A chess game with a graphical board, written in pure Python with tkinter. Play hot-seat against a friend or against a built-in AI opponent. No third-party libraries required.
| Platform | How to run |
|---|---|
| Windows | Double-click run_windows.bat — Python installs itself if needed |
| macOS / Linux | ./run_unix.sh — Python & tkinter install themselves if needed |
- Computer opponent with four difficulty levels (Easy → Master) — pick your colour at the start of every game
- Full legal-move enforcement for every piece
- Castling (kingside & queenside)
- En passant captures
- Pawn promotion (Queen, Rook, Bishop or Knight)
- Check, checkmate and stalemate detection
- Click-to-move with legal destinations highlighted
- Board coordinates (a–h, 1–8) and a New Game button
- At the start of each game a window asks how you want to play: Play vs Computer (choose your colour and difficulty) or Two Players. The same prompt appears whenever you click New Game.
- White moves first. White pieces start at the bottom, black at the top.
- Click one of your pieces — it highlights and shows every legal destination with a yellow square or dot.
- Click a highlighted square to move there.
- When a pawn reaches the far rank, a dialog lets you pick the promotion piece.
- When playing the computer, the status bar reads "Computer is thinking…" while it searches; the board stays responsive.
- The status bar shows whose turn it is, and announces check, checkmate or stalemate.
- Python 3.8+
- tkinter (Python's standard GUI toolkit)
| OS | How to get tkinter |
|---|---|
| Windows / macOS | Included with the official installer from python.org |
| Debian / Ubuntu / Kali | sudo apt install python3-tk |
| Fedora | sudo dnf install python3-tkinter |
Double-click run_windows.bat.
If Python is not installed, the script installs it automatically — first via Windows' built-in winget, otherwise by downloading the official installer from python.org. An internet connection and a permission prompt may be required. Tkinter comes bundled, so nothing else is needed.
From a terminal in the project folder:
./run_unix.shIf it is not executable yet, run chmod +x run_unix.sh first.
Like the Windows launcher, this installs everything it needs automatically. Installing system software on Linux/macOS requires administrator rights, so the script will ask for your password (sudo) when it has to install Python or tkinter. If you would rather install them yourself, add python3 and python3-tk (see Requirements) and the script will skip straight to launching the game.
Already have Python 3 and tkinter? You can also run the game directly:
python3 main.pychess-bot/
├── chess_game/
│ ├── __init__.py # package exports (Chess, GUI)
│ ├── pieces.py # board constants, glyphs and colour helpers
│ ├── engine.py # rules engine (no GUI) — Chess class
│ ├── bot.py # the AI opponent — alpha-beta search, Bot class
│ └── gui.py # tkinter window — GUI class
├── main.py # entry point
├── run_unix.sh # one-command launcher for macOS / Linux
├── run_windows.bat # one-click launcher for Windows
└── README.md
The rules engine has no GUI dependencies and can be imported on its own:
from chess_game import Chess
game = Chess()
print(game.legal_moves(6, 4)) # white e2 pawn → [(5, 4), (4, 4)]
game.move(6, 4, 4, 4) # play 1. e4Free to use and modify.