Learn How to Play Chess: Rules & Basic Strategies

It's never to late to learn how to play chess - the most popular game in the world! If you are totally new to the game or even want to learn all of the rules and strategies, read on!

History of Chess Starting a Game How the Pieces Move

Special Rules Check & Checkmate Draws & Repetition

Chess960 Basic Strategies & Openings Getting Better at Chess

Prefer to watch a video? Click here to learn chess with a 15 minute video!

History of Chess
The origins of chess are not exactly clear, though most believe it evolved from earlier chesslike games played in India almost two thousand years ago. The game of chess we know today has been around since the 15th century where it became popular in Europe.

The Goal of Chess

Chess is a game played between two opponents on opposite sides of a board containing 64 squares of alternating colors. Each player has 16 pieces: 1 king, 1 queen, 2 rooks, 2 bishops, 2 knights, and 8 pawns. The goal of the game is to checkmate the other king. Checkmate happens when the king is in a position to be captured (in check) and cannot escape from capture.

FEN/PGN

White to move

Starting a Game
At the beginning of the game the chessboard is laid out so that each player has the white (or light) color square in the bottom right-hand side. The chess pieces are then arranged the same way each time. The second row (or rank) is filled with pawns. The rooks go in the corners, then the knights next to them, followed by the bishops, and finally the queen, who always goes on her own matching color (white queen on white, black queen on black), and the king on the remaining square.

The player with the white pieces always moves first. Therefore, players generally decide who will get to be white by chance or luck such as flipping a coin or having one player guess the color of the hidden pawn in the other player's hand. White then makes a move, followed by black, then white again, then black and so on until the end of the game.

How the Chess Pieces Move

Each of the 6 different kinds of pieces moves differently. Pieces cannot move through other pieces (though the knight can jump over other pieces), and can never move onto a square with one of their own pieces. However, they can be moved to take the place of an opponent's piece which is then captured. Pieces are generally moved into positions where they can capture other pieces (by landing on their square and then replacing them), defend their own pieces in case of capture, or control important squares in the game. The King The king is the most important piece, but is one of the weakest. The king can only move one square in any direction - up, down, to the sides, and diagonally. Click on the ">" button in the diagram below to see how the king can move around the board. The king may never move himself into check (where he could be captured).

1. Kd4 Kf6 2. Kd5 Kf5 3. Kd6 Ke4 4. Ke7 Kd4 5. Ke6 Kc5 6. Kf5 Kd5 7. Kf4 Ke6 8. Ke4 P|<<<<>>>>|
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The Queen The queen is the most powerful piece. If moved she can move in any one straight direction forward, backward, sideways, or diagonally - as far as possible as long as she does not move through any of her own pieces. And, like with all pieces, if the queen captures an opponent's piece her move is over. Click through the diagram below to see how the queens move. Notice how the white queen captures the black queen and then the black king is forced to move.

1. Qg4 Qa8 2. Qg7 Qa2 3. Qc7 Qg8 4. Qb6 Qe6+ 5. Qxe6+ Kd8 P|<<<<>>>>|

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The Rook The rook may move as far as it wants, but only forward, backward, and to the sides. The rooks are particularly powerful pieces when they are protecting each other and working together!

1. Rh7 Rc8 2. Rb6 Rc1+ 3. Kd2 Ra1 4. Rb8# P|<<<<>>>>|

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The Bishop The bishop may move as far as it wants, but only diagonally. Each bishop starts on one color (light or dark) and must always stay on that color. Bishops work well together because they cover up each others weaknesses.

1. Bc4 Be7 2. Bf4 Bd7 3. Bb8 Bg4 4. Bb5+ Kf7 5. Be5 Bh5 6. Bc4+ Kg6 7. Bd3+ Kg5 8. Bh7 P|<<<<>>>>|
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The Knight Knights move in a very different way from the other pieces going two squares in one direction, and then one more move at a 90 degree angle, just like the shape of an L. Knights are also the only pieces that can move over other pieces.

1. Ne2 Nc6 2. Nd2 Nf6 3. Nf1 Ne5 4. Kf2 Nh5 5. Ne3 Nf6 6. Nf5 Ne4+ 7. Ke3 Nc5 8. Nc1 Nd7 9. Ng3 P|<<<<>>>>|
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The Pawn

Pawns are unusual because they move and capture in different ways: they move forward, but capture diagonally. Pawns can only move forward one square at a time, except for their very first move where they can move forward two squares. Pawns can only capture one square diagonally in front of them. They can never move or capture backwards. If there is another piece directly in front of a pawn he cannot move past or capture that piece.

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. c4 dxc4 5. b3 cxb3 6. axb3 c5 7. dxc5 a5 8. f4 f6 9. g4 g5 10. fxg5 fxg5 11. h4 h6 12. h5 P|<<<<>>>>|
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Promotion
Pawns have another special ability and that is that if a pawn reaches the other side of the board it can become any other chess piece (called promotion). A pawn may be promoted to any piece. [NOTE: A common misconception is that pawns may only be exchanged for a piece that has been captured. That is NOT true.] A pawn is usually promoted to a queen. Only pawns may be promoted.

