Chess Rules: How to Play Chess
Every rule you need for a legal game of chess, on one page: how to set up the board, how each piece moves and captures, the three special moves, and how a game is won, lost or drawn. Each rule has a diagram, and most have a live board where you can try the move for yourself.
The Board and How to Set It Up
Chess is played on a board of 64 squares, eight by eight, coloured alternately light and dark. Set it so that each player has a light square in the right-hand corner. The rows are called ranks and are numbered 1 to 8 starting from White's side; the columns are files, lettered a to h from White's left. Every square has a name made of its file and rank, so White's king starts on e1 and Black's on e8.
Each player begins with sixteen pieces. On the back rank, from each corner inwards: rook, knight, bishop, then the queen and king in the middle. The queen goes on her own colour, the white queen on the light square d1 and the black queen on the dark square d8, and the king takes the remaining square beside her. The eight pawns fill the rank in front.
White always moves first. After that the players alternate, one move each. You may never pass: if it is your turn, you must move.
The Pieces and What They Are Worth
Six kinds of piece, each with its own way of moving. The point values are the usual guide to how much each is worth when pieces are exchanged.
| Piece | Each side has | Value | How it moves |
|---|---|---|---|
| King |
1 | The game | One square in any direction. If it is checkmated, you lose. |
| Queen |
1 | 9 points | Any distance along a rank, file or diagonal. |
| Rook |
2 | 5 points | Any distance along a rank or file. |
| Bishop |
2 | 3 points | Any distance along a diagonal, always staying on one colour. |
| Knight |
2 | 3 points | An L-shape: two squares one way, then one square at right angles. Jumps over pieces. |
| Pawn |
8 | 1 point | One square forward (two on its first move); captures one square diagonally forward. |
The values are a guide for judging trades, not part of the rules. Giving up a knight to win a rook is normally a good exchange; giving up a bishop for two pawns is normally a bad one. The king has no value because it can never be captured.
How Each Piece Moves and Captures
A few rules apply to every piece. A piece moves to an empty square, or captures by moving onto a square occupied by an enemy piece, which is then removed from the board. You cannot capture your own pieces, and no piece except the knight can jump over another. Only one piece moves per turn, with castling (below) the single exception. And you may never make a move that leaves your own king in check.
Every board in this section is live. Click a white piece to see where it can go, dots for moves and rings for captures, then click a square to move there. Black's pieces stay still, so you can concentrate on the piece in hand.
The King
The king moves one square in any direction: forwards, backwards, sideways or diagonally, and it captures the same way. It is the most important piece, because the whole game is about it, but also one of the weakest.
Two things it may never do: move onto a square that is attacked by an enemy piece, since that would be moving into check, and stand next to the other king, since each would then be attacking the other. On this board the black pawns guard c3, c4, e4 and e5, so the king cannot step onto those squares even though they are empty.
The Queen
The queen moves any number of squares in a straight line, along a rank, a file or a diagonal, as long as nothing is in the way. She combines the powers of the rook and the bishop, which makes her by far the most powerful piece.
She cannot jump. The first piece in her path stops her: if it is an enemy piece she may capture it and take its square, if it is one of her own she must stop short. Because she is so valuable, bringing the queen out early where she can be chased around by cheaper pieces is a classic beginner's mistake.
The Rook
The rook moves any number of squares along a rank or a file, in straight lines only, and captures the first enemy piece in its path. It cannot jump over anything.
Rooks start in the corners and usually come into the game last, once the pawns have moved and opened files for them. Two rooks on the same rank or file that protect each other are said to be connected. The rook also has a part in castling, the special move explained below.
The Bishop
The bishop moves any number of squares diagonally and cannot jump. Because a diagonal never changes colour, a bishop stays on the colour of square it started on for the whole game: each side has one light-squared bishop and one dark-squared bishop.
A single bishop can only ever touch half the board, which is why the two together, the bishop pair, are worth a little more than the sum of their parts.
