Starting a Chess Game
The first step in starting a chess game is learning how to properly set up the board. The two armies oppose each other across the board with the smallest pieces — pawns — manning each army’s second row or front line. The larger pieces are on the first row or at the back. The royal couple of king and queen sit in the center of the army (in the back) flanked by bishops, knights and rooks and are protected by a front line of pawns.
About the Pieces
The two most valuable pieces are the king and the queen. They are followed by the rook, bishop and knight. The pawns are the least valuable pieces but (as with all pieces) are important for protecting the king. The king can move in any direction, including diagonally but can only move one square at a time. The queen is the most powerful piece of chess and can move in any direction on any number of squares. The bishop can move in a straight line diagonally any number of spaces. The rook (or castle) can move in a straight line horizontally or vertically any number of spaces. The knight, which looks like a horse-head piece, moves in an L-shaped pattern. Pawns are the smallest, weakest pieces of chess. The pieces can only move one way — directly forward — one square at a time (unless if its the pawn’s first move; then it can move one or two squares directly forward).
The Object of Chess
The ultimate goal in chess is to trap the leader of the opposing army — the king. Trapping the king is called a checkmate and results in a win for the checkmating side. You can learn 10 basic checkmate patterns that are key to winning a chess game. Also, there are a few blunders that you can make in chess that will give your opponent an advantage in a few moves. Blunders (also known as fool’s mate) can lead to the fastest checkmate in chess. Learn how to avoid those mistakes early on.
Strategy and Tactics
Learning how to play chess goes beyond understanding the rules. Strategy and tactics are both crucial to playing better chess. Long-term strategic plans revolve around ideas such as the material lead, development of your attack, king safety and space management. Planning out the movement of your bishops is often a key strategy to employ for achieving checkmate. Basic chess tactics are short-term, forced sequences that can quickly change the course of the game. Forks, pins and skewers are among the most common tactical motifs.
Phases of the Game
Most chess games go through three phases: the opening, the middlegame and the endgame. Some of the basic principles of chess openings will help you develop your pieces and formulate a plan. The middlegame is where the largest battles are waged between the two armies. The final phase, the endgame, is a tense battle between the few remaining forces on the board.
title: “How To Play Chess” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-03” author: “Justine Porter”
The Pieces
Chess uses six pieces, each of which moves in a specific way. All pieces share some common traits. No piece is allowed to land on a square occupied by a friendly piece. If a piece lands on a square occupied by an enemy piece, that enemy is captured and removed from the board. With the exception of the knight, pieces are not allowed to jump over other pieces.
The rook usually looks like a small tower. It moves in a straight line horizontally or vertically for any number of squares.The bishop moves in a straight line diagonally for any number of squares.The queen, the most powerful piece in chess, can move any number of squares in a straight line horizontally, vertically or diagonally.The king can also move in any direction, including diagonally, but it can only move one square at a time. The knight, which usually looks like a horse, moves in an irregular, L-shaped pattern. From the center of the board, the knight can move to eight different squares. Though the knight can leap over other pieces, it doesn’t capture pieces it jumps over; it only captures a piece on a square it lands on.Pawns are the shortest and weakest pieces in chess. Pawns are also the only pieces that move one way, but capture in another fashion. Unlike other pieces, pawns can only move forward, not backward. A pawn can only move directly forward one square at a time unless it is still on the square on which it began the game; if it is the pawn’s first move, it can move one or two squares directly forward. A pawn cannot capture a piece directly in front of it. Pawns can only capture a piece by moving one square forward diagonally.
Some exceptions to the rules include: castling, a move where the king and a rook both move at the same time; en passant, an unusual pawn capture; and pawn promotion, a situation that occurs if a pawn reaches the end of the board, where the pawn may “promote” to a stronger piece.
Setting Up the Chessboard
Before starting the game, ensure that each player has a light-colored square in the bottom right-hand corner. Place your rooks on the bottom-left and bottom-right squares, and then place the knights on the first row directly adjacent to the rooks. The bishops take the next two squares toward the center of the back row. Leave two empty squares in the middle of your back row–these two squares belong to the king and queen. Place these pieces using the queen-on-color rule, where the white queen goes on the light square, while the black queen goes on its dark square. The king takes the other square. Set up all of your pawns on the second row, right in front of your larger pieces.
How to Win
When a player’s king is under attack and threatened with capture, you say that the king is in check. When in check, that player must take action to avoid having his king captured by moving the king, capturing the attacking piece, or–except in the case of a knight check–blocking the attack. You win the game via checkmate, where you attack your opponent’s king in such a way that he cannot avoid being captured. To win the game, the victorious player doesn’t actually capture the enemy king; once capture is inevitable, checkmate has occurred and the game is over. A player who knows defeat is inevitable may also resign the game rather than wait to be checkmated. The game can end in a draw, where there is no winner. The most common way to draw a game is by stalemate. Other draws include threefold repetition with the same position occurring three times with the same player to move and the 50-move rule, where no pawn has been moved and no piece has been captured for 50 consecutive moves by each player.