1. a7 f2 2. a8=Q f1=N+ 3. Kd3 P|<<<<>>>>|

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En Passant
The last rule about pawns is called en passant, which is French basically means in passing. If a pawn moves out two squares on its first move, and by doing so lands to the side of an opponents pawn (effectively jumping past the other pawns ability to capture it), that other pawn has the option of capturing the first pawn as it passes by. This special move must be done immediately after the first pawn has moved past, otherwise the option to capture it is no longer available. Click through the example below to better understand this odd, but important rule.

1. e4 dxe3 2. dxe3 e5 3. fxe6 fxe6 4. g4 g5 5. h3 b5 6. axb6 axb6 P|<<<<>>>>|

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Castling
One other special rule is called castling. This move allows you to do two important things all in one move: get your king to safety (hopefully), and get your rook out of the corner and into the game. On a players turn he may move his king two squares over to one side and then move the rook from that sides corner to right next to the king on the opposite side. (See the example below.) In order to castle, however, it must meet the following conditions:

it must be that kings very first move it must be that rooks very first move there cannot be any pieces between the king and rook to move the king may not be in check or pass through check

1. O-O O-O-O P|<<<<>>>>|

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Notice that when you castle one direction the king is closer to the side of the board. That is called kingside. Castling to the other side, through where the queen sat, is called castling queenside. Regardless of which side, the king always moves only two squares when castling.

Check and Checkmate

As stated before, the purpose of the game is to checkmate the opponents king. This happens when the king is put into check and cannot get out of check. There are only three ways a king can get out of check: move out of the way (though he cannot castle!), block the check with another piece, or capture the piece threatening the king. If a king cannot escape checkmate then the game is over. Customarily the king is not captured or removed from the board, the game is simply declared over.

1. f3 e5 2. g4 Qh4# P|<<<<>>>>|
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Draws
Occasionally chess games do not end with a winner, but with a draw. There are 5 reasons why a chess game may end in a draw: 1. The position reaches a stalemate where it is one players turn to move, but his king is NOT in check and yet he does not have another legal move 2. The players may simply agree to a draw and stop playing 3. There are not enough pieces on the board to force a checkmate (example: a king and a bishop vs. a king) 4. A player declares a draw if the same exact position is repeated three times (though not necessarily three times in a row) 5. Fifty consecutive moves have been played where neither player has moved a pawn or captured a piece.

Chess960
Chess960 (also called Fischer Random) is a chess variant that follows all of the normal rules of chess, but where the "opening theory" does not play a large role in the game. The starting position of the pieces is randomly chosen by following only 2 rules: the bishops must be on opposite colors, and there must be one rook on each side of the king. The black and white pieces are in a mirrored position. There are exactly 960 possible starting scenarios that follow these rules (thus the name "960"). The only odd rule is with castling: the rules are mostly the same (king and rook cannot have moved and cannot castle through check or in check), with the additional rule that the squares between where the king and castled rook will end up must be vacant from all pieces except the king and rook. For more info and examples, click here.

Some Tournament Rules

Many tournaments follow a set of common, similar rules. These rules do not necessarily apply to play at home or online.

Touch-move If a player touches one of their own pieces they must move that piece as long as it is a legal move. If a player touches an opponents piece, they must capture that piece. A player who wishes to touch a piece only to adjust it on the board must first announce the intention, usually by saying adjust. Introduction to Clocks and Timers Most tournaments use timers to regulate the time spent on each game, not on each move. Each player gets the same amount of time to use for their entire game and can decide how to spend that time. Once a player makes a move they then touch a button or hit a lever to start the opponents clock. If a player runs out of time and the opponent calls the time, then the player who ran out of time loses the game (unless the opponent does not have enough pieces to checkmate, in which case it is a draw). Click here to watch two players quickly playing a timed game of chess!

Basic Strategy
There are four simple things that every chess player should know:

1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. Nxd5 Nf6 5. Nxc7+ Kd8 6. Nxa8 Ne4 7. f3 Bf5 8. fxe4 Bxe4 P|<<<<>>>>|
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#1 Protect your king Get your king to the corner of the board where he is usually safer. Dont put off castling. You should usually castle as quickly as possible. Remember, it doesnt matter how close you are to checkmating your opponent if your own king is checkmated first! #2 Dont give pieces away

Dont carelessly lose your pieces! Each piece is valuable and you cant win a game without pieces to checkmate. There is an easy system that most players use to keep track of the relative value of each chess piece:

A pawn is worth 1 A knight is worth 3 A bishop is worth 3 A rook is worth 5 A queen is worth 9 The king is infinitely valuable

At the end of the game these points dont mean anything it is simply a system you can use to make decisions while playing, helping you know when to capture, exchange, or make other moves.

1. e4 a6 2. d4 h5 3. Nf3 Rh6 4. Bxh6 Nxh6 5. Bc4 b6 6. O-O f6 7. Nc3 g6 8. Re1 Bg7 9. Qd3 Bb7 10. Rd1 Qc8 11. e5 Qd8 12. Qxg6+ Kf8 13. exf6 Bxf6 14. Qxh6+ Ke8 15. Qg6+ Kf8 16. Qf7# P|<<<<>>>>|
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#3 Control the center You should try and control the center of the board with your pieces and pawns. If you control the center, you will have more room to move your pieces and will make it harder for your opponent to find good squares for his pieces. In the example below white makes good moves to control the center while black plays bad moves. #4 Use all of your pieces In the example above white got all of his pieces in the game! Your pieces dont do any good when they are sitting back on the first row. Try and develop all of your pieces so that you have more to use when you attack the king. Using one or two pieces to attack will not work against any decent opponent.

