Chess rules: how to play chess

The board and the pieces

Chess is played on a board of 64 squares, eight by eight, alternating light and dark. Place the board so that each player has a light square in the corner on their right. The columns are called files and are named a to h. The rows are called ranks and are numbered 1 to 8 from White's side. So every square has a name, such as e4.

Each player starts with 16 pieces:

The queen starts on a square of her own colour: the white queen on a light square, the black queen on a dark one. White always moves first. After that the players take turns, one move each. You must move when it is your turn; you cannot pass.

How the pieces move

A piece captures by moving onto a square occupied by an opponent's piece, which is removed from the board. You can never move onto a square occupied by one of your own pieces. Only the knight can jump over other pieces.

• King: one square in any direction. It may never move to a square where it would be attacked.
• Queen: any number of squares in a straight line, along a file, a rank or a diagonal.
• Rook: any number of squares along a file or a rank.
• Bishop: any number of squares diagonally. A bishop stays on squares of one colour for the whole game.
• Knight: in an L shape, two squares in one direction and then one square at a right angle. It jumps over anything in between.
• Pawn: one square straight forward, or two squares from its starting square if both squares are empty. It captures one square diagonally forward. A pawn never moves backwards and cannot capture straight ahead.

Check, checkmate and stalemate

When a king is attacked, it is in check. The player in check must get out of it at once, in one of three ways: move the king to a safe square, capture the attacking piece, or put a piece between the attacker and the king. The last option does not work against a knight, or against a piece standing right next to the king. You may never make a move that leaves your own king in check.

If a king is in check and no legal move gets it out, it is checkmate and the game is over. The player who gave checkmate wins. The king is never actually captured.

If the player to move is not in check but has no legal move at all, it is stalemate. Stalemate is a draw, not a win, even when one side has far more pieces. Avoiding it is the first thing to learn when you are winning.

Special moves

Castling

Castling is the only move in which two pieces move at once. The king moves two squares towards one of its rooks, and that rook jumps over to the square on the king's other side. Kingside castling (short castling) puts White's king on g1 and the rook on f1. Queenside castling (long castling) puts the king on c1 and the rook on d1. Black castles the same way on the eighth rank.

You may castle only when all five conditions are met:

1. 1.Neither the king nor that rook has moved earlier in the game, even if it has since moved back.
2. 2.All squares between the king and the rook are empty.
3. 3.Your king is not in check.
4. 4.The king does not pass over a square attacked by an opponent's piece.
5. 5.The king does not end on an attacked square.

The rook itself may be attacked, and in queenside castling the rook may pass over an attacked square (b1 or b8). Only the king's path matters. Each player can castle at most once per game. In over-the-board play you touch the king first, then the rook.

En passant

When a pawn moves two squares forward from its starting square and lands right beside an opponent's pawn, that pawn may capture it as if it had moved only one square. The capturing pawn moves diagonally to the square the other pawn passed over, and the pawn that moved two squares is removed. For example, a white pawn on e5 can capture a black pawn that has just moved from d7 to d5 by moving to d6. This is allowed only on the very next move. If you wait, the chance is gone.

Promotion

When a pawn reaches the far side of the board (the eighth rank for White, the first for Black), it must be exchanged, as part of the same move, for a queen, rook, bishop or knight of its own colour. The choice does not depend on which pieces have been captured, so you can have two or more queens. Almost everyone chooses a queen. Choosing another piece is called underpromotion and is now and then the only way to win or to avoid stalemate.

How a game ends

Winning

• Checkmate.
• Resignation: a player may give up at any time.
• Time: in a game with a clock, a player whose time runs out loses, unless the opponent could not checkmate by any series of legal moves. Then it is a draw.

Drawing

In tournaments a win scores 1 point, a draw half a point and a loss 0. Results are written 1-0, ½-½ and 0-1.

What the pieces are worth

The king has no value, because it can never be exchanged. These numbers are a guide for deciding whether a trade is good, not a rule of the game.

Clocks and other formats

Casual games often have no clock. In competitions each player has a fixed amount of time for the game: rapid chess gives each player more than 10 and less than 60 minutes, blitz 10 minutes or less, and classical games an hour or more. In formal over-the-board play the touch-move rule applies: if you deliberately touch one of your pieces, you must move it if you can, and if you touch an opponent's piece, you must capture it if you can. Chess960, also called Fischer Random, uses the same rules but shuffles the pieces on the back rank before the game.

First principles

• Fight for the centre. Pawns on e4 and d4, or e5 and d5, give your pieces room and take squares away from your opponent.
• Develop your pieces. Bring knights and bishops off the back rank early, and do not move the same piece twice in the opening without a reason.
• Castle early, so your king is safe and your rooks can work together.
• Keep the queen back at first. Brought out early, she gets chased by smaller pieces and you lose time.
• After every move your opponent makes, ask what it threatens: checks, captures and attacks.
• Before every move you make, look for your own checks, captures and attacks.
• Count before you capture, and when you are ahead in material, trade pieces.
• When you are winning, make sure your opponent still has a legal move. Stalemate turns a win into a draw.

Playing in Chess Master

Chess Master plays by the standard rules on this page, including castling, en passant and promotion to any of the four pieces, which you pick from a short menu. The app recognises checkmate and stalemate, and it ends the game as a draw by itself at the first threefold repetition, after fifty moves each without a capture or pawn move, and when there is not enough material to mate: king against king, king and one bishop or knight against king, or king and bishop against king and bishop. Unlike in a tournament, you never have to claim these draws. Games have no clock.

• Play vs AI: our own engine at six levels, Beginner (about 600 Elo), Easy (about 900), Medium (about 1200), Hard (about 1500), Expert (about 1800) and Master (about 2100). You play White, Black or a random colour. Below Expert the engine now and then chooses a plausible weaker move, as a human at that level would, but it never lets a forced mate slip.
• Play Local: two players take turns on one device.
• Daily Puzzle: one position a day, the same for everyone, from mate in one to mate in three, plus tactics such as a fork and a skewer. Any move that still forces mate in the stated number of moves is accepted, not only the stored solution. A written hint is there if you need it.
• Learn Chess: twelve short lessons in four groups: how the pieces move; openings (opening principles, the Italian Game and the Sicilian Defence); endgames (king and rook against king, king and pawn against king); and strategy (what the pieces are worth, forks, pins and skewers, and pawn structure).
• Hints: the engine shows a good move as an arrow on the board. Free play includes three hints a day; with Premium there is no limit.
• Undo takes back your last move together with the engine's reply. You can flip the board, switch between the 2D and 3D board, show legal moves and coordinates, and turn on an evaluation bar.
• From the game menu you can offer a draw, resign, or share the game as PGN.
• With Premium, a finished game against the engine can be reviewed: accuracy, mistakes, blunders and an evaluation graph.