How To Play Simuls On Chess.com

"Simuls" (or "simultaneous exhibitions" if you're not into the whole brevity thing) pit a single chess player against two or more opponents. Usually, a simul is given by a master against multiple amateur players.

You can easily play a simul on Chess.com. The player giving the simul simply needs to enable "Play Multiple Games at a Time" at chess.com/settings/live. This setting will also allow the player to receive new challenges while playing games.

We also recommend that the player giving the simul turn on "Auto Switch Game" in the above settings. With this setting enabled, Chess.com will automatically take the simulgiver to the game in which they have the least time remaining as soon as they make a move.

When multiple games are underway, the games will all appear in separate tabs in the upper right on Chess.com.

There are many ways for players to challenge the simul giver on Chess.com, but we'd like to recommend two ways that are particularly useful for simuls. First, any player can challenge another player via chess.com/play/USERNAME. Simulgivers can share their personal play URL with their friends, on social media, on forums, or on any other outlet to quickly accumulate opponents eager to take up the challenge.

Alternatively, simulgivers can share a custom challenge URL with users to make sure that all opponents use the same format. This is definitely a feature for "power users," but for many of you, it may be the perfect solution to fielding many challenges. Just build your challenge URL like below [no spaces in the URL!] and send it out!

https://www.chess.com/live#time=5m0s0i&game=chess&rated=rated&minrating=0&maxrating=2200&color=black&member=USERNAME

The above parts in bold should be customized according to the desired parameters. Here are the available options:

• game = chess, chess960, crazyhouse, threecheck, or kingofthehill
• rated = rated or unrated
• minrating = [minimum rating of opponent that you will play]
• maxrating = [maximum rating of opponent that you will play]
• color = white, black, or random [color of the player participating in the simul]
• member = the Chess.com username of the simulgiver

Want to see a quick simul in action? Watch @DanielRensch's three-minute video!