Chess Rules!

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An Ancient Game Chess was invented somewhere in India or the Middle East 1500-

2000 years ago. It was already an old, OLD game during the times of the castles, kings, and knights in Europe. A thousand years ago,

Arabians brought a version of chess to Europe. The rules were different then, and it took several days to play a single game! It took

another 500 years for the game to slowly change into the version we play now. In the past 500 years, the rules have hardly changed at

all.

A Great Game

There's a reason why it has survived so long—it's a great game! Chess has way more strategy than most games. A well-played game

is a work of art. To play the game well requires planning, creativity, thinking ahead, logic, calculation, and patience. Playing chess is a

fun way to exercise your brain muscles.

The Chessboard

A game of chess is a battle of minds fought on a battlefield with

an 8 8 array of light and dark squares. Each square has a name

that tells you where it is on the board. For example, the square b3 is on the b-file and the third rank.

Can you locate the e5 and f2 squares?

Most of the time when you play

games of chess, you won't be thinking about the names of the

squares, but you will need to know them if you want to talk about and learn about chess.

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b3

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The Pieces

Each player commands an army of 16 chess pieces.

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Vertical columns of squares are

called files. For example, the line of squares c1 through c8 is

called the c-file.

Horizontal rows of squares are

called ranks.

1 King (K):

1 Queen (Q):

2 Rooks (R):

2 Bishops (B):

2 Knights (N):

8 Pawns:

Pieces

Heavy

Pieces

Minor

Pieces

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It's a little bit crazy, but even though the king and pawns are chess pieces, a lot of times they are not called pieces. When chess players

talk about pieces, they usually mean queens, rooks, bishops, and

knights, and not the king or pawns. Queens and rooks are heavy pieces while the bishops and knights are minor pieces. The king is

the king and pawns are pawns.

The Pieces and the Board At the beginning of the game,

the pieces are set up like in the picture: king and queen in the middle, rooks in the corners,

and knights next to rooks. When setting up the board, remember

that the "queen goes on her color" and that the square in

your right-hand corner should be white ("white on the right").

Parts of the Board The queenside is the half of the

board that the queens are on at the beginning of the game. The

kingside is the half of the board that the kings are on at the

beginning of the game. The center of the board is the

four squares in the middle of the board—d4, d5, e4, and e5.

Sometimes the squares next to the center are included in

discussion of the "center."

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The

center

Queenside Kingside

White's 7th rank/Black's 2nd rank

White's back rank

Black's back rank

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The Game The two players take turns moving pieces. White goes first. Each

player moves one piece per turn. You can never skip a turn—even you want to! On your turn, you may move a piece to a better spot or

you may capture one of your opponent's pieces by crashing into it, removing it from the board, and taking its place on that square.

Once a piece is captured, it is out for the rest of the game. The object of the game is to keep capturing pieces until one of the kings

is captured by force (checkmate). At that point, the game is over.

The pieces all move in different ways, and each of them has its own strengths and weaknesses.

A. Pawns Pawns are the weakest of the chess pieces but

have the trickiest rules for moving.

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On its first move, a pawn can

move either one or two squares

forward. After that it can only move forward one square at a

time and never backwards.

A pawn can capture pieces only

diagonally forward one square—

never straight forward, sideways, or backwards. In the picture,

White's e-pawn cannot move

straight forward because it is blocked by Black's e-pawn, but it

can capture the black f-pawn.

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Special Pawn Moves 1. Promotion

You can turn the weakest piece into the most powerful piece! When a pawn makes it all the way across the board to its 8th rank, it gets

promoted to the piece of your choice: queen, knight, rook, or bishop. The new piece immediately replaces the pawn on the

promotion square. Pawn promotions usually only occur late in the game.