Getting Better at Chess

Knowing the rules and basic strategies is only the beginning - there is so much to learn in chess that you can never learn it all in a lifetime! To improve you need to do three things: #1 Play Just keep playing! Play as much as possible. You should learn from each game those you win and those you lose. #2 Study If you really want to improve quickly then pick up a [recommended chess book]. There are also many resources on Chess.com to help you study and improve. #3 Have fun Dont get discouraged if you dont win all of your games right away. Everyone loses even world champions. As long as you continue to have fun and learn from the games you lose then you can enjoy chess forever!

MORE OF CHESS from the Guru

Chess rules are relatively easy to learn, I would say that they are somewhere around a medium level of difficulty. What makes the game so complex and beautiful at the same time is the huge number of possible moves at any point during the game.

What you need

Chess is an abstract battle board game played between two opponents. The ingredients required to play the game are:

a square shaped board divided into 64 squares alternatively colored in black and white; 32 pieces: 16 white pieces for one player and 16 black pieces for the other player.

The chess board is placed in between the two opponents in such a manner that each of them has a black square on the left corner of the board. Both players start off with an identical set of 16 pieces: 8 pawns , 2 rooks , 2 knights , 2 bishops , a queen and a king .

In the table below are shown the 6 types of pieces along with their names and symbols. I should point out that the name and thus the symbol of the pieces is different from one language to another.
Chessman Name The king K Symbol

The queen

The rook

The bishop

The knight

The pawn

Chess board setup

Chess rules
Each player must move one piece at a time. So, in fact, the game is played in a succession of moves. Each piece moves after a certain rule form one square to another and the game always

starts with the player having the white pieces, making the first move. A piece can also capture an enemy piece according to certain rules. Some pieces are more important than others depending on their range of action and their value; for example: the queen is the strongest piece on the board because it has the greatest range of action while the king is the most important piece because it is the main piece targeted by the enemy attack. There are times when a move implies the movement of two pieces: when capturing, castling or promoting a pawn; for example when a player captures a piece he takes that piece outside the board and move his own piece in its place.

The purpose of the game

The game revolves around attacking the other side's king. When a king is under the threat of being captured it is said that the king is in check (usually the side attacking the king announce this by saying 'check' but this is not imposed by the rules). When a king is in check it must be moved otherwise it risks being captured (many people don't know this but the king can be captured). The objective of each player is to checkmate his opponent. That means bringing the enemy king in such a position that when attacked it has no available square on which to move. When a player checkmates his opponent king he wins the game. While the game evolves both players develop their positions by making various moves and capturing various pieces. This means that the number of pieces will diminish along the game. As you will see in the following articles, because of this, the game's priorities will change along its duration. The rules will remain the same but the objectives will be slightly different. This is why the game can be divided into three different parts depending on the number and the position of the pieces: the opening, the middle game , the end game. There are times when neither of both sides can win the game. In this case the game ends at equality and it is said to be a draw(a tie). This situations are quite frequent especially when both players are around the same level of expertise. The game doesn't need to be balanced in order for the game to end a draw. This is thoroughly discussed at draw and stalemate. If the game reaches to a point where the advantage of on side is obvious or a draw is inevitable, the game could be ended if both players agree on the result of the game.

Chess notation
If you want to better understand the chess rules you will have to study various games. In order to do that you will have to know how the games are recorded. There are more than one official ways of writing down a game. We will use in this site only one type of notation, the most common one : algebraic chess notation. The notation is quite simple. In order to realize what

went where, each square has its own coordinate. Each row (called a rank) of the board has a number from 1 to 8 and each column (called a file) a letter from a to h, each of those directions starting from the left corner on the side of the white pieces. This way each square, sometimes called a field, has its own unique coordinate (made of the intersection of a line with a column) as shown in the board below. This subject is covered at notation.

In the above paragraph I talked about directions (the rows 1 - 8 and the columns a to h). I should point out that beside those type of directions we also have another type : the diagonals. The diagonals are made of squares of the same color. Look at the following example: through the b3 passes two diagonals d1-a4 and a2-g8 (marked in red), the rank 3 and the file b (marked in green).The diagonal a1-h8 is called the main black diagonal and h1-a8 is called the main white diagonal.

How are chess games recorded

We've talked a little about how the games are recorded in chess rules. I will elaborate on this subject in the following article. There are a great deal of ways to record chess games. We will only talk about a few; just enough to get you started as a beginner. As you've seen the rows of squares on the chess board are sometimes called ranks, while the columns of squares are called files. Each rank has a number designated to it (from 1 to 8) while the columns are labeled with the letters a to h. This way each square has its own coordinate. The way you indicate the coordinate of a square is by first pointing the file and then the rank, like this : a1, b3, d8 et cetera

Writing down the moves in official games is a 'must do'. Usually the contestants are given a special piece of paper on which to write their moves, but when that is not possible they just use a regular piece of paper. A move is registered by first indicating the square from where the piece lives and then the destination square. Then all there is to do is to indicate which piece is being moved. Although the move is completely determined only by indicating the destination and the square from which the piece leaves, by specifying the piece which is being moved the reader can go through the game much easier. There are experienced players who can follow a game form beginning to end only by reading the notations and visualizing the board and position. Let's watch the following game so you can get a better idea.

