Premove
Predefine movements while it is your opponent's turn to play.
The premove system on Lichess is one of the unique features that helps players locked in a time-critical game execute their moves quickly and save time. When it is not your turn to play, the premove feature is basically the same listener that applies, here, as though it was your turn to play.
To coordinate a pre-move, select the origin square and then the destination square, just as you would if it was your turn to play. As with regular moves, you can do the selection either by just clicking both squares or dragging and dropping between them with a single mouse click. If you have successfully commanded a pre-move, the application will display a message in front of an orange background that the feature is enabled.
The move will be executed instantly as soon as your opponent has made a move, and no time is lost on the clock.
These are some case-specific conditions to bear in mind:
- The move is cancelled if, as of the position reached once your opponent has moved, it is illegal.
- The move is cancelled if the command was cancelled by the user (done by clicking somewhere).
- To recapture a piece or pawn that you assume is going to take one of your pieces or pawns, only the drag-and-drop method of selecting the origin and destination squares will command the pre-move. This is because both squares have one of your chessmen on them, so simply clicking both squares is only selecting both chessmen in the form of select, cancel, select.
- There are no under-promotions of pawns when doing a pre-move; all pawns are promoted to queens. If you want to under-promote to a knight, bishop, or rook, wait until your opponent moves, and then make your move as usual to be prompted to select which piece the pawn should become.