PUMP CHESS

❔ Rules

How to play

Every game on the site, from the goal down to the thing that separates a good player from a new one. You do not need to have played any of them before.

♞

Chess

Checkmate the opponent's king — attack it so that no legal move escapes.

Play →
How a turn works
  1. 1Pick a time control in the lobby, or take a seat at someone's open table.
  2. 2White moves first. Drag or tap a piece, then tap its destination.
  3. 3Your clock runs only on your turn, and any increment is added after you move.
Playing it well
  • Control the centre early and get your king castled before opening lines.
  • A piece that defends another is worth more than one that does nothing.
  • In a lost position, offering a draw costs nothing — resigning costs the whole game.
How it ends

Checkmate, resignation, an agreed draw, a flagged clock, stalemate, threefold repetition, the fifty-move rule, or insufficient material.

How long

1 to 30 minutes, depending on the time control.

Why it's fair

Every move is validated server-side against the real rules; illegal moves are impossible rather than merely discouraged.

⚔️

RPG Chess

Win the game of chess — with an army that levels up and keeps its skills between matches.

Play →
How a turn works
  1. 1Play matches to earn XP for the pieces that survive and perform.
  2. 2Spend it on a three-branch skill tree, all the way to level 100 capstones.
  3. 3Take your army into a match; both sides' abilities are visible up front.
Playing it well
  • Levelling one piece deep beats spreading XP thin across sixteen.
  • A capstone changes how a position should be played — read the opponent's army before move one.
How it ends

The same as chess, plus the XP settlement that follows it.

How long

10 to 30 minutes.

Why it's fair

Every match re-folds from its action log and is compared against the stored snapshot; a disagreement is reported rather than silently repaired.

🎲

Backgammon

Bear all fifteen of your checkers off the board before your opponent does.

Play →
How a turn works
  1. 1The server rolls two dice for you. Move one checker per die, or one checker twice.
  2. 2A point with two or more enemy checkers is closed to you; a lone checker can be hit and sent to the bar.
  3. 3Once all fifteen are home, start bearing them off.
Playing it well
  • Doubles let you move four times — plan for them, they are 1 roll in 6.
  • The doubling cube is the real game: offer it when you are ahead but not yet winning.
  • Taking a double you should have dropped loses more matches than any bad move.
How it ends

Bearing off first (worth more for a gammon or backgammon), a dropped cube, resignation, or a flagged clock.

How long

5 to 20 minutes.

Why it's fair

Dice come from a seeded generator the server holds until the match ends, then publishes so every roll can be checked.

🚢

Battleship

Sink your opponent's whole fleet before they sink yours.

Play →
How a turn works
  1. 1Place five ships on your 10×10 grid — drag to move, tap to rotate, or auto-place.
  2. 2Once both fleets are down, take turns calling one square at a time.
  3. 3You are told hit or miss, and when a ship goes down.
Playing it well
  • Fire on a parity pattern — every other square — until you hit something. No ship can hide from it.
  • After a hit, work the line before wandering off it.
  • Do not crowd your ships into a corner; a single lucky hit then finds the rest.
How it ends

Every enemy ship sunk, resignation, or a flagged clock.

How long

5 to 15 minutes.

Why it's fair

Your opponent's un-hit ships never leave the server, not even to a spectator — the projection that redacts them is the only way a board is ever sent.

🎱

Pool

Pot your group of balls, then the 8-ball in a called pocket.

Play →
How a turn works
  1. 1Break. The table is open until someone legally pots a ball to claim solids or stripes.
  2. 2Aim with the cue, set power, and add spin if you want it.
  3. 3Pot one of yours and you shoot again; miss or foul and your opponent gets the table.
Playing it well
  • Play position for the next ball, not just the current one.
  • A safety is a real shot — leaving them nothing is often worth more than a hard pot.
How it ends

The 8-ball potted in the called pocket, an 8-ball foul, resignation, or a shot clock running out.

How long

5 to 15 minutes.

Why it's fair

Every shot is simulated by the server's deterministic physics, so the same shot always resolves the same way and the client cannot influence it.

🐟

Go Fish

Collect more complete books — four of a kind — than your opponent.

Play →
How a turn works
  1. 1Ask your opponent for a rank you already hold at least one of.
  2. 2If they have any, they hand them all over and you ask again.
  3. 3If they don't, you go fish from the pool — and if you draw what you asked for, you carry on.
Playing it well
  • Every question tells your opponent what you hold. Ask for what you can complete.
  • Late in the game, remember what they have asked for — it is a map of their hand.
How it ends

All thirteen books banked, resignation, or a flagged clock. Thirteen cannot split evenly, so there is always a winner.

How long

2 to 5 minutes — the quickest seat on the site.

Why it's fair

The shuffle comes from a seed the server never reveals while the match is live, and publishes afterwards so the deal can be verified.

🃏

Uno

Be the first to play out your whole hand.

