If you want to learn how to play chess, then this is the post for you. I will show you how to set up the board and all the different rules of chess-like how the pieces move, pawn promotion, en passant, castling, checkmate, stalemate, etc. I will teach you everything about chess. At the same time, I will try to keep this post as simple as possible so that everyone can understand.
So don’t forget to share this post with your friends so that they can also play and enjoy the great game of chess. At the beginning of the game, you need to remember that the chessboard needs to be placed in such a manner that each player has the light-colored square on the bottom right-hand side. Regarding the pieces, the second row for each side is filled with pawns just like this. And the first row should be set up as follows.
The rooks belong to the corner squares. And now moving inward, the knights belong next to the rooks. Yes, this is called a knight & not a horse. Then next to the knights, we have our bishops. After this, we place our queens on her matching color, which means the white queen goes on a white square and the black queen goes on a black square. And then finally, we place the king on the remaining square. If the board is set up correctly, each piece will be facing one another. The queen across the queen and the king across the king.
That’s how it should be. The player with the white pieces always moves first and makes one move, and then black makes one move. Each player will make alternate moves like this until the game ends. Each of the 6 different pieces has a unique way of moving.
Let’s start with the piece which is the easiest to understand and that’s the rook. The rook moves in a plus pattern just like this. This means it can move any number of squares either up, down, left, or right as highlighted in this position. Rooks can capture the first enemy piece they move into. When you capture an enemy piece in chess, you simply go to the square it occupies and removes it from the board. Now let’s talk about bishops. The bishop can move diagonally any number of squares or in an X-pattern just like this.
From this position, it can go to any of the squares I have highlighted in red. Bishops can capture the first enemy piece they move into. Now let’s look at the queen. The queen is considered the most powerful piece on board because it can move both like the Rook and Bishop. Which means it can move any number of squares vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. From this position, the queen can go to any of the squares highlighted in red. The Queen can capture the first enemy piece it moves into.
Let’s talk about the knights now. The knight moves in the shape of an L. Movingtwo squares in one direction except diagonal and then one square just like that. The knight from this position can move to any of the squares highlighted in red. The knight is the only piece that can jump over other pieces. Meaning if there were any pieces here right next to the knight, he can simply jump over those pieces and move. If there is any opponent piece on these highlighted squares, he can capture them.
Let’s talk about the pawns now. The pawn is actually the most complicated piece because it has many unique qualities. A pawn is the only piece that moves in one direction and captures in a completely different direction. Pawns move one step forward towards the opponent’s side of the board. But if it is their first move, then they can move either one square forward like this or two squares forward like this. After it’s first moving, the pawn can only move one square forward. So let’s just say, this pawn moves two squares, and this pawn moves one. Each of these highlighted pawns now could only move one square forward.
Now, if white moves his pawn 2 squares forward like this, and black also goes two squares. You might be thinking that this white pawn can captures this black pawn, but he cannot. Like I told you earlier, pawns move one way and capture in a different way. Remember, pawns can only capture pieces diagonally in front of them and they cannot capture pieces directly in front of them. In fact, this pawn simply cannot move or capture. He’s stuck and has no legal moves.
However, this pawn does. This pawn can move forward like this or he can capture one square diagonally like this. Now you know that pawns only move forward and they never move backward. But what’s going to happen if this pawn gets all the way down to this back rank or row, or if any of these black pawns get down to this back rank? Well, what happens is something called pawn promotion. And what that means is that the pawn simply turns into a queen, rook, bishop, or a knight. You can promote it to any of these 4 pieces, it’s completely your choice. Now let’s talk about the most important piece and that is our king. The objective of chess is to checkmate the king.
The king is priceless because if you lose the king, you simply lose the game. The king moves one square at a time in any direction. From this position, he can go to any of these squares highlighted in red. Whenever a move results in the opponent’s king is threatened, then the attacking player must say ‘check’. So the term ‘check’ simply refers to the king being attacked. For example, In this position, it’s black to move. And if the rook goes to e8, then the white king is in check. He’s being attacked and needs to do something about it.
