LLM Chess

Play chess against an LLM through MCP. (Nothing serious, it's quite bad at it. Proof of Concept.)

Installation & Running

Prerequisites

• Node.js (install via NVM if not available)

Start the application

# Start frontend
cd frontend
npm install
npm run start

# Start backend (in another terminal)
cd backend
npm install
npm run start

Connect Claude Desktop to MCP

1. Open Claude Desktop
2. Go to Settings → Developer → Edit Config
3. Add the following (replace /path/to/project with your actual project path):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "chess": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["tsx", "/path/to/project/mcp-chess-poc/backend/mcp.ts"]
    }
  }
}

4. Restart Claude

(Any MCP compatible client should work)

Usage

1. Make a move in browser
2. Ask the LLM to play:

Notes

• Once the LLM is limited in the amount of moves it can make, it starts tripping up.
• Refreshing the browser resets the game