| 1 | p.boxed |
| 2 | | Orthodox rules with shuffled starting position. |
| 3 | |
| 4 | p. |
| 5 | Chess is played between two players, one moving the white pieces and the |
| 6 | other the black pieces. A "move" consists of a piece's movement on the board. |
| 7 | White and black moves alternate until a specific situation occurs (checkmate, |
| 8 | stalemate, or draw criteria met; this is detailed later). |
| 9 | White pieces' player always make the first move. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | p. |
| 12 | Each piece has a particular way to move, but almost always captures by moving |
| 13 | to an occupied square (with only one exception, detailed later). |
| 14 | |
| 15 | figure.diagram-container |
| 16 | .diagram |
| 17 | | fen:rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR: |
| 18 | figcaption Standard initial position. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | p. |
| 21 | Board coordinates: squares are identified by a couple (letter, number). |
| 22 | The letter starts from 'a' and indicates the column, while the number starts |
| 23 | at 1 and indicates the row. |
| 24 | Since the chessboard is 64 squares, 8x8, this results in a coordinates system |
| 25 | from a1 to h8. 'a1' is the bottom left corner square from the white pieces |
| 26 | player perspective, while 'h8' is in the upper right corner. |
| 27 | |
| 28 | h3 Regular moves |
| 29 | |
| 30 | h4 Pawns |
| 31 | |
| 32 | p. |
| 33 | They are the weakest units on board, but the most complex to move. |
| 34 | From their initial rank they can either jump two squares forward |
| 35 | (vertically), or advance only one square in this same direction. After that |
| 36 | first move they only advance one square at a time, vertically, moving up. |
| 37 | |
| 38 | p. |
| 39 | Pawns capture by moving forward (upper on the board) one square diagonally, |
| 40 | when an enemy piece sits on that square. |
| 41 | |
| 42 | p. |
| 43 | When reaching the last rank, pawns must promote into any (friendly) |
| 44 | other non-royal piece: queen, rook, knight or bishop. |
| 45 | |
| 46 | p. |
| 47 | Moves notations: "pawn" is implicit, so for a simple move we only write the |
| 48 | destination square (because only one pawn at most can move forward to a |
| 49 | specific square). Thus, 1.e5 means "pawn from e4 to e5". However, in case of |
| 50 | captures the situation could be ambiguous (two pawns on the same rank), so |
| 51 | the column is specified too: "fxe6" (for example). |
| 52 | As you can see capture is marked by a cross symbol: "x". |
| 53 | |
| 54 | figure.diagram-container |
| 55 | .diagram |
| 56 | | fen:k7/8/8/1prp4/1P1P4/8/6P1/7K g3,g4,c5: |
| 57 | figcaption Possible pawn moves: g3, g4, dxc5, bxc5 |
| 58 | |
| 59 | p |
| 60 | | For a piece movement, we just prepend the upper-case piece initial before |
| 61 | | the previously described notation. A rook taking something on f3 square |
| 62 | | writes: Rxf3. There are rules for ambiguous situation, but discussing them |
| 63 | | now would be too far off-topic. Please visit for example the |
| 64 | a(href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_(chess)") |
| 65 | | Wikipedia page |
| 66 | | for full information on this subject. |
| 67 | |
| 68 | h4 Rooks |
| 69 | |
| 70 | p. |
| 71 | They move either horizontally or vertically, as far as they want while the |
| 72 | path is free of pieces. If this path ends with an enemy piece, it can a |
| 73 | priori be captured (a priori because if the move ends up with the king in |
| 74 | check, then it's illegal). |
| 75 | |
| 76 | h4 Knights |
| 77 | |
| 78 | p. |
| 79 | They are the only units able to jump over other pieces (without capturing |
| 80 | them). They do "L" moves: two squares in one direction (horizontally or |
| 81 | vertically), and then one square in an orthogonal direction. |
| 82 | |
| 83 | figure.diagram-container |
| 84 | .diagram |
| 85 | | fen:k7/2p5/5q2/2b5/4N3/2R3r1/3P4/7K f6,d6,c5,f2,g3,g5: |
| 86 | figcaption Possible knight moves from e4. |
| 87 | |
| 88 | h4 Bishops |
| 89 | |
| 90 | p. |
| 91 | They move diagonally, as far as they want while the path is free of pieces. |