Notations White moves the pawn in front of the king two squares. This is indicated by e2-e4. Black responds by moving the pawn in front of the queen d7-d5. The complete move is written like this : 1. e2-e4 d7-d5, where the number '1' indicates when the move occurred; in our case this was the first move.

The second move White does is to capture the pawn from d5 e4:d5, and Black responds by capturing the white pawn with his queen Qd8:d5 . The ':' sign indicates that the piece on the square written after it is captured. Let's go further in the game : 3. Nb1-c3 Ng8-f6

4. Bf1-b5+ .The '+' indicates that the king was checked. If you want to point out only the black move you should use this notation

4. ...Nb8-c6. You will find this kind of notation (the '...' sign) in different publications. They usually come after the author makes a comment on White's move, just like I did when I said "The '+' indicates that

the....." .

You may have noticed that there is no "P" in the case of pawns moves. So, when you won't see any letter you will know that is a pawn move. The notation you've seen here is called algebraic notation and it's widely used in many chess publications. There is also another notation you should know about : the abbreviated algebraic notation. This is just like regular algebraic notation with the difference that the square from which the piece leaves is no longer written. The moves above look like this in abbreviated algebraic notation : 1. e4 d5 2. e:d5 Q:d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bb4+ Nc6. In some situations when on the destination square could be moved more then one pieces at the notation is added extra information so you can determine exactly which piece went on that square. It is a good practice if you start to write down the moves. In this way you can go over your game later on and see where you or your opponent made mistakes. Also if you are planning to get very good at this game and you may play on some official game (you never know when this might happen!...) you should start from now to learn how to record your game. Here are some symbols used throughout this site and in many publications. Some of this symbols express the importance of the move.
Symbol + check Double check. This happens when the king is being simultaneously checked by two pieces. Be careful some publications use this sign to indicate checkmate. We use on this site a different symbol for that Description

++

Symbol Checkmate x or : ! !! ? ?? !? ?! Capture Good move Excellent move Bad move Very bad move Interesting move; worth thinking on it Not such a good move White has advantage White has a little more advantage Black has advantage Black has a little more advantage +-+ = White has a decisive advantage Black has a decisive advantage The game is equal

Description

When this sign comes after the symbol of a piece means that where ever the piece is moved the response is the same

There are other notations but for now these are the only ones you need to know.

Space in chess
The space in chess (the chess board) is made up by the 64 squares on which the pieces move. As you may have noticed, this space is fragmented unlike the contiguous space from our world with which we are all familiarized . The fact that space in chess is fragmented gives it some special properties. Look at the images below. According to Pythagoras the length of c is greater than the length of a or b (this is in the normal space, which is contiguous). But in the fragmented space on the chess board all those distances are equal (that means that the distance on the lines and columns is equal to the distance on the diagonals) This is very important to know especially in pawns endings. There is anoth er impor tant thing you shoul d know. A piece has an absolute value (the ones we've talked about in the articles on which we presented each piece) and a relative value (given by the position of the piece on the board). The strength of a particular square is given by the number of the pieces that control that square and by their value and ,at the same time, by the pieces that occupy that square. At the same time the relative value of a piece is given by the position of the square it occupies. As you can see from the next images the range of action of a piece is larger when it occupies the center of the board and shrinks down if moved near the edge of the board. The only piece that doesn't follow this rule is the rook which's range of action is the same regardless of its position on the board.

This is why the central squares are more valuable than those on the edge of the board and that is why most games have as their long term plan the objective of controlling the center.

Some other chess rules

There are also some conduct rules you should know about:

Don't pressure your opponent in moving to fast. Remember: this is a game of patience! If you moved a piece you can't take back your move. If you touched a piece than you must move that piece. If you want to arrange a piece that might be a little bit outside a square than you must announce your opponent. If you moved a piece on a square and you didn't take your hand off it, you can move it on another square.

If your opponent lets you, you can take back your move or move a piece different that the one you touched.

These are all the chess rules you need to know for now. There are other rules concerning how the game is played in official competitions that you can find on the world chess federation site, but I suggest you learn them after you know how to play chess. And in order to know how to do that you need to know the chess rules concerning how each piece moves and captures. You can read about that by going to the next article.

The main purpose of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king. So it is clear that the kings are the main pieces on the board. The attack on other pieces and their capture are meant to remove the king's defense.

The pawn
The pawn is the piece with the smallest value on the board. But pay attention! Don't fall in the trap that many beginners tend to fall into, of thinking the pawn is not important. It is very important as you will see. At the beginning of the game each side has eight pawns positioned as shown in the following diagram.