When you’re in check, there are three ways you can try to get out of it. You can try to move to a safe square, or block the check, or simply capture the checking piece. In this position, white can do all three. He can move to a safe square. All of these squares I have highlighted are safe. The king can move to any of these. You can also block the check. And by block, I mean to place a piece in-between the checking piece and the king. Here, you can block the check with your bishop, like this. Or you can also capture the checking piece like this. So again, from this position, white can do all three of those.
He can move to a safe square, block the check, or capture the checking piece.If you’re in check and there is no move to protect the king, then the attacking player declares ‘checkmate’. The game is over & he wins. For example, In this position, if the black rook moves to h1, white is a checkmate. He’s in checkmate because he cannot move away to a safe square, he cannot block the check, or capture the checking piece. He can’t go to any of these three squares because the black king guards them. He cannot go to any of these two squares because the black rook guards them.
The bishop is not in a position to capture the rook, nor is the bishop in a position to block the check. For these reasons, the king is in checkmate and the game is over. Sometimes, a chess game can also end in adraw. Let’s first look at a draw by stalemate. In this position, if the queen moves to g3, this is considered a stalemate position, or a drawn position. A stalemate occurs under the following conditions. It’s your turn to move, your king is not in check, and you have no legal moves for any of your pieces. In this position, it’s white to move. White is not in check and has no legal moves.
All three of these squares are covered by the black queen. And this pawn is also not able to move. This is an example of a stalemate. Now The game can also be drawn by insufficient material. If it’s a king and knight versus a king, there’sno way to win and the game is drawn. Similarly, if it’s a king versus a king and bishop, this too is a draw. And of course, if we are down to just king versus king, the kings cannot move next to each other. And the game is a draw. Now let’s talk about the 50 move rule. This is a position neither side is likely to win, and a draw is usually agreed upon.
However, even if the game continues, the game will most likely still end as a draw, but this time by the 50 move rule. The 50 move rule basically states that if both players make 50 consecutive moves each without making any pawn moves or any captures, the game ends as a draw. A game could also be drawn by threefold repetition which means that if the exact same position is repeated 3 times during the game, then the game is declared as a draw. For example, in this position, it’s white to move. Take a note of the pieces. This is the first time we’re seeing this particulararrangement. After white moves, then black plays the bishop and white goes back like this, and black also goes back.
This is now the second instance of the exact same position. And if it happens one more time, after a few more moves, just like this, then it is the third instance of the same position. And hence, the game is drawn by threefold repetition. Now let’s talk about some special rules in chess. The first one is a special pawn rule, en passant. In this position, it’s black to move. And if this pawn moves one square forward, we can capture it since pawns capture one square diagonally. And this same pawn, instead of going one square, let’s say it goes two squares forward trying to avoid this pawn from capturing it. Well then, we have the en passant rule which says that we still have the option of capturing the black pawn as if it had only moved one square forward.
We have that option on our very next turn only, otherwise, we lose that right altogether. So in this position, the white pawn can still capture the black pawn as if it had only moved one square forward. , this is a special rule involving the pawns only and no other piece. Now if black plays this pawn and white doesn’tcapture immediately and instead play this, and then black also makes some other move. Now white can no longer capture En passant. Because you have to capture it on your very next turn, or you can’t do it at all. There’s also a special move-in chess called castling and it involves the king and the rook. It’s the only time you can move two of your pieces in one turn.
Here’s what it looks like. In this position, white can move the king two squares towards the ‘h’ rook. And the rook is now going to be placed on another side right next to the king. That’s kingside castling. Now similarly, if the king moves two squares towards the ‘a’ rook, and the rook is placed on the other side of the king right next to it, just like that. That’s queenside castling. Now there are a couple of conditions which must be met in order to castle successfully. It must be the king’s first move. It must be that rook’s first move and there should not be any pieces in between the king and the rook. Those are just a couple of basic conditions.
However, there are two more conditions. In this position, the black rook is on e5 and the white king is in check. And when you are in check, you cannot castle out of check. That is one rule that you must follow. Here’s another one. You also cannot castle through check. In this position, for example, white can not castle queenside since the rook is controlling this square. So you need to remember both these conditions.
