The board and the setup
Chess is played on a board of 64 squares, arranged in an 8 by 8 grid with light and dark squares alternating. One detail trips up new players more than any other: the board is set so that a light square sits in your right-hand corner. The old rule of thumb is "light on right."
Each side starts with 16 pieces: eight pawns lined up along the front, and behind them a back rank that reads rook, knight, bishop, queen, king, bishop, knight, rook. An easy way to check you have it right is that each queen starts on a square matching her own color. White moves first, and after that the two players take turns.
What each piece can do
- The rook moves any number of squares straight, up, down, left, or right.
- The bishop moves any number of squares diagonally. It never leaves the color it started on.
- The knight moves in an L shape: two squares one way, then one square across. It is the only piece that can jump over others.
- The queen is the strongest piece. She combines the rook and the bishop, moving any number of squares along any straight line.
- The king moves one square in any direction. Slow, but it is the piece that matters most.
- The pawn moves straight forward one square, or two on its very first move, and it captures diagonally. A pawn that reaches the far edge of the board is promoted and becomes a queen, rook, bishop, or knight.
A piece captures by landing on the square of an enemy piece.
Check and checkmate
When your king is under attack, he is in check. You must deal with it on your next turn: move the king out of danger, block the attack with another piece, or capture the attacker. You may never leave your own king in check, and you may not make a move that exposes him to attack.
The goal of the entire game is checkmate. Checkmate happens when your opponent's king is in check and there is no legal way to escape. The king is never actually captured. The game ends the moment escape becomes impossible, and that is how you win. Because checkmate ends the game, a lone exposed king is a desperate situation.
Two special moves
Castling is a single move that uses the king and a rook together. The king steps two squares toward the rook, and the rook jumps over to the square the king crossed. It is only allowed under a strict set of conditions: neither the king nor that rook has moved before, every square between them is empty, the king is not in check, and the squares the king passes over and lands on are not attacked.
En passant is French for "in passing," and it only appears in one exact situation. If a pawn steps forward two squares from its starting row and lands side by side with an enemy pawn, that enemy pawn may capture it as if it had moved only one square. The chance lasts for exactly one move. Miss it, and it is gone.
Advice for beginners
Most coaching advice points the same way. Get your pieces off the back rank and into the game early. Castle toward safety when you reasonably can. Tuck your king behind a wall of pawns. Beginners are usually told to wait before marching the queen out, because a queen in the open is a magnet for trouble. And the single best habit is simple: before you play a move, look at what you are leaving unprotected.
Chess rewards patience over flash. Set the board up correctly, learn how the pieces move, and the rest of the game will slowly open up.