The pawn can only move forward one square as long as the square in front of it is not occupied with another piece. From the initial position the pawn can move two squares. Look at the following image to see how the pawns can be moved.

In the following game none of the pawns, black or white, can be moved because they are blocked by other pieces.

A pawn can capture a piece that's one column on its left or right side and one row in front of it. That means that it can capture by going one square forward on the diagonal as shown in the image below. There are cases when a pawn can capture a piece but may choose not to do that. For example, in the image below, the white pawn from h2 can simply move forward at h3 or h4 without

capturing the black rook. That would be a perfectly legal move. You can learn more about capturing pieces at learn to capture.

En passant capture
There is another kind of capture a pawn can do. If a pawn has under control a square over which an enemy pawn jumps (when making its initial move) that pawn can capture the enemy pawn by moving on the square in front of the initial position of the enemy pawn. This is called en passant and is a french term which means "in passing". For a better understanding of this move take a look at this example.

Black makes his move

White

captures the black pawn passant'

The position after the 'en

Pawn promotion
There is another thing you should know about the pawn. One of the things that makes it so important. If a pawn reaches the last line (1 for black pawns or 8 for white pawns) it can and must be replaced immediately with a piece of its own color except the king. This is called a promotion. The pawn can be replaced with queen, rook, knight or bishop, even if those pieces are already on the board. So you could possibly end up with 2 queens 3 rooks and so on. Usually the pawn which reaches the final line is transformed in a queen (this being the strongest piece on the chess board), but that is not always the case. Sometimes it pays off promoting another piece depending on the position.

White has his turn to move

The pawn is promoted into a queen

The importance of the pawn

At the beginning of the article I mentioned that the pawn is very important. You can understand now why is that, by knowing that a pawn can be promoted. But that is not the only reason that makes this piece so important. The fact that this piece has the smallest value makes it so important. Sounds confusing? Well.. it's not, and I'll show you why. The fact that it has the smallest value means that the opponent can't change a piece having a bigger value with one of your pawns because that would lead to him losing the game. So the squares that are under the control of your pawns are the strongest for you.

The blue squares are strong. They are under the control of the two pawns. You can see that Black can't move his pieces on the blue square nor he can capture the knight at f4 with the rook. If he does either of those things he looses a piece over a pawn which could lead to his defeat.

The rook
The rook is a valuable piece. Its value on the board is bigger than that of the pawn, the bishop and the knight but smaller than that of the queen. At the beginning of the game the rooks are placed in the corners of the board just like in the following image.

The rook can move along the ranks and files of the chess board as long as it doesn't bump over a piece.

The white rook can move anywhere on the orange squares.

In the example bellow the rook can only move on the highlighted squares, because it is blocked by a few pieces (but notice that White is able to move the rook to e2 or b5 by capturing the black pieces on those squares ).

The rook can capture any enemy piece that is on a square that the rook can move on. In the example above the white rook can capture the bishop at e2, but can't go pass it on the same move. The rook can also do a special move called castling which involves moving the king and the rook at the same time, but we'll talk about that later at castling .

The knight
The knight has the same value as a bishop. That means that it has a value grater than that of the pawn but smaller then those of the rook and queen.
You can see the initial positions of the knights in the following image.

The knight is the only piece that can jump over other pieces may this be enemy pieces or pieces in its own team. It has a relatively short range of action in comparison with the bishop but it compensates that with the fact that it can jump over other pieces. It moves in any direction over two squares in a line and then over one square in a diagonal. But to put it more simply it moves in an L trajectory, the 'L' being composed of 4 squares. Look at the board below to get the idea.

It can only capture the piece that is on its destination square. It can't capture the pieces over which it jumps. When it captures a piece it takes its place.

You can see in the example above that the knight at d4 can capture the black pawn at e2. It does this by taking its place. Notes that it has no problem with the bishop at e3; it simply jumps over it.

The bishop
The bishop has the same value as the knight. Its value is greater then that of the pawn but smaller then those of the rook and the queen. At the beginning of the game each side has two bishops, one placed on a dark square and one on the light square just like in the following game.

The bishops move on the diagonals. They will always move on diagonals of the same color as the color of the square that they occupy at the beginning of the game( This is common sense : because they can move only on the diagonal, they will never leave the initial color).
Watch the example below to see how the bishop can move.

Just like the rook the bishop can't jump over pieces.

The bishop captures pieces the same way it moves. More specific it moves along the diagonal until it reaches the enemy piece then takes its place and gets it out of the game. In the game above the black bishop can capture the white knight at g6 by taking its place.

The king
The king is the most important piece on the board. The entire game revolves around the king; more exactly, the purpose of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king.

The kings initial positions are as in the following picture.

The king can move one square, in any direction, as long as that square is not occupied by one of its own pieces or it's not in the range of action of an enemy piece. The king can capture a piece that is on a square that it can move on. Because the way the king moves - one square in any direction, the two kings must always be separated by a square - so they don't enter one in each others range of action. You can see how the king can move in the picture below (the orange squares).

The position in the following image is illegal. The two kings must be separated by at least one square.

In the following example the white king can only move on certain squares. It is unable to move anywhere on the 6th rank because that rank is under the control of the black rook from e6. It can't move on the a7 and c7 either, because of the black knight at b5. So, the only squares on which it can move are a8, b8 and c8.

