What is Chess960 tournament prep?

Real Freestyle Chess events draw a starting position shortly before the round and give players a short window to study it before the clock starts. This page recreates that: a random position, a few minutes to look at it, then a timed game against the computer from exactly that position.

Can I move pieces around during prep?

Yes. The board plays out normal legal moves during the study window, and Undo and Reset let you try different ideas and go back to the start position before the timer runs out.

Tournament prep

Study time

3 min 5 min 10 min

Game clock, after prep

5 min 10 min 15 min

Computer's difficulty

You play

White Black Random

Chess960 tournament prep

This is what the top of a Freestyle Chess round actually looks like: the arrangement is drawn, you get a short window to look at it, and then you play it, on the clock, with whatever you worked out in that window and nothing else. Real games from the 2026 World Championship were played exactly this way.

Why prep time and not opening prep

In standard chess, most of a serious player's preparation happens years before the game — memorised lines, computer-checked to move twenty. Chess960 removes that possibility, so tournaments replace it with something much shorter: a look at the actual position you are about to play, for a few minutes, right before you play it. Nobody has seen it before either. What Chess960 is, if you want the rest of it.

Where to go next

Puzzle trainer. Tactics from real Chess960 games.
Position generator. Any of the 960, with its FEN and castling squares.
Play CPU, untimed. No prep window, no clock, just a game.