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Here is a cool 11-move checkmate by black that I discovered when analyzing for the team game. 1. e4 c6 2. Bc4 e6 3. c3 b5 4. Bb3 c5 5. Qf3 Qe7 6. d3 Bb7 7. Qg3 c4 8. dxc4 jump@e6 Qxe4+ 9. freeze@e5 Nd2 Bb4+ 10. Nxe4 freeze@d2 Bxe4 11. Qxb8+ jump@c3 Bxe1# Review the game move-by-move here. White blundered with 9. freeze@e5 Nd2.

You see these challenges? I know how to accept them, but does anyone know how to challenge others. How do I create challenges? Thanks guys

I vibe coded some new features on my Spell Chess webpage. For example, here is a custom spell chess game link. You can play out both sides of a game on the webpage and then click "Get Custom Game Link" to share your line with others. You can also import the spell chess games you play on the Variants server by copying the notation and pasting it into the Import Game field. I made this as a non-programmer using Gemini 2.5 Pro Preview (gemini-2.5-pro-preview-06-05). It's incredible how easy "vibe coding" has become. It's even a big step up from the May version of Gemini 2.5. I'll likely continue adding features like nested notation showing multiple lines so people can create studies. Feel free to let me know if you have any ideas!

I finally got a position where a jump+2 square pawn move was optimal.https://www.chess.com/variants/spell-chess/game/83760880/58/3 (don't mind the gameplay, it was all to set up the pawn jump.)

Update (May 25, 2025): The First Correspondence Spell Chess Game is officially launched! Join the club to be notified of move updates. Join Your Team Club now before the first move on Sunday, June 1st, 2025. (You can also late-join!) I'd like to play a very high quality game of spell chess, and what better way to do that than to give us time to think? Nobody plays games longer than 10|15 time control currently, so I propose a correspondence game, perhaps 24 hours or 48 hours per turn. Better yet, we invite all of the top players and anyone else who wants to participate so that teams can discuss each move. We can divide up the highest rated players across the teams to make them balanced, and should have good rules governing how teams select moves. Perhaps we can just declare the highest-rated player on each team the ultimate decision-maker, or some more complex rule. Who would be interested in this?

THE QUESTION: Why is 12... jump@e5 Qxe1# not allowed in this game?: https://www.chess.com/variants/spell-chess/game/83071151/23/3 In this game versus dmytroilin (2434) I was not able to play a double jump and capture his king. Neither of us are quite sure why. Per our discussion on the game, a double jump to capture the king is allowed in multiple similar positions, including a position where only white's queen is putting the black king in check at the moment of the double jump, and a position where only white's rook would be putting black's king in check at the moment of the double jump. For some reason the double check seems to be contributing to the double jump checkmate not being possible for black, but we aren't sure of the exact reason. Does anyone have a clue?

 I had to play g6 and freeze the bishop in this position because something like nc4 blunders j@e7 rxe8#

Spell chess bug: Long castle O-O-O over a knight using a jump spell on the knight should be legal in my opinion, but is not allowed by the interface.

Just forced a draw from a losing position, and it offers some pretty cool ideas for endgame strategy. Froze my opponent's entire army leaving him unable to move.

  In this position, chess.com did not let me recapture the queen. The queen is defended by the rook through a jump spell, so it thinks that capturing the queen would put myself in check. However, the jump spell will expire at the start of my opponents next turn so the rook would not actually be able to take my king... I feel like this is a mistake by chess.com

Hi there, here is a position from a game I was taking a look at afterwards and I thought it makes for an instructive little spell chess puzzle. Black to move and checkmate (or king capture) white in several moves. White has just played 8. (freeze at g4) h3 PS: after you've found one solution, can you find an alternate first move? : )

White to play and mate in 3: Black to play and mate in 3:

Hello all! I created an announcement 2 days ago but apparently it got not reads, I think it’s a bug that its not visible to members. Anyways.. I have decided to make a variant I created over 2 years ago and see if it would catch on. For anybody interested in learning and playing some games in this variant join here: https://www.chess.com/club/stale-chess-official P.S The game is quite contrary to the name, it is not at all “stale"

Spells affect the mobility and power of pieces drastically, bishops, rooks and queens become monsters while knights are neutered. Long range pieces can coordinate without being frozen together. Combined with the reduced length of games, I wonder how the relative values of pieces change. Please post your own ideas for this below, with reasons.

Hello fellow chess wizards! I was curious what your opinions on spell chess are. What openings do you play, what rating do you have. Anything spell chess related!

Regular chess is believed to be a draw but spell chess is in my opinion much less balanced. Every time I play black against a strong opponent I feel like my position is so much worse after just a few moves. Would love to hear other thoughts on this

I have one minor thing that bugs me about the interface: say you are dragging a piece around with left mouse-button, ready to move...at this point the potential squares that the piece can move are graphically highlighted as usual. If you right click at this point to cancel the move, however, the piece still stays selected and the potential squares are still highlighted so if you click one of them the piece will move. On top of this, the right click will still produce a circle (like of the arrow for spectators \ planning variety) on the right-clicked square. In my opinion, the right click in this case should completely cancel the move and unselect the piece (kind of a complete reset to reconsider) since it is really easy to accidentally click a square not realizing the piece is still selected, but not dragged around with the mouse, also the arrow/circle highlighting shouldn't happen because the right click is only for canceling the piece selection (no one is trying to multitask drawing arrows / circles while also dragging pieces around). I find myself repeatedly accidentally moving pieces because of this and it is not the way it works in the live 2pc (if you mouse-down drag a piece there, right click to cancel the move, then try clicking on a potential square for the piece to move, nothing happens, the whole move sequence\piece selectionis canceled), I've also talked to some other people playing spell chess that said they have accidentally made moves because of this. Currently what you need to do to completely cancel a piece being dragged around ready to move is right click to stop dragging it, then carefully click the board on a neutral square where that piece can't move to get rid of the highlighting for its potential squares; this feels very cumbersome and illogical. Also the right click while dragging a piece around should be completely reserved for canceling the move, and not also produce square highlighting at the same time.

Hey Chess lovers, I tried spell chess for first time Youtube: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9twxfZx7uMEBlog: https://blog.chessforkids.in/2023/09/how-to-play-spell-chess-step-by-step.htmlI am still learning, I need to understand how to use jump boosters?