How to play traditional Chess

In order to help you understand the many variants on this website, I'm going to give you a refresher on the basic rules of chess.

Chess is a two-player strategy game played on a board with 64 squares arranged in an 8x8 grid.

Objective

The objective of the game is to put the opponent's king in checkmate, which means the king is under attack and cannot escape capture on the next move.

Set up

Each player has 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. Pieces are set up like in the diagram.

Movement

The pieces move in specific ways. Click on the drop-downs to read about each piece.

King (K)

The king can move one square in any direction.

If a player's king is threatened with capture, it is said to be ‘in check’, and the player must remove the threat of capture on the next move. If this cannot be done, the king is said to be in ‘checkmate,’ resulting in a loss for that player.

A player cannot make any move that places their own king in check, or move any piece that would result in the king being in check.

Queen (Q)

The queen can move any number of squares in a straight line, vertically, horizontally or diagonally.

Knight (N)

The knight moves in an L-shaped pattern, moving two squares horizontally or vertically and then one square perpendicular to that. The Knight leaps over any intervening pieces, as though they weren't even there.

Bishop (B)

The bishop can move any number of squares diagonally.

Rook (R)

The rook can move any number of squares horizontally or vertically.

Pawn (P)

Pawns can only move forward one square at a time, except on their first move when they can move two squares. Pawns capture diagonally - one square forward and one square to the left or right - and cannot capture forward.

Special moves

Pawn promotion

When a pawn reaches the opposite end of the board, it can be promoted to any other piece except for a king. This is often done by promoting the pawn to a queen, but players can choose any piece that they wish.

In this example, white's pawn promote to a Queen. (Pb8=Q)

En Passant

If an opponent's pawn moves two squares forward from its starting position and lands adjacent to a player's pawn, the player's pawn can capture the opponent's pawn as if it had only moved one square forward. This can only be done on the next move.

Check

A player's king is said to be in check if it is under attack by one or more of the opponent's pieces. When a player's king is in check, they must get out of check immediately on their next move, either by moving the king to a safe square, blocking the check with another piece, or capturing the attacking piece. If a player cannot get out of check on their next move, the game is over, and they lose. [See 'Ending the game']

An example of Black's king being 'in check.' (Qxc4+)

Castling

This is a move where the king has moved two squares towards a rook on the player's first rank, and then that rook moves to the square the king crossed. This can only be done if neither the king nor the rook has moved before, and there are no pieces between them. Also, the king cannot be in check, nor can the king move through a square that is attacked by an opponent's piece.

Castling

Kingside castling (O-O)

Queenside castling (O-O-O)

Ending the game

The game can end in several ways:

Checkmate

If a player's king is under attack and cannot get out of being captured by the next turn, the game ends and their opponent wins.

Stalemate

When a player has no legal moves available but their king is not in check, the game ends in a draw.

Resignation

A player may resign at any point during the game, conceding the victory to their opponent.

There are a few other ways a game can end in a draw, such as:

• If neither player has enough pieces left to checkmate the other.

• If the same position occurs three times, or

• If 50 moves are played without a capture or pawn move.

So now you understand how to play the traditional version of chess, you should hopefully have a better understanding of the following variants; of the following ways to play as well as all the new, unorthodox chess pieces - more widely known as “fairy pieces,” - that I'll be introducing you to in this website.

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