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How do I play Vote Chess?
How do I play Vote Chess?
Updated over a week ago

To play Vote Chess, hover over 'More' in the left menu (three dots icon) and click 'Vote Chess'

This will take you to the Vote Chess page, where you can see any ongoing games that any of your Clubs are taking part in. You can hop in and make a vote at any point in the game. Just click the green 'Join' button!

How to vote

To vote, simply make a move on the board, then click the green check mark to accept the move, just like moving in a Daily game. This will submit your vote for the move.

Once you submit your vote you cannot change your vote for that move. So be sure to think carefully before submitting your vote!

Depending on the settings, you may then see a list of all the votes:

Once time is up, votes are tallied and the move with the most votes is made on the board.

You are allowed to discuss the entire game in the forums.

It is OK to discuss opening lines found in game databases (including win/draw/loss statistics) and strategies for using opening databases in club forums. But the same as all games on Chess.com, engines and outside help are not allowed. See our fair play rules here.

Depending on how the game creator set up the rules, in some games the other votes will be shown BEFORE you make a move, and in other games you will not see the other votes until AFTER you have moved.

Draws and resigning

You can vote to offer a draw in addition to voting for a move. This means you vote for a move, AND vote for a draw, and if the draw does not get enough votes, then your vote will instead count toward the move you chose.

The draw offer will only be submitted if more than 50% of the people who voted include the draw offer. This means 1/2 of the total voters +1. ((Total number of votes for moves/2 )+1) People who don't vote for anything are not counted in the calculation.

If the draw gets enough votes to be offered, then the other team will be able to vote on whether to accept the draw, which will also require 50% of the voters +1.

If you feel that the game is over and would like to resign then you can cast your vote to resign. If more than 60% of voters choose to resign then the game will be over.

Ties

If there is a tie vote for one or more moves then the move that has the most recent vote is chosen as the winning move.

For example, if there are four people on a Vote Chess team trying to decide between e4 and d4, and the votes happen in this order:

John chess votes e4

Maryvotes d4

Sarah votes d4

Janevotes e4

Both moves have two votes each, but e4 would win the tie because it has the most recently placed vote. If there was another vote for e4, then another vote for d4 before time ran out for voting, then d4 would win.

Commenting

Discussing and debating moves is of course allowed and is a major part of vote chess!

There are three different comments sections:

PUBLIC can be seen by everyone and anyone. You can go there to meet face to face with the competition!

TEAM comments are only seen by your teammates. Here is the best place to talk strategy.

The ARCHIVE allows you to go back and use the comments of previous moves.

Challenges

If you are the Admin of a club, you can create or accept a vote chess challenge.

To see the open seeks created by other clubs, click on 'open seeks' on the right menu:

You can also click 'Create New' to create your own open challenge for a vote chess game

Scoring

Once the game is over, the points are assigned to the clubs as follows:

  • Win: 5 points

  • Draw: 2 points for each team

  • Lose: 0 points

These points are then used to rank teams on the Vote Chess Leaderboard!

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