Practice is free, and it is where to start

Practice is the whole platform with the money taken out. Ten games, real boards, real clocks, and nothing at stake. You can play as much of it as you like, and there is no version of it that costs you anything.

If you have arrived here curious but not ready to put up money, this is where to start. Most people should.

What you get

Every game on the platform is playable in practice: chess, draughts, checkers, othello, gomoku, xiangqi, hex, oware, dots and boxes, and wordgrid. Same rules, same boards, same clocks.

You can play against a bot on easy, medium or hard, or against a friend by sending them a link.

Nothing is staked, and nothing is recorded. Practice games do not affect your rating, do not appear on the leaderboard, do not earn XP, and do not move you on the Rivals ladder. Nobody sees them. Lose forty games in a row learning hex and the only person who knows is you.

Why to use it

To learn a game you have never played. Most people arrive knowing chess and maybe checkers. Oware, hex and xiangqi are excellent games that far fewer people have tried, and reading the rules is not the same as playing three games badly and starting to see it. Every game has a how-to article here, and playing along with one is the fastest way in.

To find out whether a game suits you. Some people love hex and find othello frustrating, or the other way round. That is worth discovering for free.

To get used to the clock. Ten minutes for a whole game is not much if you have only ever played across a table with no clock at all. Running out of time is a real way to lose here, and the way to stop it being a surprise is to feel it once when nothing is riding on it.

To warm up. Even players who know a game well use a quick bot game before a session, the way you would hit a few balls before a match.

The bots

Three settings: easy, medium and hard. Easy is genuinely easy and exists so a first game is not miserable. Hard will beat most people at most of these games.

One thing worth saying plainly, because it matters more here than on most platforms: bots exist only in practice. You will never be matched against one in a game with money on it, in the lobby, in Rivals or in a tournament. Every opponent in a staked game is a person.

Playing a friend

You can also practise against somebody you know. Choose the game, get a link, send it to them, and the first person to open it is your opponent. No stake, no account required on their side beyond signing in, and no record kept.

It is a good way to teach somebody a game, and a good way to settle an argument about who is better at oware without either of you putting money on it.

What practice does not do

It does not build your rating, so a strong practice record does not follow you into staked games. Your rating comes from games with something on them, which is the only way it means anything.

It does not earn XP or move you on the Rivals ladder. Those come from staked games too.

And it will not fully prepare you for playing for money, because playing for something changes how it feels. That is not a flaw in practice, it is just true. It does mean your first staked game should be a small one.

Try it

Practice is free and always will be. Open it, pick a game you have never played, and put the bot on easy.

When you are ready for a game with something on it, start small: the lobby lets you set your own stake, and Rivals starts everybody at 5 USDC a game.