Watch the following example to see how the king can capture an enemy piece. The white king is unable to capture the black knight at g4 because that square is under the control of the black king. It can't capture the black pawn at e3 either, because the e3 square is under the control of the black knight. It can, however, capture the bishop at g3 by taking its place.

There is also a special move the king can do only one time in a game in relation with the rook and in certain conditions : castling. But I'll talk about that in one of the following tutorials. For now let's take a closer look at how the games are recorded.

The queen
The queen is the strongest piece on the board; it has the greatest value of all the pieces. You can see the initial positions of the two queens in the image below. Notes that the queen is always placed in its original position on a square of its own color. That means that the white queen will be placed on a white square and the black queen on a black square.

The queen is considered the most powerful piece on the table due to its great mobility and also because it can control and attack pieces and squares found on its range of action (which is quite large as you can see in the image below).

It can move along ranks, files and diagonals any number of squares without being able to jump over pieces. If it finds an enemy piece in its path it can capture that piece by taking its place.

You can see in the game above that the queen range of action is diminished by some enemy pieces and by its own pieces. The queen can capture the knight at b5 or the pawn at f7 by taking their place. It could also capture the rook from a8 but that would be unadvised because a8 is under the protection of the e8 rook.

Check
When the king is attacked by a an enemy piece it is said that the king is checked. The attack on the king is usually announced by the attacking opponent with the word 'check' but this is optional. If the king is checked it must be made safe immediately .There are 3 ways a player can defend against check :

capturing the piece that checked the king; moving a piece between the king and the attacking piece; moving the king on a safe square (that isn't under the control of an enemy piece);

For example in the following game the black king is checked. It can be made safe in all 3 ways I've mentioned earlier. First, by capturing the white bishop at f5 with the black knight from e7 : 1... Ne7:f5. The king can be made safe also by moving the knight form b6 in front of the bishop : 1... Nb6-d7. Last but not least the king can be made safe by simply moving it to b8 1... Kc8-b8.

Checkmate
I said earlier that when your king is checked you can defend it in 3 ways. But what if you can't defend it! Then what? Very simple. The king is in checkmate and you just lost the game. Life is hard huh? But don't be sad there are other games. And there is always chessguru.net where you can learn how to avoid that nasty checkmate and how to checkmate your opponent.

A king can be checkmated any time during a game, sometimes even at the beginning(because of some mistakes of the player).When the checkmate comes at the middle phase the game it usually comes after some ingenious tricks, or again because of some mistake the opponent does. I mentioned before that the main purpose of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king. Some beginners usually take this statement to literally. That is, they start the game by solely focusing on that task and ignoring other important aspects. We will talk later on about the best way to start and play the game. Now let's just keep on the subject. Although a game is won when the player checkmates the opponent king most games don't last until this point. When a player realize his opponent has too much of an advantage and that he has no way to gain any advantage he usually quits the game. Take a look at the following examples to see possible positions of checkmate.

In the previous tutorial we talked a little about castling; let's get more into detail!

Chess draw
There are times when neither of both players can win the game, so the game ends at equality. This means that the game ends in a draw (a tie). The game could end in a draw even if one side has a big advantage over the other side, an advantage that would normally help him win the game. Let's analyze the situations in which a game ends in a draw. It's very important to know what are the situations in which a draw can occur. 1. Draw by agreement: Both sides come to an agreement over the fact that the game is a draw. This usually happens during the end game when the result of the game is more easily anticipated and both players realize that neither of them will win the game no matter what happens. 2. The fifty move rule: When a player has its turn to move and he indicates that there have been made 50 moves without any piece being captured or without any pawn being moved. 3. Threefold repetition: When a player has its turn to move announces that he is making a move that will result in a position that repeats itself the third time. The position is repeating if the same pieces occupies the same squares they occupied at a past position. 4. Perpetual check: Usually the weak side uses this maneuver to avoid losing the game. Perpetual check takes place when the disadvantaged side has the possibility of checking his opponent an unlimited numbers of times and does so. This eventually leads to draw by threefold repetition as shown in the previous rule. To understand how this may happen just take a look at the following game :
Perpetual check example. Timan-Smislov, Interzonal, 1982

You can see that after White moves the rook to c8 the two rooks will be exchanged; after that the pawn at c6 will inevitable be promoted. Black however has

an ace up his sleeve: 1... Qc2-e4 1...Qc2-e4+ 2. Kg2-h2 Qe4-c2 3. Kh2-g1 Qc2-b1+ 4. Kg1-g2 Qb1-e4 5. f2-f3 Qe4-c2 6. Kg2-f1 Qc2-d1 And now the white king can't avoid being checked by the black queen. Black has possibility of perpetual check. Just look at how the game might have continued:

7. Kf1-f2 Qd1-d2+ 8. Kf2-f1 Qd2-d1+ 9. Kf1-f2 Qd1-d2+ 10. Kf2-g1 Avoids game draw by threefold repetition. 11... Qd2-e1+ 12. Kg1-g2 Qe1-e2+ 13. Kg2-h1 Again avoids game draw by threefold repetition. 13...Qe2-f1+ 14. Kh1-h2 Qf1-f2+ 15. Kh2-h1 Qf2-f1+ 16. Kh1-h2 Qf1-f2+ 17. Kh2-h1 Qf2-f1+ And now the game is drawn by threefold repetition.

