Multiplayer Chess

How do I report a player, username, avatar, or chat message?

You can report an abusive chat message directly from the chat. Just hover the mouse over the message and click on “Report abuse”.

To report offensive usernames or avatars, as well as to report abusive players in general (e.g. if you suspect cheating) please contact us with their name.

If you suspect cheating or other abusive behaviour, indicate your username in addition to their and the date when the game took place. We’ll investigate.

How do I block or unblock another player?

After a game is over, you can block your presumably abusive opponent from ever challenging you again (you can also report them!). You can unblock players from your multiplayer account settings (click the Blocked players button).

What are offline challenges?

“Offline Challenge” is the name we chose for correspondence chess. You can read a detailed how-to on correspondence chess.

How do I play correspondence chess in SparkChess?

Use the new Offline Challenge mode.

How do I delete my multiplayer account?

The fastest and most secure way to delete your multiplayer account is from SparkChess. Select Challenge → Multiplayer, log in, select a playing area, click Account → Delete and enter your password for confirmation before clicking the Delete button.

The accounts are deleted immediately. If the deleted account was owning a team, the team is deleted as well. Leaderboards may take up to one hour to update.

Deleted accounts are generally not recoverable. If you deleted your account by mistake and are a premium player, we may be able to recreate your account, so please contact us.

The game history is not deleted.

Once an account is deleted, the username becomes available to be reused.

Does SparkChess multiplayer support crossplay?

Yes. We don’t rely on any closed platform for multiplayer or leaderboards and we own our entire tech stack. As such, users can play with each other regardless of the platform they’re on – PC users can play with Mac users, Android devices can play with iPhones, and so on.

Can I connect to Multiplayer if I’m using Tor or a VPN?

Now why in the world would you want to do that? Joking.

Short answer: It depends.

SparkChess Multiplayer requires WebSockets to connect. Sockets allow fast, near-instant communication and are used by most messaging apps and games. We used to support an HTTP fallback mode, but we removed it in 2018 because few players needed it and it lacked performance.

Back to VPNs, you need to check if your connection supports sockets. In our tests, we had no problems accessing the SparkChess website and multiplayer service via Tor and OpenVPN.

If you have problems with your VPN/Tor, you should disable it for SparkChess. We do not track our players and we do not block anyone. We are also not aware of any country blocking or tracking SparkChess.

What is Guest Login?

When accessing the multiplayer service, there is an alternative “Guest login” option. We added this feature many years ago when we realized that some players wanted to get a taste of multiplayer without having to spend time setting up an account.

Note: Setting up an account is very straightforward, just enter your nickname, email (for password recovery) and password and you’re in!

Guest accounts are ephemeral. They start with 800 points and their progress is not saved. They have no stats or game history, they can not join or manage teams and have no access to chat.

Only use the Guest login if you are new to SparkChess and want to see how multiplayer works.