Chess.com's Fair Play Policy supports our mission to maintain a clean and fair platform for chess players around the world. In light of this mission, we reserve the right and discretion to monitor all chess games played on our platform.
You agree to support our mission of maintaining a clean and fair platform by not engaging in any dishonest, deceitful, fraudulent, or other similar conduct when playing on our platform or in our events, including the following:
- All of your moves must be your own.
- Do not cheat in any way.
- Do not get help from any other person, including parents, friends, coaches, or other players.
- Do not use chess engines, software of any kind, bots, plugins, browser extensions, or any tools that analyze positions during play. We can detect if you are using any of these programs.
- Do not use tablebases or any other resources that show the best move (in both Online and Daily chess).
- You may use Opening Explorer or other books in Daily chess only (not in Online / Live play).
- Do not perform any automated analysis or “blunder checking“ of your games in progress.
- Do not allow anyone else to use your account.
- Do not use anyone else's account.
- Do not artificially manipulate ratings, matches, or game outcomes.
- Do not interfere with the gameplay of other members.
- Suspecting your opponent of using outside help is not an excuse to do the same. If you suspect someone is cheating, report the player to Chess.com.
Violations of this Fair Play Policy in competitive events or prize competitions may harm Chess.com and other affected third parties. You agree to be fully responsible for all harm (including monetary damages) arising from such violations, including prize forfeitures, reputational damages, administrative costs, and any other losses caused by your breach or conduct. You also acknowledge that Chess.com may pursue civil remedies for damages against you and may report any violations to law enforcement authorities where applicable and permitted by law.
NOTE: This Fair Play Policy applies to your use of our Services; however, it does not apply to your games that are not against other users, such as in the game mode versus Chess.com computer (i.e., non-human, virtual) “bots“. We may grant exceptions to this policy for content creators on special occasions, provided the request is made to us well in advance. The content creator must be in good standing, and the exception must only apply to either unrated games or authorized “content accounts” (e.g., speed-run or streamed-training accounts). If an exception is approved, the creator must follow all guidelines provided by the Fair Play team. Please note that we may expand or narrow any applicable exceptions to the Fair Play Policy at any time without notice to you, so you should remain familiar with this policy.
WARNING: Consistent with our User Agreement, if we determine or suspect that you have violated our Fair Play Policy in any way, then we may close your account and label it publicly closed for Fair Play violations. We also reserve and maintain the complete right to take any action that we may deem appropriate in response to violations or suspected violations of our Fair Play Policy, including but not limited to publicly disclosing facts, communications, and findings regarding any violations of the Fair Play Policy and disclosing such materials to governmental authorities or chess governing bodies. All account status changes are made at our sole discretion. Under some circumstances, including for titled players, we may, at our discretion, allow you to open a second-chance account, subject to additional terms and conditions, including your provision of a written acknowledgement of your violations in the form of an agreement we provide. If further violations of the Fair Play Policy are detected, you may be subject to a lifetime ban from Chess.com. For the avoidance of doubt, Chess.com has no obligation to provide second-chance accounts, even for titled players, and reviews Fair Play Policy violations on a case-by-case basis.
Our User Agreement also has specific rules of conduct and other restrictions that users must abide by when using the Services. As a condition of your use of our Services, you must abide by both this Fair Play Policy and our User Agreement. In the event of any conflict between our User Agreement and this Fair Play Policy, our User Agreement will supersede. All capitalized terms used but not defined in this Fair Play Policy have the respective meanings set forth in the User Agreement.
We reserve the right to modify this policy at any time with or without notice to you, in which case we will update the “Last updated“ date at the top of this Fair Play Policy.