About Classic Chess
The great games, the players who made them, and a board to play them through on
Classic Chess is a study site for historical chess. There are archives for 179 great players, a master database of more than 6.5 million searchable games, an analysis board that runs in your browser, and an account for bookmarks and collections.
It started as Christian Walls's personal chess page and kept growing. Each player page has a biography next to the games. Search finds games by opponent, event, date or opening, and every game opens in a viewer with a move list, Stockfish, and PGN download.
Why the classics
The name says what it's for: the classical games, the ones people keep coming back to. Play through an 1858 brilliancy move by move and it holds up. They still have things to teach.
Watch how the masters developed, attacked, defended bad positions and won endgames. Replay their choices, read the original notes where we have them, and check your own ideas against Stockfish.
Project principles
A few rules the site follows. Its own fonts, scripts and engine are served from here. There are no ads and no cross-site tracking. Your board preferences are stored with your account. The master database is read-only. Imported PGN is checked before it's stored. And the archive is a selection: games chosen because they're worth studying.
What you can do
- Archive
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Each player has a biography, career facts, and every kept game replayable move by move. The tournaments and matches they played in are here too, with crosstables and final standings.
- Guided study
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Games with the original notes, a beginners' path of 19 complete games in study order, and a different game featured every day.
- Game search
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Search 6.5 million games by player, head-to-head, event, year, site or ECO code. Results open in the viewer with the PGN one click away. Player lookups show a win/loss/draw record and opening repertoire.
- Openings
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What was played from any position
From any position, see which moves were played in the master database, how each one scored, and the games behind the numbers.
- Analysis
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Paste a PGN or a Lichess or Chess.com link, play out variations, or set up a position in the board editor. Stockfish runs locally in your browser.
- Your library
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Bookmarks, collections and notebooks
Bookmark games and players, sort them into collections, and keep notebooks with your own chapters. Board, pieces, sounds, engine and viewer layout are saved to your account. There's a REST API if you'd rather script it.
