The Basics

Chess is a two-player strategy game played on an 8X8 board with alternating colored squares. White goes first in a chess game, and each player has 16 pieces of a different color, white or black. The pieces, in order of most importance to least importance, are the king (1; the front number is how many of the piece is in the game), the queen (1), the rook (2), the bishop/knight (2 each), and the pawn (8).

A chessboard is shown in the picture.

The movements of the pieces are all different. The pawn only moves forward one square at a time, except its first move, when it can move two squares. However, the pawn is the only piece that captures differently than it moves. It captures pieces diagonally, not vertically. The knight is an unusual piece, like the pawn. It moves in an L shape, which is once horizontally and twice vertically, or once vertically and twice horizontally. While the knight moves, it can jump over pieces, making it the only piece in the game with this ability. The bishop moves and captures diagonally, in any direction and any amount of squares. The rook moves and captures vertically and horizontally, in any direction and any amount of squares. The queen moves and captures in any direction, vertically, horizontally, and diagonally, so it is the most powerful piece in the game. But, the most important piece in the game is the king. The king’s movements are limited, only being able to move one square at a time in any direction. There are other special moves in the game that we will delve into later in the article.

This image shows the pawns’ movements and capturing position.

This image shows the knight’s movements, including its ability to jump over pieces.

This image shows the bishop’s movements.

This image shows the rook’s movements.

This image shows the queen’s movements.

This image shows the king’s movements.

The motive of chess is to trap the opposing king, a term called checkmate. This happens when the king is put into check, or is under attack. There are three ways to block a check: by moving a piece in front of the king, by capturing the attacking piece, or to move the king away. If the king cannot escape in any way, the game is over. However, wins and losses are not the only ways a chess game can end: it can also end in a draw. A draw is when no player wins. This could happen in several ways: a king could be put into stalemate, which is a position where a king is not in check and cannot make any legal move; the players may agree to a draw; there are insufficient pieces to create a checkmate (ex. King v.s. King, or King and knight v.s. King); a player can declare a draw if the same position happens three times (but it doesn’t have to be three times in a row); or if 50 moves in a row have been made where neither side has moved a pawn or captured a piece.

This image shows a checkmate position: the king is trapped and in check.

This position is a stalemate if it is black to move.

There are several special moves in chess. Castling, en passant, and promotion are three of them. Castling involves the player’s king and either one of his rooks. It is the only move that moves 2 pieces at the same time. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards any rook, then moving the rook to the square over which the king crossed. There are two ways of castling: kingside and queenside. Kingside castling is when the castling is with the rook closer to the king. Queenside castling is when the castling is with the rook further from the king. But, castling cannot occur if the king or rook has already moved, there are pieces between the king and rook, the king is in check, the king passes through a square in check, or the king ends up in check.

The first image shows the areas the king can move for castling.

The second image shows white castling kingside and black castling queenside.

En passant is the second special move. It is a special pawn move that can only occur immediately after a pawn moves two spaces forward and there is an enemy pawn adjacent to it. If it does not occur immediately after, the move is illegal to make. The enemy pawn moves diagonally to where the pawn would be if it moved once, and captures the pawn. The pictures below illustrate this.

Promotion is the third special move, also involving the pawn. It is when during a chess game, a pawn reaches the last rank. The pawn is “promoted”, and can turn into any piece except the pawn or the king. When a pawn reaches the eight rank, it must immediately turn into another piece; it can not remain as a pawn.