Chess looks complicated at first, but the whole game rests on six kinds of pieces and a handful of special rules. Once you know how each piece travels and what it is roughly worth, you can follow any game and start spotting tactics of your own.
The board has 64 squares in an 8 by 8 grid. Set it up so that each player has a light square in the bottom-right corner. White always moves first, and the players then take turns, one move at a time. A piece captures by moving onto a square occupied by an enemy piece and removing it from the board. No piece may ever land on a square held by one of its own pieces.
The six pieces
The king
The king moves one square in any direction: forward, backward, sideways or diagonally. It captures the same way. The king is never actually captured. Instead, the goal of the game is to attack it so that it cannot escape. Because of this, you may never make a move that leaves your own king under attack, and the two kings can never stand on neighbouring squares.
The queen
The queen moves any number of squares in a straight line along a rank, a file or a diagonal, as long as nothing blocks her path. She combines the powers of the rook and the bishop, which makes her the strongest piece on the board.
The rook
The rook moves any number of squares horizontally or vertically. It cannot jump over pieces. Rooks are at their best on open files, where no pawns stand in the way.
The bishop
The bishop moves any number of squares diagonally. A bishop that starts on a light square stays on light squares for the entire game, and the same goes for the dark-squared bishop.
The knight
The knight moves in an L shape: two squares in one straight direction and then one square to the side. It is the only piece that can jump over others, so a crowded position never stops it. A knight always lands on a square of the opposite colour from the one it left, which is a handy fact when you try to predict where it can go.
The pawn
The pawn moves straight forward one square. From its starting square it may instead move two squares forward, provided both squares are empty. Pawns never move backward. Unlike every other piece, a pawn captures differently from how it moves: it takes one square diagonally forward. A pawn with a piece directly in front of it is blocked and cannot move straight ahead at all.
How much each piece is worth
Players use a simple point scale to judge trades.
- Pawn: 1 point
- Knight: 3 points
- Bishop: 3 points
- Rook: 5 points
- Queen: 9 points
The king has no point value because losing it ends the game. Using this scale, giving up a knight for a rook gains you two points, while swapping a bishop for a knight is an even trade. Position matters too, so treat the numbers as a starting point.
The special moves
Castling
Castling is a single move that tucks your king into safety and brings a rook toward the centre. The king moves two squares toward one of its rooks, and that rook then jumps over the king to the square right next to it. Castling toward the h-file is called kingside castling; castling toward the a-file is queenside castling.
You may castle only if all of these are true:
- Neither the king nor the rook involved has moved earlier in the game.
- Every square between the king and that rook is empty.
- Your king is not currently in check.
- The king does not pass through a square attacked by an enemy piece.
- The king does not end up on an attacked square.
Notice that these conditions are about the king’s path. In queenside castling, the rook passes over the b-file square, and it does not matter if that square is attacked.
En passant
En passant lets a pawn capture an enemy pawn that has just moved two squares forward from its starting square and landed directly beside it. The capturing pawn moves diagonally onto the square the enemy pawn skipped over, exactly as if the enemy pawn had moved only one square, and the enemy pawn is removed.
Two details are easy to get wrong. First, this is only possible when your pawn stands on its fifth rank (counted from your own side). Second, you must do it immediately, on the very next move. If you play something else, the chance is gone for that pawn.
Promotion
When a pawn reaches the last rank on the far side of the board, it must be promoted right away. You replace it with a queen, rook, bishop or knight of your own colour. It cannot stay a pawn and cannot become a king. Your choice does not depend on which pieces have already been captured, so you can have two or even more queens at once. Almost everyone picks a queen, but promoting to a knight or rook occasionally wins on the spot or avoids stalemate.
Check, checkmate and stalemate
A king that is under attack is in check. You must get out of check on your very next move, and there are only three ways to do it: move the king to a safe square, capture the attacking piece, or block the line of attack by putting a piece in between. A check from a knight cannot be blocked, because the knight jumps.
Checkmate happens when the king is in check and none of those three escapes works. The game ends immediately and the side that delivered checkmate wins.
Stalemate is the surprising twin of checkmate. It happens when the player whose turn it is has no legal move at all, but their king is not in check. Stalemate is a draw, no matter how much material the other side has. Many winning positions have been thrown away by a careless queen move that left the lone enemy king with nowhere to go.
Other ways a game is drawn
- The players agree to a draw.
- The same position occurs three times with the same player to move and the same possible moves, and a player claims the draw.
- Fifty moves pass for each side without any capture or pawn move, and a player claims the draw.
- Neither side has enough material left to checkmate, for example king against king, or king and bishop against king.
Wrapping up
Learn the moves of each piece first, then the special moves, and finally the difference between check, checkmate and stalemate. Set up a board and play through each rule by hand. Moving the pieces yourself makes the rules stick far faster than reading about them, and before long they will feel completely natural.
