A creative demonstration of building a fully playable chess board using pure SQL — no JavaScript or frameworks required. The approach uses a simple table to store piece positions, then leverages conditional aggregation (MAX with CASE statements) inside a CTE to pivot rows into an 8x8 grid. Moves are executed via DELETE and INSERT statements. The post walks through the board setup, the pivot query technique, making moves, and even replays the famous 1858 Opera Game entirely in SQL. The same pivot pattern applies to other grid visualizations like calendars and heatmaps.
Table of contents
The BoardThe Magic: Pivoting Rows into a GridMaking MovesYour Turn: The SandboxThe Opera Game: A Chess Masterpiece in SQLWrapping UpSort: