Chess From Position: A Free Tool to Generate Real Chess Positions

Chess From Position is a free website that generates positions from real games taken from the Lichess Open Database – specifically those games with Stockfish evaluations already available. 

The idea? Give you a chess position that you can immediately explore, analyze, or play from. By default, the tool provides a roughly equal position. But you can customize your search to get unbalanced positions if you want, and positions arising from specific openings as well.

Key Features

Get a Random Position

Want a fun challenge or a quick start? With one click, you can load a random position from a real game that Stockfish evaluated as equal. Perfect for coaching sessions or solo studies.

Create a Game

Search by Opening, Moves, and Evaluation

You can customize your position search using:

• Opening: Select a general opening family (e.g., “English Opening”) or a specific opening (e.g., “English Opening: Symmetrical Variation”).
• Number of Moves: Choose how deep into the game you want to start.
• Stockfish Evaluation: Search for positions where one side is better (+3 or -3, for example), or stick to roughly equal positions.

Explore the Position on the Board

Loaded a position? Go ahead – make some moves! Test ideas, explore plans, and dive into the position. You can flip the board and play as either Black or White.

Integrate Seamlessly with Lichess

One of the best parts of Chess From Position is how it works with Lichess. Once you load a position, you can:

• Open the Analysis Board to review the position with tools you know and love.
• Practice vs. Computer to bring up the Lichess practice board with hints
• Play Against AI with customizable engine strength and color choice.
• Create an Open Challenge and share the link to invite anyone to play the position.

Any changes you make to the position will get automatically carried over into Lichess with any of the options above.

FEN and PGN Support

Want to save or share the position? Copy the FEN to use anywhere, or grab the PGN of your moves to analyze later.

Who Can Benefit from Chess From Position?

This tool is for all chess lovers. Here are just a few ideas and use cases:

Avoid opening theory

Jump straight into the middle game, skipping the rote memorization of theory.

Do a deep-dive into specific openings

Explore middle-game positions that arise from your favorite openings. Study pawn structures, motifs, and typical plans.

Improve your defensive play

Start in positions where you’re worse and train your defensive skills to find resources under pressure.

Improve your conversion

Practise the skill of converting an advantage into a win.

Create odds games

Generate positions with non-zero evaluations (+3, for example) to create odds games to play against friends of different strengths.

You are a chess coach

You can use this tool in all the different ways above to coach your students in different aspects of the game.

You are a tournament organizer

Do things a bit differently. Add spice to your tournament with interesting starting positions.

Chess960 Support

Chess From Position fully supports Chess960 (also known as Fischer Random or Freestyle Chess. This is particularly valuable as more high-level events embrace this variant to emphasize raw skill and creativity.

The site allows you to load random Chess 960 positions from real games and provides unique search capabilities:

SPID Search: You can search by the Start Position Identifier (SPID), the number that defines the unique 960 back-rank setup.

Pattern Filtering: An innovative feature allows filtering by piece patterns (e.g., searching ‘bbnn’ to find setups where the bishops and knights start together). This facilitates the study of general strategic ideas across similar 960 initial configurations.

Summary

In summary, Chess From Position is a great tool for players who want to dedicate study time to the analysis of realistic, challenging, and unique middle-game positions. It helps train your chess judgment, calculation, and strategic planning, making you a more flexible and well-rounded player.

The Chess From Position Promise

• Completely free
• Mobile and desktop friendly
• No account/login required
• No cookies, no trackers, no ads
• Cool chess-themed merchandise

Try it out right away!