5. Stalemate: When a player has its turn to move, his king is not in check and has no possibility of moving either of his pieces because they are all locked in their position. The pieces may be locked in their position for various reasons :

they have no available squares on which to move. they are blocked by other pieces. they are in the way of an enemy piece that aim the king therefore they are not allowed to move.

6. When there is insufficient material to checkmate. That means that neither sides has any resources of mating the opponents king. This only happens in a few situations :

On the board there are only the two kings With a king and a bishop against a king One side has a king and a knight against the other king With a king and two knights against a king

How do you move the pieces when castling

Castling is a special kind of move. You can only castle one time in a game and only in certain conditions. Castling involves a combination of a king move and a rook move. The castling only happens on the row initially occupied by the king and rooks. By castling you make two moves:

you move the king two squares on either side from its initial square to another square of the same color you move the rook ( from the side on which the king moved ) on the square over which the king moved

Before we get in more details there is a notion you should be familiarized with : the king's side and the queen's side. If you divide chess board into two parts you get two sides. Looking at the board from White's side the left side is the queen's side and the right side is the king's side.

As you may guess there are two ways you can castle : on the king's side(king's side castle or short castle) or on the queen's side(queens's side castle or long castle).
Castling is marked by 0-0 (short castle) or 0-0-0 (long castle).

Look at the following boards to better understand the notion of castling.

White performs short castle

Black performs long castle

You should keep in mind that when you castle you should always move the king first and then the rook so that your opponent doesn't claim that your intention was to move the rook (remember the rule : If you touch a piece you have to move it). Let's take a look at the situations in which you can't perform the castle.

you can't castle if you moved the king before even if you brought it back on its original square. you can't castle if you moved both rooks. However, you can castle with a rook that hasn't been moved. That means that if you moved one rook you can still castle with the other one. Castling is temporarily forbidden if between the king and rook are other pieces, if the king is checked or if any of the squares over which the king should jump over or on which it should be placed are under the control of an enemy pieces.

Look at the following game:

Black is unable to castle on either side. He can't perform the long castle because the rook at a8 was moved. He can't castle on the king's side either because the square at f8 is under the control of the white bishop from b4. White can't castle on the king's side because there is a bishop at f1. He can, however, castle on the queen's side. Although the rook at a1 is attacked by the bishop e5 that doesn't stop the castling (look at the rules above...)

Why castling?
But what is the purpose of castling? Why should we castle the king and not just let it as it is? The answer to that is simple. The corner of the chess board is much safer for the king than the center. While in center the enemy pieces can attack the king from all sides when castled the king greatly reduces the areas from which it can be attacked thus making life much easier for the player. In the short version that is why you should castle. You will understand more why you should castle after you will gain some experience in chess .

Stalemate
Stalemate is a type of draw that occurs when a player whose king is not in check has no available legal moves. If the game reaches such a situation (when the player's king is not checked, it's his turn to move but he has no available legal moves) the chess rules state that the game is a draw, no matter what advantage one side could have over the other.

Usually, when the game ends in a stalemate, there are a small number of pieces on the chess board. The reason why there might be no available legal moves is that the pieces could be locked in their positions for a number of different causes:

Some might be blocked by other pieces. The squares on which to move might be occupied with other pieces of the same player or sometimes with enemy pieces. Some pieces could be protecting the king form check by standing in the way of enemy pieces. According to the chess rules this pieces can't be moved because the king would enter in check. The king might have all its surrounding squares under the control of enemy pieces, occupied with its own pieces or occupied with protected enemy pieces.

Just look at the following example. If it's White's turn to move then the position is a stalemate. Both white pawns are blocked; he is unable to move either of his two knights because they are both pinned by the rook from g1 and the bishop from d4; he has no safe square on which to move the king. Therefore the game is a stalemate.

Many beginners make the mistake of leading the game in a stalemate, and games they should normally win end up a draw. If you pay attention to your games and study a little bit more, this shouldn't happen to you. Look at the following example (it's White's turn to move). The solution is obvious: 1. Qd5-a8 checkmate. But, a misguided beginner could move 1. Qd5-c5 which would lead, of course, to a stalemate position. So, always pay attention when playing chess even if you have an advantage over the other side!

There are times of course when a stalemate is inevitable, especially in pawns end games. For example, in an end game of a king and a marginal pawn against a king the player in difficulty takes its king to the square where the enemy pawn should be promoted. In the next example the game will end in a draw no matter who moves first. White moves 1. a6a7+ Kb8-a8. And now the draw is obvious. If White moves the king away from the pawn he will lose it and the game will end in draw. If White moves 2. Kb6-a6 the game ends in a stalemate because Black has no available legal moves (both squares b7 and b8 are under the control of the white pieces).

In certain conditions it's sometimes possible for the weak side to execute a number of maneuvers that could lead the game into a stalemate situation. This constitute a tactical procedure you can read about at forcing stalemate.

