How to Play Chessguessr: Rules, Tile Colors, and Notation Tips

Updated

Chessguessr is a daily chess puzzle in the style of Wordle: you are shown a position from a real game and have to guess the five moves that were actually played next. After each guess, the tile colors tell you how close you were. It is free to play in a browser, a new position appears every day at midnight UTC, and no account is mentioned — you just open the site and start guessing.

The basic loop

  1. Open chessguessr.com. The day's position is already on the board, taken from a real game (the example on the site is Amirfer (2190) – Cybermemere (2277)).
  2. Read the position and decide what you think the next move played in the game was.
  3. Enter that move in chess notation and submit it.
  4. Repeat until you have filled in your five guesses for the five moves that followed the shown position.
  5. Use the tile colors after each guess to narrow down the real continuation.

You are guessing the five next moves played in the game, in order — not the best moves according to an engine.

What the tile colors mean

The feedback works like Wordle, but adapted to chess moves. The site gives three cases:

Color meaning What it tells you Site example
Correct move, correct spot This is the move that was played at this point in the line Nd5
Move appears in the played line, but in the wrong spot The move was played somewhere in the five-move sequence, just not here Bxb6
Same piece type played here, but the move is wrong A piece of that type moved at this point, but not this particular move Nxg7 (a knight was played, but not necessarily the same knight)

The third case is the loosest signal: it only tells you the piece type, so a knight hint does not mean the same knight moved, and it does not confirm the destination square.

Notation has to match exactly

This is the most common place to lose a correct guess. The site states that the notation must be identical for moves to be considered the same — for example, Nxf7 and Nxf7+ are not treated as the same move. So include or omit check and checkmate symbols exactly as the game record does, and be careful with captures, promotions, and disambiguation.

Controls you will use

  • Submit — lock in the current guess and get color feedback.
  • Undo last move — take back the move you just entered before submitting, useful if you mistype the notation.

Practical tips

  • Start from the position on the board, not from what you would play. The answer is what the players actually played, which may be a weaker move than the engine's choice.
  • Treat a "same piece type" tile as a weak hint: it narrows the piece, not the square.
  • If a move gets the "in the line but wrong spot" color, remember it and try placing it in a different one of the five slots.
  • Double-check symbols like +, #, and x before submitting, since an exact-notation mismatch reads as a wrong move.

A new position appears every day at midnight UTC, so the puzzle resets on that schedule rather than on your local midnight.