Who plays on which board in team chess, and who gets White?
B · Beginner · The match · 2 of 3Each team has a fixed board order, chosen by its captain: a ranking of its players from first to last. In every match the players who are playing sit in that order. Colours alternate down the boards. At the Olympiad the team named first has White on boards one and three and Black on boards two and four.
How it works
- Fixed board order: selected by the captain. It is one of the captain's listed duties.
- Kept by the organisers: the Olympiad's technical panel establishes the list of fixed board orders.
- Odd and even boards: the first-named team has "the white pieces on the odd-numbered boards, the black pieces on the even-numbered boards".
- Round one: the colour on board one of the top-ranked team is drawn by lot.
- Later rounds: colours on board one are balanced first, then alternated.
- Limits: a team's board one should not have one colour three times in a row, or a difference of more than two between its Whites and Blacks.
- "Board one" means the board: not whoever has played on it.
The glossary has the board, white and black, the Elo rating, the Swiss system, the pieces and the arbiter.
Tricky cases
A team rests its board-two player. Who plays board two?
The next player in the fixed order moves up, and the reserve comes in at the bottom. That is how fixed board order works in practice, though the regulations saved for this page do not spell the step out.
Can a captain put the weakest player on board one to sacrifice that game?
Only by ranking that player first in the fixed order for the whole event. The order cannot be changed from match to match.
A team has White on board one. What does it have on board four?
Black. White on the odd boards means Black on the even ones.
Does a team's colour count depend on which player sat on board one?
No. Board one "refers specifically to that board, and not to the player or players who have played".
Why the rule exists
Without a fixed order a captain could shuffle the line-up every round to dodge a strong opponent or to match a specialist against a weak one. Fixing the order makes the top boards a contest between each team's best. Alternating colours shares out the small advantage of the first move.
Where it differs
| Where | What changes | Source |
|---|---|---|
| First-named team | White on odd boards, Black on even | Olympiad 2026 Regulations 4.1 |
| Round one | Colour on board one drawn by lot at the opening ceremony | Olympiad 2026 Regulations 4.10; Olympiad Pairing Rules 7.2 |
| Later rounds | Equalise, then alternate; no colour three times running | Olympiad Pairing Rules 7.3; 7.5 |
| Seeding of teams | By the average rating of the four highest-rated players | Olympiad Pairing Rules 3.1 |
From the rule book
FIDE, Chess Olympiad 2026: Regulations for the Main Competition, Articles 4.1, 4.10 and 4.17.6. FIDE, Olympiad Pairing Rules (effective 1 January 2022), Articles 3 and 7. FIDE, Captains and Heads of Delegation (applied from 1 July 2022), Article 3.1. Checked 14 October 2026. Official documents: FIDE Handbook sections C.05, C.07, C.10 and D.02.