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Finding a Game in the Lobby

A tour of the ChessBit game lobby: open games, the compatibility score, fees, filters by time control and stake, sorting, and joining a game.

Updated 2026-10-183 min readChessBit Support

The Lobby lists every open game other players have posted, with the stake, the clock and how evenly matched you'd be. Open it from Lobby in the top navigation (or the bottom bar on your phone).

The ChessBit game lobby on desktop: Quick Play panel, live counters, time-control filters and open game cards with buy-in, fee, time and compatibility
The lobby on desktop. Sample data shown.

What's on the Page

  • Quick Play: the one-tap matchmaker. See Quick Play.
  • Auto-Join and Create Game buttons in the header. See Auto-Join and Creating a game.
  • Live counters: Online players, Open games, Auto-join queue and Active matches.
  • Open game cards: one per waiting game.
  • Your loyalty tier and the Actions feed, which shows recent results from players you follow.

Reading a Game Card

Each card shows:

  • The creator, with their loyalty-tier badge.
  • Compatibility: a percentage showing how evenly matched you are. Higher means a closer game. ChessBit doesn't show raw ratings; compatibility is calculated from your rating and theirs for that time control.
  • Buy-in: the stake you'd put up, in USD. Both players stake the same USD value.
  • Fee: the platform fee on your stake (10% at the standard rate, lower at higher loyalty tiers).
  • Time: the clock, from 1 to 10 minutes per side.
  • Join Game. Before your first staked game you'll see Set Your Level instead (a one-time step that tells us your chess strength).

Filtering and Sorting

  • All / Bullet / Blitz / Rapid narrow the list by time control. The counts show how many games are in each.
  • Following shows only games posted by players you follow.
  • Stake sets a range for the buy-in.
  • Sort orders the list by Best match, Newest, Earliest, Highest stake or Lowest stake.

Joining a Game

Tap Join Game, choose which coin to stake if you hold more than one, and confirm. Your stake moves into escrow and both players go to the board. Colours are assigned at random.

Some games are restricted by their creator:

  • Compatibility range: if you're outside the range they set, you can't join.
  • Followers only: only players who follow the creator can join.
The ChessBit lobby on a phone with Quick Play pools, counters and the bottom navigation bar
On a phone the lobby stacks vertically. The bottom bar holds Home, Lobby, Arena, Rewards, DMs, Search and Chat.

Good to Know

  • You can play one staked game at a time.
  • Open games expire after 10 minutes if nobody joins, and the creator's stake is released.
  • The minimum stake is $1; your maximum depends on your verification level and, for new players, a starting stake cap explained in Matchmaking & ratings.
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Next in Playing Games

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