2. En passant Take a deep breath and relax before reading about this silly-

sounding move. It isn't nearly as hard as it seems...If a pawn moves forward two squares on its first move when it could have been

captured by a pawn if it had moved only one square instead, then the pawn may still be captured en passant. The capturing pawn

moves diagonal one square forward to the square where the other pawn would have been if it had only moved one square, and the captured pawn is removed from the board. If the en passant capture

is to be made, it must be made immediately after the running pawn

moves its two squares. Ugh! What a mouthful! A picture helps.

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The black pawn moves two spaces

on the first move and tries to avoid

capture by running past the white pawn.

White pawn sticks out its foot and

trips the black pawn as it tries to run

past. The black pawn is captured.

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Where did this strange move come from? Over 500 years ago, the rules changed to allow pawns to move two squares forward on their

first move. Some people didn't like this: "Doggonit! They'll be able to run past my pawns on the fifth rank and escape! It's not fair!" The

en passant capture was invented so that pawns could still move forward two spaces on their first move, but they couldn't do it just

because they were scared of being captured if they only moved one square.

B. Rooks Rooks can move as far as they like in a straight line

along a rank or file—forward, backward, left, right—but they can't

jump over other pieces. They capture by crashing into an opposing piece,

removing it from the board, and stopping on the square where the

captured piece was.

The rook in the picture can move to any one of the squares with a star.

C. Bishops Bishops can move as far as they like diagonally—

forward, backward, left, right—but they cannot jump over other pieces.

Like all chess pieces, they capture by crashing into an opposing piece,

removing it from the board, and stopping on the square where the

captured piece was.

The black bishop in the picture can move to any of the starred squares.

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A bishop cannot move to a different colored square. A bishop that starts on a light square stays on light squares the whole game and

is called a "light-squared bishop". And dark-squared bishops always stay on dark squares.

D. Queen At the start of a game, each player has one

queen. The queen is like a rook and bishop combined. It can move as far

as you'd like it to in any direction along a rank, file, or diagonal but

can't jump over other pieces. Like other pieces, it captures by crashing

into another piece and taking its place on the board.

E. Knights Knights move in a small "L" shape. Like the other

pieces, they capture by landing on top of another piece. Unlike other pieces, these horses can jump right over other pieces!

The knight in the picture can move to

any of the starred squares.

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F. King The king can move one square in any

direction—forward, backward, left, right, or diagonally. Like other pieces,

the king captures by landing on top of an opposing piece and removing it from

the board.

In the picture the black king can move to any of the starred squares.

Special Rules for King

When a piece attacks the king, we say the king is in check. When the king is in check, the defending side must move so that the king

is no longer in check. It's the rule! Also, it is against the rules for a king to move into check. If your opponent accidentally moves into

check, say, "That's check." Then let him or her move somewhere else. Not only is that good sportsmanship, it's the rule.

There are three ways to get out of check: 1. Move the king to a safe square;

2. Capture the checking piece; or 3. Block the check with another piece.

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Black to move. The king is in check from the queen. The king can move

safely to f7, g6, h7, or h6. Other

moves are illegal! Q: What's wrong with moving to f8 or g8? A: It would be in check from the rook, so it's

illegal for it to move there.

Black to move. The king is in check and has no safe squares to

move to, BUT Black can move out

of check by capturing White's queen with the knight or blocking

the check with the bishop.

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Black to move. Black can get out

of check by capturing the white

queen with the king.

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Black to move. Now if Black captures

the queen, he moves into check from the bishop. Black can't get out of

check here. That's called checkmate,

and Black loses.

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Checkmate When the king is in check and there

is no way to get out, it is called checkmate. The game is over

because the king would be captured by force on the next move.

In the picture, the white king is in

check from the queen and has no safe squares to move to. Checkmate.

Black wins.

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Black to move. The black king is in check from the knight on d5.

Question: How can Black get out

of check?

Answer: No way to get out of

check. Checkmate! White wins.

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Stalemate When the king is not in check but there are no legal moves for it or

any other pieces to make, it is called stalemate. The game is over, but it is a draw—neither side wins.

