How to start
- Open bigboard.games on every device and tap Start a table on one of them.
- The others join by themselves on the same Wi-Fi; elsewhere, scan the QR code or type the four-letter code.
- Lay the devices edge to edge, screens up, as the drawing shows, and pick the game.
Two halves of one board
This is classic chess on an 8 × 8 board. In the default view, Home areas, each phone shows only its own player's half: four ranks by eight files, with your pieces nearest you. Put the two phones top edge to top edge and the halves meet in the middle, where the two fourth ranks touch.
Held upright, the board takes the full width of the screen, and your badge, Resign and the menu sit in a band underneath it. Turn a phone sideways and they move into columns on either side. Two tablets, or a phone facing a tablet, work the same way. No second phone? Two players can share one, on a board that never flips.
Moves that cross the table
Tap one of your pieces and its targets light up on both screens. A move can end on your friend's half: tap the lit square over there and the piece slides across the seam, leaving one screen as it arrives on the other.
Each slide takes 380 milliseconds and starts at the same moment on both phones, so the two halves never disagree about where a piece stands. If two taps compete, the newest pick wins on both devices, and a stray tap never cancels the other player's choice. Jumps in checkers on two phones cross the seam the same way.
Whole board, clocks and a friend far away
Prefer to see everything? Pick Whole board in the lobby and each phone shows all 64 squares, turned so that its own player's pieces sit at the bottom. The same happens by itself when a friend joins from somewhere else with the table's link or code: every device then plays the whole board, so how the phones lie no longer matters.
Clocks are optional. A move timer of 15, 30 or 60 seconds plays a random legal move when it runs out; a chess clock of 5, 10 or 15 minutes each makes whoever runs out resign. You can turn on one, both or neither.
2 players: questions and answers
Does each phone show half the board?
Yes, by default each phone shows its own player's 8 × 4 half, and the halves meet where the phones touch.
Can each phone show the whole board?
Yes, pick Whole board in the lobby and both phones show all 64 squares, each turned to its own player.
Can a friend play chess on their phone from another place?
Yes, they join with the table's link or code, and every device then shows the whole board.
Is there a chess clock?
Yes, if you turn it on: 5, 10 or 15 minutes each, with an optional 15, 30 or 60 seconds a move on top.