How a chess match for USDC works, step by step

Chess is the oldest skill game there is, and playing it for a stake is older than most of the rules. On Dream Games you can play a game of chess against another person for USDC, a digital dollar, with the stake held aside while you play and paid out the moment the game ends. This article walks through the whole path: getting USDC in, setting up a game, what happens to the money at the end, and getting it back out.

If you have never played for a stake before, read it once through before you deposit anything. Then start in practice, which is free.

What USDC is, and why we use it

USDC is a stablecoin: one USDC is meant to be worth one US dollar, today and next month. That is the reason we use it. A ten dollar game is ten dollars when you start and ten dollars when you finish, and nothing about the price of crypto changes what you staked or what you can win.

Your balance here is held in USDC, every stake is in USDC, and every payout is in USDC.

Step one: deposit

Your account has its own deposit address, shown on the deposit page. You send USDC to it, and once the network has confirmed the transfer it appears in your balance. There is no minimum deposit and we charge nothing to receive one.

Two details decide whether a deposit arrives, and they are worth checking every time until it is habit.

• The network is Polygon. A transfer on Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum or any other network never reaches us.
• The token is native USDC on Polygon. Some exchanges and bridges send an older bridged token, USDC.e, under the same USDC name. It is not credited. The deposit page shows the exact token address so you can compare it with what you are sending.

You can send from an exchange, or connect a wallet such as MetaMask, or any wallet that supports WalletConnect, and send from there. Sending from your own wallet costs a small network fee in POL, Polygon's own coin, which your wallet pays. We do not charge for it and we do not receive it.

Step two: set up a game

Chess games for a stake are arranged in the lobby. You can put up a game yourself, choosing the stake, or accept one somebody else has put up. Both players stake the same amount, and a game can be anything from 1 USDC to 10,000 USDC. When you put up a game, your stake is set aside from your balance straight away. An open offer lasts 24 hours; if nobody accepts it, it lapses and the stake goes back into your balance.

If you would rather play a particular person, you can send them a private link to your game instead of leaving it in the lobby.

When the game starts, both stakes are held in a holding account for that one game. Neither player can touch them while the game is on.

Step three: play

Each player has 10 minutes on the clock for the whole game, with no time added per move. Run out of time and you lose, exactly as you would over a board with a real clock.

A few rules are worth knowing before your first staked game:

• Stalemate, threefold repetition, insufficient material and the fifty move rule all end the game as a draw automatically. Nobody has to claim them.
• You can offer a draw on your own turn, up to three times a game. If it is declined, you cannot offer again until another move has been played.
• A pawn that reaches the last rank always becomes a queen. There is no choice of piece here, so plan around that if you were hoping for a knight.
• If your opponent never turns up, their clock runs while they are away, and they lose once it has run out.

Step four: the payout

When the game ends, the holding account pays out straight away.

If somebody wins, the winner receives 90% of the pot and we keep 10% as our fee. With two stakes of 10 USDC, the pot is 20 USDC: the winner receives 18 USDC and the fee is 2 USDC. That fee is the only charge on a game.

If the game is drawn, both players get their full stake back and we take nothing.

It is worth being plain about the other side of this. If you lose, your stake is gone. Play for amounts you would be comfortable losing, because sometimes you will.

Step five: withdraw

Your balance can be withdrawn to a Polygon wallet at any time. A withdrawal costs 1% of the amount, and the smallest withdrawal is one that leaves you with at least 2 USDC after the fee. Large withdrawals can wait for a person to review them before they are sent.

For your protection, withdrawals pause for 24 hours after you link an email address to your account, and for 24 hours after you change a passkey. If someone ever got into your account, that pause is what stops them leaving with your balance before you notice.

Is it allowed where you are?

Dream Games is for adults only: you must be 18 or older, or the age of majority where you live if that is higher. You must also be somewhere it is lawful to play games of skill for money. The rules differ from country to country and within some countries, and checking them is your responsibility, so please do that before you deposit.

Why chess works for this

There is no dice roll in chess, no shuffled deck and no hidden information. Both players see the whole board and the better move is always available to whoever finds it. That is what makes it fair to play for a stake: the result belongs to the players, and nothing else decides it.

It also means that the best way to protect your stake is to play better. Every game you play in practice, every opening you understand a little more deeply and every endgame you have seen before is worth more than any amount of luck, because luck has no part in it.

Start without a stake

Practice is free. You can play chess against a bot on easy, medium or hard, or send a friend a link and play each other, with nothing staked and nothing recorded. Play a few games there first, get used to the board and the clock, and come to the lobby when you are ready.