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White to move. The white king is not

in check, and there are no legal moves for White to make. Stalemate.

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White to move. The white king cannot move, but White does have a

legal move: pawn to b8! Not stalemate.

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G. Castling Castling is a special chess move where you can move two pieces in

the same turn.

Castling: The General Idea When the king and rook haven't

moved yet and there are no pieces between them, slide the king two spaces toward the rook and then jump the rook over the king and

land right next to him—just like in the pictures. That's castling. You can also castle on the queenside, like in the pictures below:

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Castling: Special Details 1. You cannot castle if either the rook or king has moved.

2. You cannot castle into check, out of check, or through check.

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The bishop guards the square where

the king would land after castling. No

castling into check!

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White is in check from the black

queen. No castling out of check!

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The white king would have to go

through the f1 square to castle,

but that square is guarded by the black bishop. No castling

through check!

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Miscellaneous Rules

Draws Sometimes it is too difficult (or maybe even impossible) for either

side to find a way to checkmate their opponent. When this happens, the game ends in a draw, which is the chess way of saying, "Tie

game!" Officially, there are several ways for a game to end in a draw.

1. Insufficient material — Insufficient means "not enough" and material means "pieces." So a draw by insufficient material means

that neither side has enough pieces left to force a checkmate. For example, it's impossible to force a checkmate with just two kings on

the board. If you get down to two kings, it's a draw. To force a checkmate, you need at least a queen, rook, two minor pieces, or a

pawn. If neither side has a rook or queen or two minor pieces or any pawns, the game ends in a draw by insufficient material. If one side

has nothing left except a king but the other side has a king and pawn, it is not necessarily a draw because the pawn may still be

able to promote into a queen or rook.

2. Perpetual check — Perpetual means "goes on forever." If one side can keep putting the opposing king in check forever without

checkmating, the game is drawn by perpetual check. In one game in the 2006 world championship match between Vladimir

Kramnik and Veselin Topalov, White

(Topalov) was behind by a rook, but he found a way out. He moves his queen to

g6 to put Black in check. Black then

has to move his king to h8. Then: white queen to h6, check; Black king to g8;

white queen to g6, check; Black king to

h8; white queen to h6, check; Black

king to g8. Back and forth—check, check, check, check... Draw by

perpetual check.

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3. Stalemate

Your king is not in check right now, but any move you make will put you in check. Your opponent didn't leave you a single legal move, but you are not

checkmated. This is a draw by stalemate.

4. Threefold repetition

If the exact same position comes up three times in a game, it is a draw by

threefold repetition. You can't just move your own pieces back and forth three

times to get a threefold repetition because your opponent's pieces also have to repeat their position three times. In novice games, threefold repetition almost

never happens except in the endgame when there are hardly any pieces left on

the board and one side is having trouble figuring out how to get around the enemy king to promote a pawn.

5. Fifty moves without a capture or a pawn advancing If both players make fifty moves in a row without anyone moving a pawn or

capturing something, it is a draw. You have to start the counting over any time

any pawn moves forward or anything is captured by either player. This is a convenient rule to remember when you are left with just your king, but your

opponent still has a rook or queen but isn't sure how to checkmate you. He or

she will chase your king all over the board, but if there is no checkmate within

fifty moves, it is a draw!

6. Mutual agreement

If both players agree to stop playing and call it a draw, it's a draw. Don't ever offer a draw if you are losing — it's bad sportsmanship.

If you want to offer a draw, first make your move and then say, "Draw?" or "I offer a draw." Your opponent will either accept your offer, reject it, or simply

make a move (which really means, "I reject your offer.")

A draw by mutual agreement is totally different from one player quitting

because he feels like he's losing. It's o.k. if you get frustrated and quit a game,

but then it's a loss and not a draw. If you are losing and don't want to keep

playing, tip your king over gently, shake your opponent's hand, and say, "Good game. I resign." [Resign is the official chess word for "surrender."]