Classic+ is classic 8x8 chess with the butterfly guiding you: move paths, coach notes and friendly warnings.
Chrysalis mode turns losses into lessons. Lose a piece and you get a short chrysalis moment, a quick note on what happened, and a retry from just before the slip. Apply the lesson and the butterfly emerges.
🐛
🌿 Chrysalis lesson
Invites
Play a friend by link, one move at a time. Either of you can close the tab and come back from the link. For instant live play use New game, Online.
Email alerts are coming later.
CHECK!
ChesSphere™Fear the Edge
Look
White to move
White 0:00Black 0:00
Watch bots
The computer plays both sides and Ava explains each move.
Developing your pieces on a Sphere
Seven guided lessons from 240 bot games, each with practice positions checked by the engine.
Drills
Rounds of 5 engine-checked positions. Your best streak is saved on this device.
Short lessons with live positions. You can move pieces in each one.
Chess news
Headlines from Chess.com, Lichess, FIDE, ChessBase and The Week in Chess. Links open the source site.
Why it helps in classical and blitz
Practice habits from the globe that can carry over to a flat board.
Openings built around the wrapped edge. Step through each move with notes.
Computer levels with estimated ratings (from a bot round robin, an estimate only):
Local Elo: start 1200, K = 32, provisional (?) for the first 10 games. Undo, Hint or a level change makes the game casual. Stored on this device only.
Board view
Hanging means undefended, or attacked by a cheaper piece. Applies to the butterfly's spoken and bubble warnings.
Play style
Calm mode (the leaf button at the top) gives a simple, quiet game in every version. Tap it again for the full show.
Moves
Promote to
Replay a classical game
Paste a PGN, load a file, or pick a famous game. Replay it move by move, or convert it to the sphere: the real moves play until the globe changes the story, then the bots play on with sphere rules.
PGN with ChesSphere notation
Tap for the answer
Welcome to ChesSphere
This board has never existed before. Chess wraps around a globe, so every square connects. You are one of the first players in the world to try it.
Pick another nickname. Something friendly works best.
What's your rating?
Great news: Founding Tester access is free for one year for players rated 2000 and up. Verify your rating and it is yours.
New game
ChesSphere Plus: play on Lichess
Games are casual and use the Classic board with standard rules. Hints, threat view and coaching stay off during Lichess games for fair play. ChesSphere asks Lichess only for permission to play games (board:play).
ChesSphere was invented by Daniel Hedrick in 1988.
It began as an earth globe that he sanded smooth, painted black and squared off by hand into the first magnetic spherical chessboard. Decades later the globe found its way onto your screen and into VR, so the board can wrap all the way around, just as it always wanted to.
Thank you for playing and for helping a 1988 dream spin on.
