in the chatbox and then click Accept to play. Please note if you do not do so within 24 hours (3 days if Fast Time Control is selected), the invitation will expire and you will need to generate a request or send them a message to challenge you again.

Click on Your Friend’s Username

You can challenge a friend to a game of chess on chess.com by following this simple process. First, you need to go to Home or Play page (both accessible by clicking on games icon) and then navigate to either your Friends List or the user’s profile directly. A simple way to do this is to search for your friend using the search function at the top of the screen. To expand your search, you can perform a connected search (e.g. if you do not immediately find them, immediately toggle the visibility so you can search for them the other way). As an example, you can click on the Zoom Friends List button when you do not find them after a regular search. Once you find them in your Friends List, you can challenge them to a game by clicking the challenge button. `

Select ‘Challenge to a Game’

After you and your friend are friends on chess.com, you can challenge them to a game by selecting ‘Challenge to a Game’. To do so, click on the friend you would like to challenge, which will take you to their profile. From there, click the Challenge button, to challenge them directly to a game.

Choose the Type of Game and Time Control

Chess.com offers 3 types of games for friends or other players to play: Online games, Correspondence and Live Chess games, and the extra features of Chess.com Clubs. In online or Live Chess games, the game is played in a single session and each player has a limited time during their play that they must make each move within. Correspondence games allow the players to take more time (from days to weeks) to make their moves. The extra Chess.com Clubs feature is mentioned because friends can create a club where they can play with each other and other members. This collaboration option is much like the former Chess.com Groups feature but with more extensive options for members.

Each of the three game types has a time control option that determines the maximum time a player has to use for all their moves. For these two opponents to play, one has to suggest a time control. Within these three types of games, a vast range of time controls is possible. Here is a good chance to play friends and introduce them to a different type of chess they may never have contemplated. Since no two friends are alike and have the same schedules, you may find value in some of the more unique time controls, even though they are less popular. For example, offer to move quickly, playing a 2 minutes per side blitz or bullet game. Rapidity is vital in this time control. Lightning fast decision-making (where he captures mine, and I just captured his) using instinct, rather than deliberate analysis, is the name of the game. If your friend likes this game, suggest a Bullet time control game.

Playing the Game

After a friend has been added, playing with them is similar to playing a member of the general public on Chess.com with a few additional options. When you’re ready to begin the game with your friend, click on their username to open their profile and click on the Challenge in the upper right corner or send them a message asking them to challenge you.

You will then see the challenge countdown in the bottom right corner. If your friend does not acknowledge the challenge before the countdown reaches zero, the game is automatically cancelled and your friend loses a rating point. You can cancel the challenge yourself by clicking the x in the bottom right corner.

While waiting for your friend to play, you can take advantage of this time to verbally chat with them on the right sidebar of the screen or explore any of the other features listed next to their username in the Friends section of the Explore sidebar. Once the game has started, ongoing play is the same as if you were playing a random person on Chess.com.

Fair Play. It is generally considered poor form to resign or attempt to draw a game against a friend to raise each others’ ratings, as this lies outside the bounds of competitive fair play.

Make Your Move

Make your move is the first and most important step to playing friends on Chess.com. Make a move every sixty days or you’ll lose the game.

One player initiates the game by challenging the other player to a game or the player can play a random matchup and share the link with their friend. Chess.com doesn’t have a built-in friend request or invite system like some other platforms which can make it slightly more difficult to start new games with specific friends.

If you wait for someone else to play their move, even if it’s their turn, you won’t have to wait forever. If you follow this approach and regularly rotate through all of your active games that are greater than sixty days, you will likely experience a small number of games coming to a conclusion via the sixty-day timeout (most likely because your opponent did not play their move within the sixty-day window). This might be a matured indication that it is time to have a proper conversation with your friend on their next moves.

Wait for Your Friend to Make Their Move

If it is your turn to move, wait for your friend to make their move. When you press the Resign or Claim a draw by stalemate or insufficent material button, the game is automatically over. Your friend has 24 hours to make a move, so do not go to this option prematurely. If your friend does not make a move within 24 hours, Chess.com will allow you to claim victory by time forfeit.

Continue Playing Until the Game is Over

If you want to play against a friend on Chess.com, the most important thing is to see the game through to the end. Do not abandon the game before it is over, which can damage your reputation.

It is not always possible to continue the game right away. So there are two methods for returning to an unfinished game. In both ways, you need to follow these steps:

1. Log in to Chess.com
2. Find the game
3. Click on the game
4. Make a move so that the game is saved
5. Exit the game and continue what you were doing offline

Once you are off the internet, or if the device you were using to play with your friend has shut down and then come back online, you can still go back to the game.

In the My Games tab on the mobile app, all your games will show as ongoing. If it had been your turn to move before closing the app, click on the game and make a move to continue the game active.

