Github Chess

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Community chess played through GitHub Issues — make your move!

♟️ Community chess, powered by GitHub Issues

The board lives in this README. Anyone can play — moves are submitted as Issues.

🎮 How to play

1. Check the current board below (updated by the bot after each move)
2. Open an Issue titled with your move in algebraic notation — e.g. chess: e2e4
3. A bot validates the move, plays it on the board, and closes the issue
4. First come, first served — one move per person until someone else plays!

📋 Current position

    a   b   c   d   e   f   g   h
  ┌───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┐
8 │ ♜ │ ♞ │ ♝ │ ♛ │ ♚ │ ♝ │ ♞ │ ♜ │ 8
  ├───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤
7 │ ♟ │ ♟ │ ♟ │ ♟ │ ♟ │ ♟ │ ♟ │ ♟ │ 7
  ├───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤
6 │   │   │   │   │   │   │   │   │ 6
  ├───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤
5 │   │   │   │   │   │   │   │   │ 5
  ├───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤
4 │   │   │   │   │   │   │   │   │ 4
  ├───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤
3 │   │   │   │   │   │   │   │   │ 3
  ├───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤
2 │ ♙ │ ♙ │ ♙ │ ♙ │ ♙ │ ♙ │ ♙ │ ♙ │ 2
  ├───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┼───┤
1 │ ♖ │ ♘ │ ♗ │ ♕ │ ♔ │ ♗ │ ♘ │ ♖ │ 1
  └───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┘
    a   b   c   d   e   f   g   h

White to move. Move count: 0

🏅 Hall of fame

Player	Moves
nobody yet — be the first!	—

Inspired by the legendary timburgan/timburgan community chess experiment.

🧠 How the game engine works

1. You open an issue with a move in algebraic notation (e2e4, Nf3, O-O)
2. The Action validates the move with python-chess
3. Board state lives in game/state.fen — the README renders it
4. Bot replies instantly with a Stockfish-lite move (or random if unset)
5. Leaderboard updates — every player appears in game/players.md

♟️ Move notation reference

You type	Meaning
e2e4	Pawn from e2 to e4
g1f3	Knight g1→f3
e1g1	Castle kingside (O-O)
d7d5q	Pawn promotes to queen
resign	Forfeit

🏆 Why this works

Timburgan's version hit 56,000 commits because each move is a real commit by a real person — the repo stays perpetually active in feeds. Every player becomes a contributor.

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Maintained by aixisstudio — author of Snitch, the open-source application firewall.

License

MIT

♟️ Current game

See game/board.md — make your move: open an issue titled e2e4 (or new to restart).