The Knight
The knight moves in an L-shape: two squares along a rank or file, then one square at right angles (or one square, then two). From the middle of the board it has eight possible squares. It captures only on the square it lands on.
It is the only piece that can jump: nothing standing between the knight and its landing square makes any difference. Every knight move lands on the opposite colour to the square it left, so a knight on a light square is always about to move to a dark one.
The Pawn
The pawn moves straight forward one square, and on its very first move it may go one or two squares. It captures diagonally, one square forward to the left or right, and that is the only time it leaves its file.
The pawn is the only piece that moves one way and captures another, and the only one that can never move backwards. It cannot capture straight ahead, so a pawn with a piece directly in front of it is stuck until that piece moves. It has two special moves of its own, en passant and promotion, covered in the next section.
Capture Practice
Putting it together: here White has one of every piece, and Black has left four pieces where they can be taken. Capturing in chess is always the same action, whatever the piece. Move onto the square of an enemy piece and it comes off the board.
Every black piece here can be captured at once by the right white piece, so the whole job can be done in four moves. Work out which piece takes which, then do it. If you get stuck, Show me points out a capture.
Special Moves: Castling, En Passant and Promotion
Castling
Castling is the only move in chess where two pieces move at once, and the only time the king moves more than one square. The king moves two squares towards a rook, and that rook jumps over the king to land on the square the king just crossed. It tucks the king away in the corner and brings a rook into play, and nearly every game features it.
You may castle only when all four of these are true:
- Neither the king nor that rook has moved earlier in the game, not even if it moved and came back.
- There are no pieces between the king and the rook.
- The king is not in check.
- The king does not pass through, or land on, a square attacked by an enemy piece.
Note what the last rule does not say. The rook may be attacked, and on the queenside it may pass over b1 even if b1 is attacked: only the king's own squares matter. And having been in check earlier in the game does not stop you castling later, as long as you got out of it without moving the king.
In this diagram the black bishop on a6 attacks f1. The white king would have to cross f1 to castle kingside, so that is illegal here; castling queenside is still allowed.
En Passant
En passant, French for "in passing", is a special pawn capture and the rule new players most often miss. When a pawn uses its two-square first move and lands directly beside an enemy pawn, that enemy pawn may capture it as though it had moved only one square, landing on the square the pawn skipped over. The chance lasts for one move only: if you do not capture en passant straight away, the right is gone.
Pawn Promotion
A pawn that reaches the far end of the board, the eighth rank for White or the first for Black, must immediately be replaced by a queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour. It cannot stay a pawn and it cannot become a king. The swap is part of the same move, and the new piece is ready to act at once.
Almost everyone promotes to a queen, the strongest piece, and you may do so even if your original queen is still on the board: two or more queens is perfectly legal. Now and then a knight is the better choice, because it can give a check the queen could not. Choosing anything other than a queen is called underpromotion.
Check, Checkmate and Stalemate
Check
A king is in check when an enemy piece attacks the square it stands on. You must deal with a check at once, because no move that leaves your king in check is allowed, and there are only three ways to do it:
- Move the king to a square that is not attacked.
- Block the check by putting a piece between the attacker and your king. This is impossible against a knight, or against a piece standing right next to the king.
- Capture the piece that is giving check.
Saying "check" out loud is a courtesy, not a rule. In the diagram the rook on e8 checks White's king down the e-file, and all three answers are available.
Checkmate
Checkmate is check with no escape: the king is attacked and no move can get it out of attack. The game ends immediately and the player giving checkmate wins. The king is never actually captured or taken off the board.
The diagram shows the best-known quick mate, Scholar's mate: 1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nc6 3. Qh5 Nf6 4. Qxf7#. The queen on f7 attacks the black king. The king cannot capture her, because the bishop on c4 protects f7; it has no free square to run to; and no black piece can take the queen. A check from an adjacent square cannot be blocked, so there is nothing left to try.
Stalemate
Stalemate is the position where the player to move is not in check but has no legal move at all. It is not a win for anybody: the game is a draw. Here the black king on h8 is not attacked, but g8 and g7 are covered by the queen and h7 by the white king, so Black cannot move and the game is drawn.
