Stuck? We’ll help.

The way to a person is email: support@castlegambit.com. A person reads every message.

• Who reads it: the people who run Castle Gambit, at Castle Gambit LLC, and at avēvue, the studio that builds it for us.
• What happens to it: we read it, answer it, and use it to put right what went wrong. It stays in our inbox until we delete it. The inbox is kept in avēvue’s email account, which Google Workspace holds (our privacy page says more).
• What helps: write from the email address on your account if you have one, and say what you were doing, on which phone or browser, and, for a club night, which club and which night.
• What never to send: a sign-in code. We never ask for one, and Castle Gambit has no passwords to ask for. Anyone who asks you for a code isn’t us.

The questions page and the guides answer a lot of things on the spot, at any hour.

• Signing in: type your email and we send a six-digit code. It lasts 10 minutes. No code? Give it a minute, look in your spam folder, then ask for a new one. On the web, the sign-in screen may also offer Google; the Castle Gambit app signs in by email code only.
• Guest accounts: since 26 October 2026 there’s no new guest play: you sign up with Google or an email code instead, so every game counts toward you from the first. If you played as a guest before then, carry on. A guest account deletes itself 30 days after it was made. To keep your games and your Social Elo, save your account with an email address in Settings.
• Your name, handle and who sees your Social Elo are in Settings, along with how much chess you play and a copy of your data to download. Sign-up asks only for a name (with Google, not even that) and picks your handle for you, so that’s where to change any of it.
• 18 and over: Castle Gambit is for adults. When you sign up, you confirm you’re 18 or older, and we never ask your birth date. If you’re younger, the guides are free to read with no account. Parents, see the page for parents.
• Can’t get in at all? Write to support@castlegambit.com from the address on the account.

A club on Castle Gambit is called a Castle: a real room, in a real town, with real boards. On a club night the organizer opens the night and puts up a join code, on a poster or the club TV.

• Joining: scan the code on the poster with your phone’s camera, or type it in. Then tap Find me a game, and your phone tells you your board, your color and who you’re playing.
• Results: after the game you both tap the result. When the two match, it’s confirmed. When they don’t, the organizer settles it. If only one of you reports, that report stands the next day.
• Something wrong in the room (a wrong pairing, a result to fix, someone who isn’t welcome): the organizer is there, and can fix most things on the spot. For anything else, write to us.
• Code not working? Check it with the poster or the TV (six letters and numbers, never 0, O, 1, I or L). A code works only while that night is open, and some nights are for a club’s members only: then find the organizer at the door.

First time? What to expect on your first night.

• Entering: you enter by accepting the tournament’s gambit (our word for an open offer: a game, a meetup or a tournament), and get your board on your phone each round.
• Pairings, results and standings are the tournament director’s: they’re in the room, so ask them first about a pairing, a result or a bye.
• Running one: how to run a Swiss, a round robin or quads and how to run a knockout.

• Starting one: sign in and tap Start a Castle: a name, where it meets and when. It gets its own page, and you can print its poster the same night.
• The night itself: start a Castle and run a club night, and keeping your club night safe.
• Sharing the work: helpers, co-organizers and organizations.
• Everything organizers get is on the page for organizers. Something not working for your club? Tell us.

If anyone is in danger, call 911 first (or the venue’s staff). Then tell us.

• Reporting: tap Report on a person’s profile, a gambit or an organization’s page. For a club or one of its events, it’s Report this Castle on the club’s page. At a club night, it’s Report someone from tonight in the lobby; in a tournament, Report someone in this tournament under its pairings and standings. Pick what’s wrong and, if you like, say what happened. You need a saved account; if you’re still on a guest account, find the organizer in the room, or write to us.
• Who reads a report: how someone behaved at a club night, or someone in a tournament, goes to that club’s organizers, unless it’s about one of them or their helpers; everything else, and anything about someone who may be under 18, goes to Castle Gambit’s staff. The person you report never learns who sent it. What a report keeps.
• Blocking: from their profile page, from Block someone under Who’s here at a club night, on a tournament’s pairings and standings, or under your game history. You’re never paired at a club night, you don’t see each other’s pages, and they aren’t told. Only you see who you’ve blocked, in Settings, where you can unblock them. What a block keeps.
• Someone under 18 on Castle Gambit? Report their profile with “May be under 18”, or see the page for parents.

Settings, at the bottom: “Delete your account”. It works the same on the web and in the Castle Gambit app. Deleting your account says where the button is, what goes, the little that stays, and how to ask us to do it if you can’t sign in.

Our privacy page says what Castle Gambit keeps, who sees it, for how long and why, in plain words. You can download a copy of your data in Settings (“Your data”). Questions about it: support@castlegambit.com.