On a computer, open My Games, find the game, and make a move.

Remember, it is good etiquette to say goodbye, express that you need to be offline, and declare that you will return in specific a time period to finish the game, rather than disappear mid-game. Open-ended interruptions could lead to the abandonment of the game.

Reviewing the Game and Analyzing Moves

To review the game on Chess.com:

1. Click on the more icon ⋮ at the bottom right corner of the board while viewing it.
2. Select the PGN or download the file to view.
3. Chess.com provides ADM, SVV, POR/COR, WGR, ACC, and W SELF training programs for shaping game strategy, finding ways to improve analysis, and calculating evaluation percent change. (Link Coming Soon – Article Explaining How to Find Chess.com Training Programs)

Good reasons to review a game of chess include:

• Finding out where errors were made, which helps correct them in the future.
• Recognizing good moves and moves deserving of praise.
• Showing where positions can be improved in the future.
• Learning from defenses mounted against one’s attacks.
• Seeing the quality of both your own and your opponent’s strategies and adapting them to new games.
• Getting an objective view of your own and your opponent’s play. By analyzing evaluations and tracking mistakes, it is possible to see whether a player makes the same mistakes over and over.
• Assuring adherence to the rules, respecting the game itself.

Graphs and statistics are added to your active game page on the website. 60-strong and higher members can get immediate post-game analysis through the Stockfish 12 engine using Chess.com desktop or via the mobile Share button – which is available on every move after a game and via the More button on desktop. The engine will briefly analyze a few moves, but for the full-game Coach Critical Analysis members must turn on Move Explorer and Multi-Variant Analysis for full error tracking.

Go to the ‘Analysis Board’ Tab

To play a friend in Chess.com, go to the ‘Play’ screen located in the main left-hand drop-down menu. This is the screen where challenges against the @AutoChessBot and Survival chess mode are found. So, the first thing you will need to do to play a friend in Chess.com is to navigate to the play screen by logging in and clicking on the ‘Play button in the toolbar on the chessboard homepage.

Following that, you will need to go to the ‘Analysis Board’ tab midway on the screen just to the right of the ‘Play’ tab. This is where the ‘Play a friend’ mode is located and can be accessed.

Use the Tools to Analyze Moves

1. Take a screen recording during a game to analyze moves later.
2. Use the computer analysis feature. It is accurate but will not show all variations or the best move. This Chess.com feature allows you to better study your and your opponent’s moves, even trying an automatic rematch again.
3. After a game, click Request a Computer Analysis under the move listing. Note that the computer analysis always uses the moves you and your friend made against each other as the baseline.
4. Understand and try out alternate moves during a game. Click on a piece, and any available moves will appear as highlighted boxes on the board. The highlighted moves are the primary ones for the player, but there are many other valid moves highlighted in grey for each piece.

This figure shows the move one piece can make and the moves highlighted in gray that are less valid but still possible. Even proposed by a computer analysis tool). You can see what effect each possible move would have on the game. Decide whether you are aiming to control certain squares, alter the dynamics of the game, or even create threats against your opponent.

Discuss the Game with Your Friend

Discuss the game with your friend to learn the preferences and style of play of your friend in Chess.com. You can ask your friend questions like how often do you want to play? How do you want to communicate? What should happen if you fail to make your move? Learning your friends’ preferences will help you play a more enjoyable game with your friend. This makes it an important tip when learning how to play chess with a friend.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I play a friend in Chess.com?

To play a friend on Chess.com, first make sure you both have accounts on the website. Then, go to the “Play” tab and select “Play with a Friend.” Enter your friend’s username or email address and send them an invitation. Once they accept, you can start playing a game together.

Can I play a friend who is not online on Chess.com?

Yes, you can still play a friend on Chess.com even if they are not currently online. Simply go to their profile page and click on the “Challenge” button. They will receive a notification once they log in and can accept your challenge to start a game.

Is it possible to play a friend who lives in a different location on Chess.com?

Absolutely! Chess.com allows players from all over the world to connect and play against each other. As long as you both have an account on the website, you can challenge your friend to a game no matter where they are located.

Can I choose the time control for the game when playing a friend on Chess.com?

Yes, you can customize the time control for your game with a friend on Chess.com. When sending the invitation, you can select the desired time control under the “Options” tab. This allows you to play a fast-paced game or a longer, more strategic one.

What happens if my friend and I have different ratings on Chess.com?

When playing a friend on Chess.com, the game will still be rated if both players have a rating. However, the rating change will only affect the player with the lower rating. If the higher-rated player wins, their rating will stay the same. If the lower-rated player wins, their rating will increase.

Is it possible to play multiple games with a friend on Chess.com?

Yes, you can play multiple games with a friend on Chess.com. After finishing one game, you can send another invitation for a new game or continue playing with the same time control. There is no limit to the number of games you can play with a friend on the website.