Stalemate is the classic way to throw away a won game. When you are far ahead, check that your opponent still has a move before you play, and prefer a check, or a move that leaves the king one free square.
How a Chess Game Ends
Winning
- Checkmate. The only way to win on the board.
- Resignation. A player may give up at any time, by saying so or, online, by pressing Resign. Laying the king on its side is the traditional gesture.
- Time. In games played with a clock, a player whose time runs out loses, unless the opponent has too little material ever to give checkmate, in which case it is a draw.
Draws
- Stalemate. The player to move has no legal move and is not in check.
- Agreement. One player offers a draw and the other accepts.
- Threefold repetition. The same position, with the same player to move and the same moves available, occurs three times; either player may claim the draw. After five repetitions it is automatic.
- The fifty-move rule. Fifty consecutive moves by each side with no capture and no pawn move; either player may claim. At seventy-five it is automatic.
- Insufficient material. Neither side can possibly give checkmate: king against king, king and bishop or king and knight against a lone king, or king and bishop against king and bishop with both bishops on the same colour.
Chess Notation in One Minute
Moves are written in algebraic notation, which you will meet everywhere from books to the move list beside every board on this site. Each move names the piece and the square it goes to:
- K king, Q queen, R rook, B bishop, N knight. Pawn moves have no letter: e4 means a pawn moves to e4.
- x marks a capture: Bxf7. For a pawn, its file comes first: exd5.
- + means check and # means checkmate: Qxf7#.
- O-O is kingside castling and O-O-O queenside.
- =Q shows a promotion: b8=Q. An en passant capture is sometimes marked e.p.
- When two identical pieces could reach the same square, the file or rank of the one that moves is added: Nbd2, R1e2.
A game is written as numbered pairs of moves, White then Black: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 is the start of the Ruy Lopez. A whole game written this way is a PGN file, which is what Analyze Game reads, and the lines in Practice Openings are drilled move by move in the same notation.
Play a Full Game
Two players, one screen, every rule enforced. The board only allows legal moves, and it announces check, checkmate, stalemate and the draw rules as they happen. Take both sides yourself to see how a game unfolds, or share the screen with a friend.
Ready for a real opponent?
Chess Rules – Common Questions
Who moves first in chess?
White always moves first, and after that the players take turns, one move each. You are never allowed to skip a move: if it is your turn you must move.
Can the king capture pieces?
Yes. The king captures the way it moves, one square in any direction, but only a piece that is not protected: the king can never move onto a square that an enemy piece attacks.
Can a pawn move backwards or capture straight ahead?
No. A pawn only ever moves forward, and it captures one square diagonally forward. It cannot capture the piece directly in front of it, and a pawn blocked that way cannot move at all.
Can you castle out of check or through check?
No. You cannot castle while your king is in check, and the king may not pass through or land on a square that is attacked. The rook, however, may be attacked or pass over an attacked square, and having been in check earlier in the game does not stop you castling later, as long as the king and the rook have never moved.
What happens when a pawn reaches the other side of the board?
It must immediately be promoted to a queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour, as part of the same move. Almost everyone chooses a queen, and you may have several queens at once.
Is stalemate a win?
No. Stalemate, where the player to move has no legal move but is not in check, is a draw. A player who is far ahead has to take care not to stalemate the opponent by accident.
Is the king ever captured?
No. The game ends the moment a king is checkmated, so the king is never taken off the board. A move that would leave your own king in check is simply illegal.
How many points is each chess piece worth?
As a guide, the queen is worth 9 points, a rook 5, a bishop 3, a knight 3 and a pawn 1. The values help you judge exchanges; they are not part of the rules, and the king has no value because it can never be captured.
What does touch-move mean?
In over-the-board play, touching one of your own pieces obliges you to move it if it has a legal move, and touching an opponent's piece obliges you to capture it if you can. Say "I adjust" (j'adoube) before straightening a piece. Online, only the move you complete counts.