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About Sleepchess

Last updated: October 10, 2026

What it is

Sleepchess is a web page that replays games of xiangqi (Chinese chess), chess and Go at bedtime. It is not meant to be exciting; it is meant to help you wind down.

Game records

The xiangqi games are selected from the Chinese National Xiangqi Individual Championship. The chess games are classic master games, from Anderssen and Morphy to Karpov, from the collections at pgnmentor.com. The Go games are Japanese professional title games from the public-domain collection kept by Andries Brouwer at CWI (homepages.cwi.nl/~aeb/go/games). We use only the moves and basic facts about each game, never any commentary.

Piece artwork

The chess pieces, and the western-style xiangqi pieces, use the chess set drawn by Colin M.L. Burnett, under the BSD license printed at the end of this page. The xiangqi elephant and cannon were drawn for this site in the same style.

Sound

The piece taps, rain and white noise are generated live in your browser; no recordings are used.

Support

Sleepchess is free and has no ads. If it helps you, please share it with someone who might need it.

Chess piece license

Copyright © Colin M.L. Burnett

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
3. Neither the name of the author nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

This software is provided by the author and contributors "as is" and any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall the author and contributors be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.