In chess the goal is to move your own buttons towards the opponent's series and to eat the opponent's soldiers and officers. In order to success you need strategic thinking and tactical attacks. The winner of the game is the one who is able to get the opponent's king to a position where it cannot move on the board anymore.

If you are a registered user of Playray and have logged in with your nickname, you can start playing right away.

In case you haven't registered yet, the game will assign you a random visitor nickname. A wavy line (~) will appear automatically before your name in order to inform other players that you are not a registered player. By this we make sure that your nickname won't be confused with those of registered users.

After having logged in, you can chat with other players who are in the lobby, challenge other players to a game, or join as a viewer for an existing game. A list of other persons who are in the lobby can be seen in the lower part of the lobby on the left side of the chat area.

Starting a New Game:

Starting an ordinary game is quick. Just choose your opponent from the list of the players who are in the lobby and click the "Challenge" button. The challenge will be sent to the opponent and you then have to wait a while until the chosen opponent either accepts or refuses your challenge. You also can cancel a challenge by clicking "Cancel Challenge" button.

If you want to adjust the game settings, do it before clicking the "Challenge" button. You can, for example, give a name to the game. In case you don't choose a name, a combination of your nickname and your opponent's nickname will be the name of the game. Naming the game is useful mainly in game tournaments and in cases in which you don't want other users to know who is playing the game.

You also can set a time limit for the game. Then a game clock is used in the game and both players have limited time for making their moves. You also can choose if outsiders can come and watch your game. If you want that only certain people will be able to watch your game, you can choose a password that everyone who wants to watch the game must know.

If someone challenges you to a game, you will get a notification of this and the settings of the game to be started are displayed on the scren. You can either accept or refuse the challenge by clicking the "Accept" or "Refuse" button.

The game starts when the player you challenged accepts the challenge or you accept the challenge of another player. The challenging player plays with white pieces.

Joining the Game as a Viewer:

You can choose a game from the ongoing games list in order to view it. Choose a game and click "View the Chosen Game" button. Then you will be moved to the viewer area where you also can chat with other viewers of the game.

Note that you won't be able to join all games as a viewer. Some games are forbidden for viewers (displayed in grey on the list), or you must have the password in order to view the game. Password-protected games are highlighted in red on the list and the names of the games are preceded by the marking [PW].

Moving a piece is done by clicking on the chosen piece with mouse and then clicking on the square to which you want to move the piece. You can cancel a choice by clicking the piece again or by choosing a new piece to be moved.

Through the writing field on the right, you may chat with your opponent. If you are a player, in addition to the opponent, the possible viewers of the game can also see the texts you write. If you are a viewer, your texts will be shown to other viewers only. This function prevents the viewers from giving advice to players during the game.

By clicking the "paper icon" shown in the top left corner of the chat field or the moves field you can change the way this area is displayed: by clicking the icon you will get a more "computer-like" view in which it also is possible to copy/paste the conversation/the list of moves and save them on your computer.

The game lists the moves by using an algebraic marking method. If you want the moves to be shown as ordinary coordinates on the list, click the button above the moves list.

There are two buttons in the top left corner of the game area. In one of them, there is a picture of a rack wheel and in the other one is a picture of two chess pieces. By clicking the buttons in question you can open a menu.

Clicking the rack wheel button opens the settings buttons of the board. These are the following:

1) animating moves on/off (default: on)
2) graphics 2/3 dimensional or symbolic (default: 2-dimensional)
3) turning the board 90 or 180 degrees

Clicking the "chess pieces" button a menu opens in which there are functions of the ongoing game. This menu is not visible for viewers and after the game not for players either. The menu contains the following functions:

1) The "Give up" button allows you to give up the game and your opponent wins.
2) By checking the "Accept draw as soon as possible" option the game will end as a draw if your opponent also accepts this, or, if according to the rules you have the right to claim a draw in a certain game situation.

After the game has ended, the game situation will be shown in the chat field: the number of victories and the number of draws for each player.

You can start a new game by clicking the "New game" button that appears at the top of the screen after the previous game has ended. A new game starts only after both players have accepted this. In the beginning of the game, the sides change so that the player who played with white pieces will now have black ones. (Note that the joint situation is reset to zero if one of the players goes to the lobby between games).

Playing will be done according to the official rules of chess. The rules of chess can be found for example here.