Chess rules: how to play chess, on a board you can move
The rules of chess fit on one page. Two players, sixteen pieces each, white moves first, and the whole game comes down to one piece: the other player's king. Every board below is live. Tap a piece and its legal moves show up as dots, so you can check a rule rather than take our word for it.
What is the goal of chess?
To checkmate the enemy king. Checkmate means the king is under attack and there is no legal way out of it: it cannot move to safety, nothing can block the attack, and the attacking piece cannot be captured. The game stops the instant that happens. The king is never actually taken off the board.
You do not need to capture all of their pieces, or any of them. Taking pieces is a means to an end: fewer defenders around their king. Plenty of games finish with both armies still mostly on the board.
The board and the starting position
The board is eight squares by eight, in two colours. Turn it so each player has a light square in the bottom right corner. Your two nearest rows fill with pieces: rooks in the corners, then knights, then bishops, then the queen on her own colour with the king beside her, and eight pawns across the row in front.
Set the board up the wrong way round and the game still works, it just leaves every king and queen swapped. The full walkthrough, with the two checks that fix nearly every mistake, is on how to set up a chess board.
How does each chess piece move?
- Pawn — one square straight forward, or two on its very first move. It captures diagonally, never straight ahead, and it can never go backwards.
- Knight — an L shape: two squares one way, then one square across. The only piece that passes over anything standing in its path.
- Bishop — any distance along a diagonal. It starts on one colour of square and stays on that colour for the whole game.
- Rook — any distance in a straight line, up, down or across.
- Queen — a rook and a bishop in one piece: any distance, any straight or diagonal line.
- King — one square in any direction, plus one special two-square move called castling.
Each of those gets its own live board, along with what every piece is worth in a trade, on chess pieces names and moves.
Taking turns and taking pieces
White moves first, then black, then white, one move each, all game. You have to move when it is your turn. Passing is not allowed, and that rule is the reason stalemate exists.
You capture by moving onto a square that holds an enemy piece. That piece comes off the board and yours stands where it stood. You cannot jump over a piece to reach something behind it, and you cannot capture your own. The knight is the one exception to the jumping part.
Check, checkmate and stalemate
Check means a king is under attack and could be captured next move. You are not allowed to leave your king in check, so you have to deal with it immediately: move the king, block the line of attack, or capture the piece giving check. If none of the three is possible, it is checkmate and the game is over.
Stalemate is the near miss. The player to move is not in check, but has no legal move at all: every king move would walk into an attack and nothing else can budge. That is a draw, not a win, no matter how far ahead you were.
The three special moves
Three moves break the usual pattern, and they are where arguments at a real board start.
Castling moves the king two squares towards one of its rooks, and that rook hops over to the far side of the king in the same turn. It is the quickest way to get a king out of the middle. It only works if neither piece has moved yet, the squares between them are empty, and the king is not in check or crossing a square an enemy piece attacks. Each of those conditions has a board to try on castling in chess.
En passant covers one awkward case. If a pawn uses its two-square first move to slip past an enemy pawn that was waiting to capture it, that pawn may take it anyway, landing diagonally on the square it skipped. The chance lasts one move.
Promotion is a pawn's reward for crossing the whole board. Reach the far end and it turns into any piece you like other than a king. Nearly everyone picks a queen.
How does a game of chess end in a draw?
Not every game has a winner. There are five ways a game is drawn.
- Stalemate — the player to move has no legal move and is not in check.
- Threefold repetition — the same position appears three times with the same player to move.
- The fifty-move rule — fifty moves each with no capture and no pawn moved.
- Insufficient material — neither side has enough left to force mate. A king and one bishop cannot checkmate a lone king.
- Agreement — one player offers a draw and the other accepts.
The boards here watch for all five and call the game the moment one happens.
How to win at chess as a beginner
You do not need opening theory to start beating people. Five habits do most of the work.
- Get your pieces out. Knights and bishops off the back row in the first few moves, pointing at the middle of the board. A piece still sitting where it started is doing nothing for you.
- Castle early. Usually inside the first ten moves. A king tucked in the corner behind three pawns is far harder to get at than one standing in the middle.
- Ask what their last move threatens. Look at the piece they just moved and work out what it now attacks. More beginner games are lost to a missed one-move threat than to anything clever.
- Do not leave pieces hanging. A piece is hanging when the other player can take it for free. Go down your own side of the board and ask, for each piece, whether anything attacks it and whether anything of yours defends it.
- Trade when you are ahead. A rook up, swap the rooks. A queen up, swap the queens. Every pair that leaves the board makes your extra piece count for more.
Once those are habits, the next two things worth ten minutes each are chess openings for beginners, which is just the first few moves done properly, and how to read chess notation, so you can follow a game written down.
Frequently asked questions
How many pieces are there in chess?
Thirty-two in total, sixteen each: eight pawns, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, one queen and one king per player.
Who moves first in chess?
White, always. After that the players alternate, one move each, until the game ends.
Can the king take a piece?
Yes. The king captures the same way it moves, one square in any direction, as long as the piece it takes is undefended and the king does not end up in check.
What happens if you cannot move?
If you are in check and cannot get out of it, that is checkmate and you lose. If you are not in check but have no legal move at all, that is stalemate and the game is a draw.
Is stalemate a win?
No, it is a draw, worth half a point to each player. Being a queen or a rook ahead makes no difference once the position is stalemate.
Can a pawn move backwards?
No. Pawns are the only piece that can never retreat, which is why every pawn move is a decision you cannot take back.
How long does a game of chess take?
A casual game between two friends usually runs ten to thirty minutes. There are no clocks here, so take as long over a move as you want.
Now play it
Play 2 player chess offline on one device or play chess online with a friend.