How to Play Chess

Chess is a historical game and the leader of board games. Many consider playing chess as a symbol of higher intellectual and thinking ability of a person. This game although requires much thinking and mental effort to win but it only requires understanding of basic rules to play it.

Here is an EASY GUIDE on How to Play Chess:

1. Exactly 2 people can play against each other over a board.
2. A chess board has 64 squares in total i.e 8 rows called as ranks and 8 columns called as files.
3. The game starts with 16 pieces on each side which are:

• 1 king
• 1 Queen
• 2 bishops
• 2 Knights
• 2 Rooks
• 8 pawns

4. The initial position of chess pieces on each side is:

5. White has the first move and can move any piece. Each piece has its unique move and this defines its strength.

• Pawns always move one square forward but capture opponent's piece on one square diagonal. Don't forget that on its first move, a pawn has the choice to move two squares forward.

• The Knight moves two squares forward/backwards/sideways and then turns one square right or left (in L shape). It captures the piece where it lands. Note that Knight is the only piece that can move past a piece.

• The Bishop moves diagonally forwards/backwards and captures the piece where it lands.

    

• The Rook moves forwards/sideways and captures the piece where it lands.

• The Queen is considered the strongest piece as it can move like both bishops and rooks i.e diagonally, forwards/backwards and sideways. It captures the piece where it lands.

• The King is the most important piece in Chess because the side whose King gets trapped, loses. The King can also move in any direction like a Queen, but only one square at a time. It can also capture opponent's pieces like every other fellow piece.

Now though you know how and where all the chess pieces can move, you must know that the whole game is based upon protecting The King. And one can only win by trapping opponent's King. To trap opponent's king is called as "Checkmate"

Checkmate: It's a position when The King is in check i.e threatened with capture and there's no way to remove the threat. Have a look at this position:

Black Queen just moved from g2 to g8 square and threatened White's King to capture. Now the Black King does not have any way to remove this threat and will inevitably be captured in next move.