What you need to know about chess pieces

As I said in the previous article, the game of chess is played between two opponents on a chess board made of 64 squares. At the beginning there are 32 pieces on the board: 16 white pieces for one player and 16 black pieces for the other player. This group of 16 pieces consist of: 8 pawns, 2 rooks, 2 knights, 2 bishops one queen and one king.
Chessman Name The king K Symbol

The queen

The rook

The bishop

The knight

The pawn

Chess board setup

Each player can only do one move at a time, and can only move his own piece from one square to another. He can't move his piece over a square occupied by one of his own pieces. The chess pieces are not limited to only moving, they can also capture enemy pieces. When a player captures a piece he takes it outside the chess board and replaces it with his own piece. Usually pieces captures the same way they move, that is, they capture the enemy pieces that are in their range of action. The only exception from this rule is the pawn which moves forward but makes its capture on the diagonal. There are times when a move involves the movement of two pieces. This happens when capturing, castling or promoting a pawn. Castling and promotion are special moves that will be analyzed in the next articles.

The importance of each piece

Some pieces are more valuable than others. The value of a piece is given by its mobility and ability to capture others pieces (in a word by its range of action) and also by its place in the game (although the king is a weak piece in the term of its range of action it is the most important piece on the chess board because the game revolves around bring the other side's king in a checkmate position). Checkmate is that situation on the chess board when a king is in a position that would inevitable lead to its capture at the next move. A general hierarchy of the pieces strength is the following, starting form the strongest piece and ending with the weakens one: the queen, the rook, the knight, the bishop, (the knight and the bishop have the same strength), the king, the pawn. I should state out that the strength of the pieces varies a lot depending on their position and on the phase of the game( opening, middle game or end game). For example a piece that is on the edge of the board and is constrained in its movement by other pieces has a smaller value

then a piece situated on the center of the board. I'll study the different situations on piece hierarchy The hierarchy I've showed you above should give you a hint on how you should capture the pieces. For example it usually is a bad idea to capture pawn with a rook if that would lead to your rook being captured (you would simply exchange a rook with a pawn which is really not the smartest thing you can do). Of course there are exceptions to this rule; by sacrificing a valuable piece you can sometime gain an advantage that can help you win the game. You will learn about this kind of moves at tactic which I strongly recommend you to read, but only after going to the other articles. The best way of knowing how to look at each piece on the chess board is by studying each one in particular. That is what we will do in the next articles.

Piece hierarchy
You probably know by now that on the chess board there are 6 types of pieces, each one moving and capturing according to different rules. The value of a piece is given by its ability to capture other pieces and by its importance for the game. A piece's ability to capture other pieces is given by its mobility, or range of action, in other words by the number of squares on which the piece could move on. From this point of view the queen is the most powerful piece on the board because it has the biggest range of action. But although the queen is the strongest piece it is not the most important. The most post important piece on the chess board is the king because the entire game revolves around checking the opponent's king. Many beginners make the false assumption that the value of a piece remains constant throughout the game. That is not true. The fact is that the value of the piece depends a lot on the surrounding pieces and their position. The more pieces there are on the board the more limited they are in their movement. Because the number of pieces decreases throughout the game the mobility of most remaining pieces increase and thus, so does their value. Although a piece's value may change during the game it will always have a potential value, a so called absolute value. This is the main reference that indicates to you whether a piece is normally more valuable than another. The absolute value of a chess piece is estimated by analyzing its

range of action if it were alone on the chess board. Here is the piece hierarchy constructed by taking in consideration the absolute value of each piece:

The queen : it has the biggest range of action of all pieces, being able to move along the diagonals, ranks and files; The rook; The bishop and the knight are both at the same level. The fact that the knight has fewer squares on which to move is compensated by the fact that it can jump over other pieces; The king: it has a small value because it doesn't have a great mobility but it is the most important piece in the game; The pawn ;

Beside the absolute value, a piece also has a relative value given by its position on the chess board and by the current phase of the game. There are certain ratios between the relative values of the pieces that change while the game passes from one phase to another.
In the opening and the central game:

the knight and the bishop have the same value, each of them being a little more valuable than three pawns. Many players have the prejudice according to which the bishop is a little more valuable than the knight. That couldn't be more false! As I said earlier the knight compensates its small range of action with the fact that it can jump over other pieces. The rook is somewhat equivalent with a knight or a bishop plus two pawns. The queen's value is equal with that of two rooks but is smaller than that of three bishops or knights.

In the end game the ratios change :

the pawn's value increases; Three pawns are equivalent with a bishop or a knight; The rook has the same value as a bishop or knight and a pawn; Two rooks are more valuable than a queen; A queen is equivalent with three knights or bishops; A queen is equivalent with a rook a bishop or a knight and a pawn; The closer a pawn is to the promotion square the more valuable it is ;

It is very important that you know the values I've presented earlier. By knowing the value of each individual piece you will be able to evaluate whether you should exchange a piece or whether you should capture a piece. You'll also know wether you have more material resources than your opponent.

The conclusion is that the value of a piece is dictated by its strategic position and by its ability of working together with other pieces. So the fact that a player has less pieces could be compensated by their superior position on the board. You will see how to apply what you've learned here in your game in the next article.