The Rules Of Chess

Step 2 - setting the board up
Before play begins, it is necessary to decide who will play on which side. The "sides" are generally called "black" and "white", although often, chess pieces are not colored in such an obvious contrast, and so "dark" and "light" may be used instead.
The side of play is usually decided with a coin toss - the winner usually electing to take the white ("light") colored pieces.
The player with the light pieces makes the first "move" of the game, and thus is generally considered to have a slight advantage.
Play continues in alternating fashion, with each player making a single move at a time until the game ends. A player may not "miss a go" - a move has to be made each and every turn.
The board is always set up with a light colored square at the bottom right of the board. This can easily be remembered using the simple ditty "white on the right"!
In this case, "bottom" intuitively refers to the edge of the board nearest the player.
Whilst is seems obvious, it is also worth mentioning that the 2 players sit opposite each other (head to head!) at the chess board.

Each player will place their pieces on the appropriate squares before commencing play.

Beginners are often confused as to where the king and queen should be placed on the 2 remaining squares on the back row.
Often, the king is erroneously placed on the square of its color (e.g. the white king is placed on the white square), but this is incorrect.
It is always the queen that is placed on the square corresponding to its color.
The white queen is placed on a white square and the black queen is placed on a black square.
This ensures that at start of play, the 2 queens and 2 kings are directly facing each other across the playing board.
Finally, the 8 pawns occupy the entire second row of the board.

The board should resemble the diagram below. Note the symbols used for each piece - these are generally universal amongst pictographic representations of chess boards and pieces.

Step 3 - the objective of the game
To "win" a game of chess, it is necessary to capture your opponent's king. Alternatively, a player may "resign" when faced with an overwhelming chance of his king being captured.
In order to accomplish your goal, strategies must be employed to maneuver your chess men into advantageous positions in order to overwhelm your opponent, either with material or positional advantage. One can easily see how chess resembles a true battlefield in this regard - with the pieces representing the "soldiers" in the two sides.
It is impossible to say "how" to play a good game of chess, since there are so many strategies one may employ. It is generally a good idea to try to develop your pieces as early as possible into positions where they have command over as much of the board as possible, whilst ensuring your own king is well protected!
More experienced players will often "sacrifice" a piece in order to gain a positional advantage.
Any square may only be occupied by one piece at a time. "Capturing" an enemy piece involves moving your own piece onto the square that the enemy piece occupies, and removing the enemy piece from the board. The captured piece then takes no further part in the game.

Check & checkmate
When a player's king is threatened with capture, the player is said to be in "check", and the next move by that player must remove that threat.
Should a position arise where it is impossible for a player to prevent capture of his king, that player is said to be in "checkmate", and loses the game.
The next step is to explain the strengths and weaknesses of each piece and their roles in the game.

Step 4 - the chess pieces
Each piece may move in a certain way, and the edges of the board are considered "barriers", past which no piece may move. Additionally, pieces (except for the knight, which we will come to later), when moved, cannot pass "by" or "over" intervening pieces belonging to either side.
Much like a real war, the armies start at opposite ends and gradually move towards each other, with the main battles often taking place in the center of the board.

The Pawn
Pawns are the lowliest of your pieces, and are often not even considered as "pieces" at all.
However, they often play crucial roles in guarding squares of great tactical value, or providing protection for your king. Additionally, should a pawn reach the final (8th row) on the board, it can be "promoted" to any other piece on the board (except a king).
A pawn may only be moved one square directly ahead (except when capturing, which we'll come to next, and on its first move only, when it may move two squares ahead).
If there is an enemy (or friendly) piece directly ahead of a pawn, then it cannot move forward, and is considered "blocked".

For example, suppose it is the first move of the game, then white may move the pawn in front of the queen one square forward, or the pawn in front of the king two squares forward.
Note: this is only an illustration - any of the pawns may be moved either one or two squares forward on their first move, assuming nothing is blocking the path (that includes both enemy and friendly pieces!)

Pawns may only capture pieces "diagonally", as shown in the 2 diagrams below. Note that pawns may capture any other piece, not just other pawns, as illustrated.

Capturing an enemy piece to the right:

Capturing an enemy piece to the left:

There is one more rule relating to pawns only, known as "En Passant", which occurs rather infrequently. If you have a pawn on the 5th row, and an enemy pawn moves 2 squares forward to the immediate left or right of your pawn, then you may capture your opponent's pawn as though it had only moved one square.
It is important to note that the option to capture En Passant is only available for one move. Unless immediately exercised, this ability is lost on subsequent moves.

In the diagram above, the white pawn was on the 5th row and black moved the pawn in front of his queen two squares forward to "avoid" capture by the enemy pawn. However, white may still elect to capture the black pawn by moving his pawn into the empty square as illustrated, and removing the black pawn.

The En Passant rule was introduced when pawns were given the ability to move 2 squares on their initial move, as a means to keep some of the pawn's inherent limitations whilst still allowing for quicker game progression.

The Knight
The knight is unique amongst the chess pieces in 2 ways.

• It doesn't move in a straight line, but in an "L" shape, two squares by one square in any direction.
• It may jump over any piece to complete its move.

