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How to Play Chess: The Rules for Beginners
Learn how to play chess step by step - the board, how every piece moves, check and checkmate, and how a game ends - with boards you can click through.
Chess is a game for two players, one with the white pieces and one with the black. Each side starts with sixteen pieces, and the goal is the same for both: checkmate the other king - attack it so that it has no way to escape.
That one sentence is the whole point of the game. Everything else - winning pieces, controlling the centre, pushing pawns - is a way of getting closer to it. This guide covers everything you need to play your first full game.
The board and the setup
The board has 64 squares in an 8×8 grid, alternating light and dark. Two rules make sure it is the right way round:
- Light square on the right. Each player has a light square in the bottom-right corner.
- Queen on her colour. The white queen starts on a light square, the black queen on a dark one.
The columns are called files and are lettered a to h from White's left. The rows are ranks, numbered 1 to 8 from White's side. So every square has a name: White's king starts on e1, Black's on e8.
White always moves first. Then the players take turns, one move each. You cannot pass, and you must move if you have a legal move.
How each piece moves
Every piece except the knight moves in straight lines and cannot jump over other pieces. A piece captures by moving onto a square occupied by an enemy piece, which is removed from the board. You can never capture your own pieces.
The king
The king moves one square in any direction. It is the most important piece - lose it and you lose the game - but it is not a strong attacker. A king can never move onto a square where it would be attacked.
The queen
The queen moves any number of squares in a straight line: along files, ranks and diagonals. It is the most powerful piece on the board, worth about nine pawns.
The rook
The rook moves any number of squares along a file or rank - straight up, down, left or right. Worth about five pawns. Rooks are strongest on open files, with no pawns in the way.
The bishop
The bishop moves any number of squares diagonally. Because of that, a bishop stays on the colour it starts on all game: each side has one light-squared and one dark-squared bishop. Worth about three pawns.
The knight
The knight moves in an L-shape: two squares in one direction, then one square to the side. It is the only piece that jumps over other pieces, which is why it can come out at the very start. Worth about three pawns.
Moves: 1. Nf3 Nc6 2. Nc3 Nf6
The pawn
Pawns are the most unusual piece:
- A pawn moves straight forward one square, never backwards.
- On its first move it may go forward two squares instead.
- It captures diagonally, one square forward to the left or right. It cannot capture straight ahead, so a pawn facing another piece head-on is stuck.
Moves: 1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4
Pawns have three special rules - castling (which involves the king and rook), en passant and promotion - covered in our guide to the special moves. Promotion matters most: a pawn that reaches the far side of the board becomes a queen (or a rook, bishop or knight).
Check, checkmate and stalemate
When a king is attacked, it is in check. The player in check must get out of it immediately, in one of three ways:
- Move the king to a safe square.
- Block the attack by putting a piece in between (impossible against a knight).
- Capture the attacking piece.
If none of those work, it is checkmate and the game is over. Here is the fastest checkmate possible, called Fool's Mate - it takes two moves:
Moves: 1. f3 e5 2. g4 Qh4#
You will almost never see this in a real game, but it shows the idea perfectly: the white king is attacked and has no answer.
Stalemate is different. If the player to move is not in check but has no legal move, the game is a draw. Stalemate catches out many beginners who are winning easily and accidentally leave the opponent's king with nowhere to go. Read more in how a chess game can end in a draw.
How a game ends
A game of chess ends in one of these ways:
- Checkmate - the player who delivers it wins.
- Resignation - a player gives up, usually when the position is hopeless.
- Time - with a clock, a player whose time runs out loses (unless the opponent has no way at all to checkmate, which is a draw).
- A draw - by agreement, stalemate, repeating the same position three times, fifty moves with no capture or pawn move, or when neither side has enough pieces left to checkmate.
How to win: the first principles
Knowing how the pieces move is enough to play. To start winning, keep these in mind:
- Control the centre. Open with a central pawn, such as 1. e4 or 1. d4.
- Develop your pieces. Bring knights and bishops out early instead of moving the same piece twice.
- Castle early to get your king to safety.
- Before every move, check for checks, captures and threats - for both sides. Most games between beginners are decided by a piece left undefended.
Our guide to opening principles goes further, and when you are ready for patterns, the chess tactics guide shows the tricks that win most games.
Practise
The fastest way to get comfortable with how the pieces move is to solve puzzles. Start with mate in 1 puzzles: one move each, all from real games, and every one trains you to spot checks. When you want a full game, play the computer at the lowest level and work your way up.
Practise it: Mate in 1 puzzles