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Castle Gambit
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System follows your phone or computer.

Theme
What’s new

The homepage ·

The board sets itself up.

Our new homepage opens on a real board. The pieces wake up, play the first moves on their own, and the rest of the game plays out as you scroll.

A boxwood-and-ebony chess set on its starting squares, beside an analogue chess clock and a table tent for Board 4.

The short version

  • A whole board, edge to edge, that plays 1. e4 e5 on its own
  • Scroll to play a gambit, an acceptance and castling
  • A scoresheet that writes itself, pen and all
  • A chess clock that gets pressed after every move

We wanted the first thing you see to feel like walking into club night: boards out, clock on the table, somebody’s coffee going cold. So the homepage is now a board. Boxwood and ebony, the table tent for Board 4, an analogue clock beside it, and daylight coming through a window you can’t quite see.

It plays itself. Then you play it.

Give it a second and the set wakes up, every piece doing a little hop, like a room when the door opens. Then White pushes the king’s pawn, presses the clock, and the game is on: 1. e4 e5.

Scroll, and the story keeps going. 2. f4 offers a pawn: that’s a gambit. Black takes it, and the pawn gets knocked clean off the board (sorry, little guy). Both sides bring their pieces out, and then White castles, the rook hopping right over the king. A gambit, then a castle. You can see where the name came from.

A scoresheet that writes itself

Beside the board sits a score pad: a white scoresheet with the canary and pink copies peeking out underneath. As each move lands, a blue ballpoint travels over and writes it down, and the margin notes explain what just happened, for anyone who hasn’t been to a club night yet.

Calm when you want it

It looks great in dark mode (a board on a dark desk, basically). And if you’ve asked your device for less motion, nothing moves at all: you get the whole game, finished, at a glance.

Also new this week

  • What’s new. You’re reading it. Every big move lands here first.
  • A tidier header. The name on the left, where to go in the middle, your account on the right.
  • Questions, answered. How pairing works, what the rating is (and isn’t), what organizers get: all on one page, in plain words.
  • A place for questions. Write to castlegambit.support@avevue.com and a person will write back.
  • A QR code you can scan from further back. On the club TV it now takes all the room its column has. And the TV further down the homepage plays a whole club night, from doors open to goodnight.