Play →
How a turn works
  1. 1Match the top card by colour, number or symbol.
  2. 2Nothing to play? Draw one — and play it if it fits.
  3. 3Down to one card, call Uno before your opponent catches you.
Playing it well
  • Hold a wild for when you are blocked, not for when you are winning anyway.
  • Draw-stacking is on: a +2 played onto a +2 passes the whole pile along.
How it ends

A player empties their hand, resignation, or a flagged clock.

How long

3 to 8 minutes.

Why it's fair

Hands stay server-side; the private match channel is shared by both seats, so a hand is never sent across it.

🔤

Literati

Score more points than your opponent by making words on the board.

Play →
How a turn works
  1. 1Place tiles from your rack in one line, connecting to what is already there.
  2. 2The first word must cross the centre square.
  3. 3Premium squares multiply the letter or the whole word, and using all seven tiles is worth a bonus.
Playing it well
  • A short word on a triple-word square beats a long word on nothing.
  • Swapping tiles costs your turn but a rack of five vowels costs you the game.
How it ends

The bag empties and one player is out of tiles, an agreed truce, resignation, or a flagged clock.

How long

10 to 25 minutes.

Why it's fair

Every word is judged against a 168,000-word list on the server; racks are private and the bag is seeded.

🎲

Yahtzee

Fill all thirteen boxes on your card for more points than your opponent.

Play →
How a turn works
  1. 1Roll five dice. Keep the ones you want and roll the rest — up to three rolls a turn.
  2. 2Then put the result in one of your thirteen boxes.
  3. 3Every box must be filled by the end, even if it scores zero.
Playing it well
  • The upper section pays a 35-point bonus at 63 — three of each number gets you there exactly.
  • Keep Chance for a turn that goes badly rather than spending it early.
  • A second Yahtzee is worth 100 bonus points, so don't cross the box out cheaply.
How it ends

Both cards filled — highest total wins, and a tie is a real draw — or resignation, an agreed draw, or a flagged clock.

How long

5 to 12 minutes.

Why it's fair

Every die is derived from the match seed, so a held die is simply not re-rolled and the whole game replays from its seed once published.

🃏

GOPS

Win the most points from thirteen prizes, bidding in secret from an identical hand.

Play →
How a turn works
  1. 1A prize card is turned up. You both hold Ace to King, once each.
  2. 2Secretly play a card. The higher card takes the prize.
  3. 3Tie, and the prize carries over to be fought for again next round.
Playing it well
  • Spending a King to win a two is how you lose — the King is gone forever.
  • A carried-over pot is worth more than the card showing; price the pot, not the prize.
  • There is no optimal line to find, so play the person rather than the position.
How it ends

All thirteen prizes settled — highest total wins, and equal totals are a genuine draw — or resignation, an agreed draw, or a flagged clock.

How long

3 to 8 minutes.

Why it's fair

Neither bid is revealed until both are committed, and the unturned prize order stays server-side until the match ends.

⛰

Can't Stop

Claim three of the eleven columns before your opponent does.

Play →
How a turn works
  1. 1Roll four dice and split them into two pairs — each pair advances that column.
  2. 2You have three runners. Once all three are out, every roll must serve one of them.
  3. 3Roll again to climb further, or bank and keep everything you gained this turn.
Playing it well
  • 7 is the easiest column and the longest; 2 and 12 are the shortest and the rarest.
  • The moment all three runners are out, the odds of busting jump sharply.
  • Bank a good turn. A bust loses the whole run, not just the last roll.
How it ends

A third column claimed, resignation, an agreed draw, or a flagged clock.

How long

5 to 15 minutes.

Why it's fair

Every die derives from the match seed, published at the end so the whole game can be replayed.

🔍

Pump Guess Who

Work out which of the twenty-four faces your opponent is hiding behind — before they work out yours.

Play →
How a turn works
  1. 1Both players secretly pick a face. A commitment hash is published straight away.
  2. 2Take turns buying yes/no questions about the OTHER player's face — hair, eyes, face, accessories — from a budget of ten points.
  3. 3Name their face whenever you like. Right wins the match; wrong loses it.
Playing it well
  • Questions that split the field evenly cost three points; narrow ones cost one. Work out the cut per point.
  • Ten points can't buy certainty on twenty-four faces — the endgame is always a shortlist and a nerve check.
  • Watch how fast they are narrowing — the question log is public. If they are nearly there, take your chance now.
  • A face with common features is expensive to isolate, but everyone knows that, which is what makes the obvious pick readable.
How it ends

A guess — right or wrong — resignation, an agreed draw, or a flagged clock.

How long

4 to 10 minutes.

Why it's fair

The server holds both secret faces and answers for both sides, so nobody can lie about their own face. Both are revealed at the end against the commitments published at the start — proof that neither the opponent nor the server swapped one.

Every game is server-authoritative: your client sends what you want to do, and the server decides what actually happened. Back to the lobby

How to play — PUMP CHESS · PUMP CHESS