ChessTracker

A companion board for games played with real pieces on a real table.

Open ChessTracker

Playing over the board means holding the whole position in your head: which piece is where, what each one can reach, what you have already given up. ChessTracker takes that load off. You play your move on the physical board, tap the same move here, and the screen shows you the position, every legal move for whatever piece you tap, and the running material count.

It is not an engine and it will not suggest moves. It is a mirror of your board that knows the rules.

Want to play a friend online?

ChessTracker is built for games on a physical board. If you want to play a friend digitally instead — whether they are sitting next to you or far away — use Farboard. No sign-up or account needed.

What it does

• Digital board with the pieces drawn as clear symbols, in the familiar green-and-cream style.
• Tap a piece to see every legal move. Quiet moves appear as dots, captures as rings. Pins, checks, castling and en passant are all handled, so what you see really is what is legal.
• Tap an opponent piece to preview its moves in amber, without playing anything — useful for checking a threat before you commit.
• Move recording in standard notation (e4, Nf3, O-O, exd5, hxg8=Q+), numbered the way a scoresheet is.
• Turns switch automatically; the strip belonging to the side to move is outlined. Turn on auto-flip and the board rotates to face whoever is moving, which suits two people sharing one phone.
• Take back a mistake with the take-back button or Ctrl+Z. Step through the game with the arrow buttons, the arrow keys, or by tapping any move in the list.
• Captured pieces and points. Each player's strip shows the pieces they have taken and their material lead (+3), using the usual values — pawn 1, knight and bishop 3, rook 5, queen 9.
• Game end is detected: checkmate, stalemate, insufficient material, threefold repetition and the fifty-move rule.
• Your game is saved in the browser. Close the tab, come back, and the game is where you left it.
• Copy PGN or FEN to keep the game or drop the position into an analysis tool afterwards.

Running it

There is no build step and no dependencies. Open index.html in a browser — double-clicking the file works.

To serve it over HTTP instead:

python3 -m http.server 8000
# then visit http://localhost:8000

Publishing

The site is deployed to GitHub Pages automatically whenever a change reaches main. The deployment runs the test suite first, so a failing rules-engine test will stop that version from being published.

One repository setting must be selected manually: open Settings → Pages on GitHub and set Build and deployment → Source to GitHub Actions. After that, pushing to main (or manually running the Deploy to GitHub Pages workflow from the Actions tab) publishes the site.

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
← / →	Step back / forward through the game
Home / End	Jump to the start / the latest move
Ctrl+Z	Take back the last move
F	Flip the board
Esc	Clear the current selection

Tests

The rules engine is covered by unit tests plus perft node counts for the standard test positions, which is the usual way to prove move generation is exactly right — castling rights, en passant, promotions and pinned pieces included.

npm test

Layout

index.html          markup for the board, panels and dialogs
css/styles.css      styling and the responsive layout
js/chess.js         the rules engine — no DOM, testable on its own
js/app.js           board rendering, tap handling, move list, storage
test/engine.test.js engine tests and perft

js/chess.js is self-contained: it knows nothing about the page and can be reused anywhere. js/app.js never decides what is legal on its own; it always asks the engine.