The Dice Chess rulebook

The goal

Capture the king

Dice Chess is chess with the safety rails removed. There is no check and no checkmate — you win by actually taking the enemy king off the board.

Because the king can really be captured, king safety is never optional. A careless monarch can be snatched by a lucky knight roll, and a "lost" position can flip the moment your opponent's king steps into the open. Attack theirs, shelter yours.

Start of turn

Roll three dice

Every turn begins with a tap on the roll button. Three dice land, and each face maps to a piece type — that trio is your hand for the turn.

The dice are rolled on our servers and revealed to both players at the same moment, so nobody can peek, re-roll, or fake an outcome. If a roll would leave you with no legal move at all, the server re-rolls it before you ever see it — you always have something to play.

Playing a turn

Spend your dice like moves in hand

A turn can contain up to three moves — one per die. Here's the rhythm:

1. 1

   Roll

   Tap Roll to reveal your three dice. Faces repeat — two fives means two queen moves this turn.

2. 2

   Move a matching piece

   Pick any piece whose type matches an unused die and move it using normal chess movement. That die is now spent.

3. 3

   Keep going

   While you still hold unused dice with at least one legal move, keep moving. Dim dice have no legal move and can't be used.

4. 4

   Turn ends

   When no unused die has a legal move — whether you spent all three or got blocked — your turn ends, your clock gains its increment, and your opponent rolls.

The fine print

Dice rules worth knowing

A few details separate good dice players from great ones:

Doubles are power. Two knight faces means the same knight can jump twice — or two knights move once each. Triple queen? The board may not survive.

Pawns still promote. March a pawn to the last rank on a pawn die and it transforms, exactly like classic chess. En passant works too.

A die you can't use is information. If your rook die is dead, your rooks are boxed in — your opponent can read that as well as you can.

Order matters. Moving one piece can unlock a legal move for another die that looked dead. Sequence your dice deliberately.

Time

Beat the clock

Ranked matches run on real chess clocks. Your clock ticks only on your turn, and you earn a small increment when your turn ends.

Run out of time and you lose on the spot — the flag falls on the server, not on your screen, so both players always see the same truth. The increment lands once per turn (not per move), so a three-move turn doesn't stockpile extra seconds.

How games end

Win conditions

A game of Dice Chess ends one of three ways:

1. 1

   King capture

   The clean kill: any piece takes the enemy king. Victory, instantly.

2. 2

   Timeout

   Your opponent's clock hits zero. Manage your time; make them burn theirs.

3. 3

   Resignation

   A hopeless position can be conceded with honor. The result is recorded like any other.

Progression

Trophies, arenas, and rewards

Online Dice Chess is ranked. Every result moves your trophy count, and trophies place you in one of 24 arenas — from Wood all the way to Champion.

A ranked win earns roughly +27 to +31 trophies plus a purse of gold; a loss costs a little less than a win earns. Rewards are rolled and applied on the server at the moment the match ends, so what you see is exactly what you got.

Matchmaking uses a hidden skill rating to find fair opponents, widening its search the longer you queue. Gold buys cosmetics — board themes, piece skins, dice designs — never advantages.