How to play chess

Starting position

Chess has a vocabulary of its own, and picking it up early makes everything else easier to read — our glossary of chess terms is the quickest way in.

1. The board and starting position

Chess is played on an 8×8 board with alternating light and dark squares — 64 squares total. The first thing to get right: orient the board so that each player has a light square in the bottom-right corner. The phrase "white on right" (or "light on right") is what chess teachers use to remember this.

Each player starts with 16 pieces:

• 1 king
• 1 queen
• 2 rooks
• 2 bishops
• 2 knights
• 8 pawns

Setup, from White's perspective:

• The back rank (row closest to you) goes: rook, knight, bishop, queen, king, bishop, knight, rook.
• Pawns line up on the second rank in front.
• A simple memory trick: the queen always starts on her own color. White queen on a light square, Black queen on a dark square. If your queen is on the wrong color, the board is set up backwards.

2. Who moves first and how a turn works

White always moves first. Then Black moves. Then White. And so on, one move per turn, alternating, until the game ends.

On your turn, you must move exactly one piece (with one exception — castling, which counts as a single move but uses two pieces). You can't pass your turn in chess. If you have no legal move, the game ends — either as stalemate (draw) or checkmate (loss), depending on whether your king is in check.

3. How the pieces move

Each piece moves in its own specific pattern. Here's a complete reference — bookmark this section, you'll come back to it.

For a deeper dive on each piece, see our chess pieces guide.

4. Capturing

To capture an enemy piece, move one of your pieces onto its square. The captured piece is removed from the board permanently. You can't capture your own pieces, and you can never end a turn with two pieces on the same square.

Two important notes:

• Pawns capture differently than they move. Pawns move straight forward but capture diagonally one square forward. This is the single most-forgotten rule for new players.
• Captures are optional. Just because you can capture something doesn't mean you have to. (This is different from checkers.)

5. Check and checkmate

Check is when your king is under attack. If you're in check, your next move must get you out of check. There are three ways:

1. Move the king to a safe square
2. Block the check by putting a piece in the way (only works against rooks, bishops, and queens)
3. Capture the piece giving check

You're not allowed to make any move that leaves your own king in check. If your king is in check and none of the three escape methods work — that's checkmate, and the game is over. The player whose king is checkmated loses.

One more rule: you can never move your king onto a square attacked by an enemy piece. Even if the enemy piece is "pinned" and seemingly can't actually capture you, the king cannot voluntarily walk into attack.

6. The three special moves

Chess has three rules that look like exceptions but are core parts of the game.

Castling

In one move, the king moves two squares toward a rook, and that rook jumps over the king to land on the square the king skipped. There are two versions: kingside (short castle) and queenside (long castle). Castling is the only time the king moves two squares, and the only time two of your pieces move on the same turn.

You can castle only if all of these are true:

• Neither the king nor that rook has moved before
• There are no pieces between the king and the rook
• The king is not currently in check
• The king doesn't pass through or land on a square attacked by an enemy piece

Castling is one of the most important things to learn early. It gets your king to safety and connects your rooks — two strategic wins in one move.

En passant

French for "in passing." If your opponent pushes a pawn two squares from its starting position and lands next to one of your pawns, you can capture it on your very next move as if it had only moved one square. You have exactly one move to do this — wait a turn and the opportunity is gone forever.

This rule exists to prevent pawns from sneaking past attackers by using the two-square initial move.

Pawn promotion

When a pawn reaches the opposite end of the board (the 8th rank for White, the 1st rank for Black), it must be promoted to another piece — queen, rook, bishop, or knight. You choose. Almost everyone promotes to a queen, but occasionally a knight promotion ("under-promotion") is the right choice when a queen would cause stalemate or a knight delivers a winning check.

7. How the game ends

A chess game ends in one of these ways:

• Checkmate — one player wins because the other's king is in check with no escape.
• Resignation — a player concedes when they see the position is hopeless. Common in serious chess; rare in casual play.
• Stalemate (draw) — the player to move has no legal moves but is not in check. Counterintuitive but real: if you trap your opponent without checking them, it's a draw, not a win.
• Threefold repetition (draw) — the exact same position occurs three times, with the same player to move.
• Fifty-move rule (draw) — fifty consecutive moves by each side with no pawn move and no capture.
• Insufficient material (draw) — neither side has enough pieces to ever deliver checkmate (e.g., king vs king, or king and bishop vs king).
• Agreement (draw) — both players agree the position is a draw.

8. How much each piece is worth

Material value is a guideline, not a rule — but it's the foundation of every chess decision. Standard piece values:

Piece	Symbol	Value
Pawn	♟	1
Knight	♞	3
Bishop	♝	3 (slightly more in open positions)
Rook	♜	5
Queen	♛	9
King	♚	Infinite (can't be captured)

Translation: a queen is worth roughly the same as a rook plus a knight plus a pawn. Trading a bishop for a rook is great. Trading a queen for a bishop is a disaster. Trading a knight for a bishop is usually neutral.

9. The three phases of a chess game

Opening (moves 1–10ish)

The goal is to get your pieces off the back rank and into the game ("developing" them), control the center (the four squares d4, d5, e4, e5), and castle your king to safety. Don't bring your queen out too early — she gets chased around and you lose time.

Middlegame (moves 10–30ish)

The position gets complicated. You're looking for tactics (forks, pins, skewers, discoveries) and strategic ideas (attacking the king, improving piece position, creating weaknesses in the enemy camp). Most games are decided here.

Endgame (when most pieces are off the board)

With few pieces left, kings become active, pawns try to promote, and the smallest detail (one tempo, one weak square) decides everything. Endgames are the most studied phase in serious chess because they're where pure technique wins games.

10. Five rules of thumb for your first 100 games

1. Control the center. Pieces in the center attack more squares. The opening move 1.e4 or 1.d4 stakes a claim in the center.
2. Develop your knights and bishops before move 10. If your knights and bishops are still on the back rank by move 10, you're probably losing.
3. Castle by move 10. Your king is unsafe in the middle of the board. Castle, then think about everything else.
4. Don't move the same piece twice in the opening. Every move should develop a new piece, until they're all in the game.
5. Before any move, look at every check, capture, and threat — yours and your opponent's. Most blunders come from missing a one-move threat.

11. Where to go from here

You now know enough to play a complete game. Open the board, set difficulty to Beginner, and play. You'll lose your first few games — everyone does. The point is to start.

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