Chess Trivia Quiz

About this quiz

This Chess Trivia Quiz has 111 questions: 39 easy, 45 medium and 27 hard. It is free. Play it with friends in a room for 2 to 12 players, on phones or in a browser, or play it solo. Type your answers: close enough counts, so a small typo still scores.

Sample questions

20 of the 111 Chess questions in this pack. Think of your answer, then open it.

1. In chess notation K is already taken. Which letter stands for the piece that moves in an L shape?

   Show answer

   N

   German puzzle books use S instead, for 'Springer'.

2. In 2023 Carlsen refused to defend his world title. Which Chinese player won it in his absence, in a rapid tiebreak?

   Show answer

   Ding Liren

   He beat Ian Nepomniachtchi in Astana to become China's first men's world champion.

3. In Hindi, the chess rook gets an animal name. Which animal?

   Show answer

   Elephant

   Old Indian sets carved this piece as an elephant, and Hindi kept the name.

4. The French call the piece that moves only diagonally 'le fou'. What does that word mean?

   Show answer

   Fool

   It began as the Arabic 'al-fil', the elephant, and got garbled into 'fou' on its way through Europe.

5. You're a queen up, but your opponent's king isn't in check and has no legal move. Which word for this ending lets them escape?

   Show answer

   Stalemate

   The game ends on the spot with half a point each, so the losing side escapes.

6. Which four-move trap, a beginners' favourite, sees the queen and a long-range partner team up to checkmate on the f7 square?

   Show answer

   Scholar's mate

   It was described in a 1656 English chess book, and once it's defended the attacker is usually worse off.

7. In The Social Network, Eduardo writes the formula used to rate chess players on a dorm window. Whose name does that rating system carry?

   Show answer

   Elo

   The same maths now ranks players in many other games and sports, from football to tennis.

8. What is the fastest possible checkmate called, which Black delivers on move two after White makes two awful pawn moves?

   Show answer

   Fool's mate

   Only Black can mate this fast; White pushes the f and g pawns and the queen lands on h4.

9. Chess sites get 'bug' reports from players who've never heard of which rule, where a pawn captures an enemy pawn that just rushed two squares past it?

   Show answer

   En passant

   It's the only capture where the capturing piece doesn't land on the square of the piece it takes.

10. In German this piece is the 'Springer', the jumper, because it's the only one that can hop over others. Which piece is it?

    Show answer

    Knight

    It also switches colour every move: from a light square it always lands on a dark one, and back.

11. On old analogue chess clocks, what little thing drops when your time runs out?

    Show answer

    Flag

    FIDE's laws still call running out of time 'flag-fall', even on digital clocks.

12. Which Indian won the 2019 Women's World Rapid title straight after a two-year break to become a mother?

    Show answer

    Koneru Humpy

    She beat Lei Tingjie in an Armageddon tiebreak, and won the title again in 2024.

13. The Queen's Gambit was adapted from a 1983 novel by the writer who also gave us The Hustler. Who was he?

    Show answer

    Walter Tevis

    He died in 1984, so his chess novel reached screens 36 years after his death, in 2020.

14. If all eight of your foot soldiers reached the far side and promoted, how many queens could you have at once?

    Show answer

    9

    A promoted piece doesn't have to be one you've lost, so in theory you could even have ten knights.

15. Which German chess word describes the awful moment when you'd rather pass, because any move you make will hurt you?

    Show answer

    Zugzwang

    It means 'compulsion to move'; chess has no passing, so you're stuck making a bad move.

16. For centuries the queen could move just one square diagonally. In which country did she suddenly become the strongest piece, in the late 1400s?

    Show answer

    Spain

    Critics nicknamed the faster new game 'mad queen's chess', and some link it to Queen Isabella.

17. Amazon's crowd-work website was named after which 1770 'chess robot' that secretly hid a human player inside?

    Show answer

    The Turk

    It toured for 84 years before the trick was fully explained, and it was destroyed in a fire in 1854.

18. In 2025, OpenAI's famous chatbot played a 1977 games console at chess on beginner level and got 'absolutely wrecked'. Which console?

    Show answer

    Atari 2600

    It mixed up rooks and bishops and lost track of pieces; Microsoft's Copilot later lost to the same console too.

19. In 2017, which AI lab's program taught itself chess from just the rules, then crushed the strongest engine without losing a game?

    Show answer

    DeepMind

    AlphaZero won 28 of the 100 games and drew the other 72, after about nine hours of playing against itself.

20. In 2025's first big AI chatbot chess tournament, OpenAI's o3 beat which Elon Musk-backed bot 4-0 in the final?

    Show answer

    Grok

    Carlsen mocked its blunders on the broadcast, and Musk said his company had put almost no effort into chess.

Play free with friends

How to play with friends

1. Start a room. Open this quiz in Braggit, already picked for you. It plays in any browser or the app.
2. Invite your friends. Share the room code or link. Friends join from their own phones, in the same room or over a video call.
3. Type, wager, brag. Everyone types an answer before the timer runs out. Wager points when you are sure, then share your brag card.

Questions about this quiz

More quizzes like this

• Badminton: Smash Hit Badminton · 108 questions
• Cricket Records: Record Breakers Cricket records · 170 questions
• Deep Fine Leg Pro Cricket deep cuts · 220 questions
• F1 Pro: Pit Wall Pro Formula 1 deep cuts · 178 questions
• F1: Box Box Formula 1 · 226 questions
• Football World Cup: Extra Time FIFA World Cup · 284 questions

All Sports quizzes · All quizzes · Trivia with friends