12MaR

Fair play

A ladder is only worth climbing if nobody can skip it

The app on your phone is treated as something that could have been tampered with — because it could. Everything that decides a result is worked out again on our side, from the moves themselves.

What stops somebody cheating

Replayed

Every move is checked when the match ends

The whole game is played through again on our servers against the same rules your phone used. A move that was not legal is refused, and the account it came from is flagged.

Server-written

Your phone cannot write a single point

Ranking points, matches played, wins, losses and coins are all written by our servers alone. Even your own app is refused if it tries — so a modified build has nothing to gain by trying.

One board at a time

Nobody plays two live matches at once

An account can hold exactly one live match. It clears itself when the match ends — and it clears itself after a crash too, so nobody is ever locked out of their next game.

A modified app gains nothing

There is nothing to cheat with

A changed app could send us anything it liked — and it would gain nothing by it. The score is not read from your phone, it is worked out again from the moves; and the moves are checked against the same rules the app plays by. A number the server refuses to accept is not worth forging.

Report a player

One tap, from inside the match

Every opponent's card carries a report button. Reports are kept with the match they came from, so a pattern is visible rather than a single complaint.

Practice is private

Nothing you play alone is stored

Games against the computer and two people sharing one phone are saved nowhere — not on our servers and not on your device.


Camera and microphone

Off until you press the button

Both start switched off in every match. Until you turn the microphone on, your phone is not set up to send sound at all — it is not a matter of muting something that was already going out.

Leave the app or lock your phone and both are released immediately. Neither ever runs in the background.

What is kept

Calls and chat are deleted with the match

Voice and video go straight between the two phones whenever the two phones can reach each other. When they cannot — about one call in five — the audio and video are forwarded by a relay that cannot read them; the encryption ends at the two handsets, not at the relay. Nothing said or shown over a board is recorded either way, and the chat from a finished match is deleted when it ends.

Read the privacy policy →


Money

There is no cash in this game, anywhere

Coins are virtual

They buy tournament entry and gifts to other players, and nothing else. They do not convert to money, and there is no cash prize — not now and not later.

This is not a temporary position. Real-money gaming is not permitted for a game like this in Pakistan or India at all, and building a way to cash out would put every player's account at risk along with the app. Coins exist so that entering a tournament costs something and winning one is worth something — inside the game.

Free to play. Coins can also be bought or earned by watching an ad — never required, and never convertible to money.