Chess rules

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 Symbol
Chess board setup
The
K
king
The
Q
queen
The
R
rook
The
B
bishop
The
N
knight
The
P
pawn

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.

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.
This 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.
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.

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

after the 'en passant'

The position

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 Castle

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 knight 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 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 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

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 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.

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.

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.

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...)

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. Kh2h1 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

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 knight 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-b5 Ka4-a3 2. Qb5-b3 checkmate. But, a misguided beginner could move 1. Qd5c5 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. a6-a7+ 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.

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.

SEE BELOW -

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; inour 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
Description
+
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
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
When this sign comes after the symbol of a piece means that where ever the
~
piece is moved the response is the same