At the start of a game, the only pieces that may make the first move are either the pawns or the knights, since every other piece is "blocked in".
On the first move, each knight may jump to one of two squares, as shown below.

Knights are often considered to be roughly equal to the bishops in terms of "value" or strength, but this depends of the precise situation. A pair of bishops in the center of the board can easily command a devastating amount of squares, whilst knights can often be used to great effect in " blocked up" positions, and can frequently "fork" your opponent's pieces to gain a material advantage.

The Bishop
At the start of the game, each player will have one bishop on a white square and one bishop on a black square. The bishops are unique in that the color of the square that they start off standing on is the color of the square that they stay on throughout the game.
This is a direct result of the fact that the bishops only ever move along diagonals.

The above diagram shows the squares which a bishop in the center of a board may move to.
The bishop may move as far along a diagonal as desired, providing there are no intervening pieces.
Bishops (unlike knights) are well suited to "attack from a distance", and are often combined with other pieces in attack, to concentrate on a weakly defended piece or pawn, for example.

The Rook (Castle)
The rook can move any number of squares either up/down or left/right across the board in a straight line (but not diagonally).
The rook is generally considered to be slightly more powerful than a bishop or knight, since a rook placed on any square of the board "commands" a total of 15 squares (if we include the square the piece is standing on), whilst the amount of squares covered by a bishop varies from 14 for a central bishop, to 8 for a bishop on a corner square.

Rooks often come into their own during the latter stages of a game, as they work best in open positions. A common tactic is to "double up" rooks, which means placing one rook directly behind another, usually on the first and second rows of the board. This can sometimes lead to powerful attacks against an opponent's back ranks.

The Queen
The queen is the most powerful piece on the board. The queen combines the moves of a rook and bishop - it may move both diagonally in any direction and up/down and left/right on the board.
The queen is worth considerably more than a rook and bishop combined however - losing your queen to gain a rook and bishop would not be a good exchange of pieces.

The following diagram shows that a centrally placed queen commands a large percentage of the board.

The King
The ultimate aim of a game of chess is to capture your opponent's king - if you lose your king, the game is over and lost. Protecting your king is one of the most important things to remember during the game. It is no good if you mount an all-out attack on your opponent, only to leave your king vulnerable to a counter-attack should your main thrust fail.
Losing your queen, whilst usually a crushing blow, does not automatically mean the game is lost - in fact, some of the greatest games in history have involved a "queen sacrifice", where the most powerful piece is purposely lost in order to gain a winning positional advantage.
For all its importance, the king has little power. It may simply move one square in any direction, as indicated on the diagram below.
The king may capture any enemy piece, just like any other of your pieces.

• You may not move your king onto a square which is "guarded" by an enemy piece - i.e. you cannot move your king into a position where it is able to be captured on the next move.
  This applies both when moving your king to an empty square and when moving your king onto a square occupied by an enemy piece in order to capture it.
• You cannot move any piece if that piece is preventing your king from being captured, i.e. if by moving that piece, your king is able to be captured on your opponent's next turn. Such a blocking piece is often said to be "pinned" to the king.
• If your king is placed under attack (in check) by your opponent's move, then you must immediately remove the threat to your king on your turn. If you cannot remove the threat, then you have been "checkmated" and have lost the game.

Step 5 - special chess positions and moves illustrated

Checkmate

Note:

• It is impossible to deliver checkmate using just one piece (unless the enemy king is blocked from moving to some squares by its own pieces!)
• If you are in "check", but you yourself are threatening to checkmate your opponent, then you must deal with the check first - i.e. if you are in check, your next move cannot be to checkmate your opponent (unless removing the check to your king results in simultaneous checkmate to your opponent, which really never happens apart from in artificial positions used for illustration only!)
• A minimum number of pieces are required to "force" a win during the "endgame".
  For example, a king and knight (or king and 2 knights) versus a king is a drawn game - the material advantage is not sufficient to be able to maneuver your enemy into checkmate.
  Likewise, a bishop and king versus a king is a drawn game.
  A rook and king (or queen and king) versus a king is able to force the win.
  A king and 2 bishops (with the bishops being on opposite colored squares) can force the win against a single king, but is tricky.
  A king, bishop and knight versus a king should also be victorious, but such endings practically never occur in serious competition, and as such, belong more to the realm of "theoretical positions" than real life chess!
  Of course, there are limitless combinations of pieces that may be left at the end of the game, and we cannot possibly hope to cover every case here.
  The reader interested in endgame theory is encouraged to seek books on the subject matter, for example: chess endgame books at Amazon or chess endgames at Wikipedia.

Stalemate
This is defined by a situation where a player is not in check, but nonetheless, cannot make any legal moves. The game is then declared a draw.
Such positions rarely occur, but when they do, generally few pieces are left on the board.
In the diagram below, black is playing "down" the board, i.e. from top to bottom.
White moves his queen to the square illustrated, resulting in black having no legal moves to play.
He cannot move his king to any square, as the only 2 squares it could possibly move to are covered by the white queen, and he cannot move his pawn forward as it is blocked by his own king!
As black was not placed in check on white's last move, the game is a draw.
Of course, that was a rather silly move by white, but this is just for illustration.

To be continued...

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