How to play Chess

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Chess is played on a 64-square board between White and Black, and almost everything a beginner needs to know beyond "how the pieces move" lives in a handful of special rules that decide far more games than they get credit for. This page covers those, plus the draws — because a won position thrown away by a rule you did not know is the most annoying way to lose half a point.

Setting the board up correctly

The board is oriented so that each player has a light square in their bottom-right corner — "white on the right". The back rank runs rook, knight, bishop, queen, king, bishop, knight, rook, and the queen starts on her own colour: the white queen on a light square, the black queen on a dark one. Two boards set up as mirror images of each other, with the kings and queens swapped, is the single most common setup error, and it quietly changes which side castling is short on.

Castling, in full

Castling moves the king two squares toward a rook and jumps that rook to the far side of the king. It is legal only when all five of the following hold: the king has never moved, that rook has never moved, every square between them is empty, the king is not currently in check, and the king neither passes through nor lands on a square attacked by an enemy piece. Note what is *not* in that list — the rook may be attacked, and the rook may pass through an attacked square. Kingside castling (short) puts the king on g1/g8; queenside (long) puts it on c1/c8 and travels one square further.

En passant

If a pawn advances two squares from its starting rank and lands directly beside an enemy pawn, that enemy pawn may capture it as though it had only moved one square. The capture is available on the very next move and never again — decline it and the right is gone for that pawn pair. It exists so the two-square first move cannot be used to sneak a pawn past an opposing one.

Promotion

A pawn reaching the far rank must immediately become a queen, rook, bishop or knight of its own colour. It is not restricted to pieces already captured, so a side can legally have two or more queens. Choosing a knight instead — under-promotion — is occasionally the winning move, usually because the knight arrives with check or because a new queen would force stalemate.

Every way a game ends in a draw

Checkmate and resignation are the decisive results. The draws are stalemate (the side to move has no legal move and is not in check), threefold repetition (the same position, with the same side to move and the same castling and en-passant rights, occurs three times), the fifty-move rule (fifty consecutive moves by each side with no capture and no pawn move), insufficient material (neither side can construct a checkmate — king versus king, king and bishop, or king and knight), and agreement. Stalemate is the one that costs beginners real points: with a huge material advantage, taking every square from a lone king without ever giving check turns a win into a half.

Controls

Tap a piece then a highlighted square, or drag it. Castle by moving the king two squares toward the rook.

Keyboard

Arrow keys move the cursor.
Enter picks up and places, Escape cancels.

Strategy tips

Open by putting pawns on e4/d4 or e5/d5, developing knights before bishops, and castling within the first ten moves — most beginner losses are just an uncastled king.
Do not move the same piece twice in the opening unless you gain something concrete; development is a race and each tempo is a move your opponent gets for free.
Count the attackers and defenders on a square before capturing on it. If they are equal, the side to move usually loses material by starting the exchange.
Before every move, ask what your opponent's last move threatens. Most games below club level are decided by a piece left hanging, not by a deep plan.
Trade pieces when you are ahead in material and trade pawns when you are behind — a simplified board magnifies an advantage, a blocked one hides a deficit.
Rooks belong on open files and on the seventh rank; a rook that never leaves its corner is a piece you are playing without.
In the endgame the king becomes a strong piece. Walk it toward the centre and toward the passed pawns as soon as the queens come off.