| 92 | If this path ends with an enemy piece, it can a priori be captured. |
| 93 | |
| 94 | h4 Queen |
| 95 | |
| 96 | p. |
| 97 | This piece combines the movement of a rook and a bishop, with the same |
| 98 | conditions. |
| 99 | |
| 100 | h4 King |
| 101 | |
| 102 | p. |
| 103 | This piece moves like a queen, but only by one square at a time. The final |
| 104 | square must be either vacant or occupied by an enemy piece (therefore |
| 105 | captured). |
| 106 | |
| 107 | p. |
| 108 | The king cannot be captured, but a move may ends up attacking enemy's king. |
| 109 | It is said to be "under check" (or "in check") and the opponent must either: |
| 110 | ul |
| 111 | li move the king to a safe square, or |
| 112 | li capture the attacker, or |
| 113 | li intercept the attacking line. |
| 114 | p. |
| 115 | Depending on the situation one or more of these counter-measures could be |
| 116 | impossible. |
| 117 | |
| 118 | p Leaving our king in check after a move is forbidden. |
| 119 | |
| 120 | figure.diagram-container |
| 121 | .diagram |
| 122 | | fen:r6k/4q3/8/8/8/B7/8/K7: |
| 123 | figcaption Bxe7 is illegal (it allows Rxa1). |
| 124 | |
| 125 | h3 Special moves |
| 126 | |
| 127 | p. |
| 128 | Apart from pawn promotion which has already been introduced, two special |
| 129 | moves exist: |
| 130 | ul |
| 131 | li. |
| 132 | castle: if both the king and the right-most (from white player perspective) |
| 133 | rook haven't moved yet, and if nothing stand in the path from king to rook, |
| 134 | and if the squares f1 and g1 are either free or occupied by the king or |
| 135 | rook implied, then the king can go to g1 while the rook moves to f1. Note |
| 136 | that since positions are shuffled one of these two pieces may apparently |
| 137 | not move. The same can be done on the other side (left-most rook), and end |
| 138 | squares are c1 for king and d1 for rook. The former is small castle, and |
| 139 | the latter large castle. |
| 140 | Notation: small castle writes "0-0" while large castle is "0-0-0". |
| 141 | li. |
| 142 | en-passant: after a pawn has jumped two squares, if an enemy pawn stands |
| 143 | just next to it then it can capture the jumping pawn "en passant", exactly |
| 144 | as if it had advanced only one square. The move is noted as usual, but |
| 145 | with "e.p." in the end to indicate the special move. The capture is |
| 146 | possible only right after the pawn jump: not later in the game. |
| 147 | |
| 148 | figure.diagram-container |
| 149 | .diagram.diag12 |
| 150 | | fen:nr1kb1r1/ppp3pp/8/2Pp4/8/7P/PP3PP1/1R3KBR: |
| 151 | .diagram.diag22 |
| 152 | | fen:nr1kb1r1/ppp3pp/3P4/8/8/7P/PP3PP1/2KR2BR: |
| 153 | figcaption. |
| 154 | Left: black just played d5 (jump from d7). |
| 155 | Right: after cxd6 e.p. and 0-0-0. |
| 156 | |
| 157 | h3 End of the game |
| 158 | |
| 159 | p. |
| 160 | The best-known way to end a game is by "checkmating" the enemy king. |
| 161 | This means that you end a move in a situation where the king can be captured, |
| 162 | and your opponent has no way to avoid the capture. |
| 163 | The checkmating player has one point and the other zero, so the score writes |
| 164 | 1-0 or 0-1 depending if white pieces or black pieces mated. |
| 165 | |
| 166 | figure.diagram-container |
| 167 | .diagram |
| 168 | | fen:rnbqkbnr/ppp2Qpp/2np4/4p3/2B1P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNB1K1NR: |
| 169 | figcaption Famous mating pattern: 1-0 |
| 170 | |
| 171 | p All other ways to end the game lead to a draw (1/2-1/2); nobody wins: |
| 172 | ul |
| 173 | li when a player has no legal move but is not under check (stalemate), |
| 174 | li. |
| 175 | when a position is repeated three times with the same castling right and |
| 176 | same player in turn, |
| 177 | li when 50 moves are played without pawn movement or capture. |
| 178 | p. |
| 179 | Note: this last way to end a game is not implemented, because it quite seldom |
| 180 | occurs, does not generalize so well to variants (it depends), and more |
| 181 | important because games played on this website are not official tournament |
| 182 | games. If you feel like manoeuvring for 200 moves and your opponent isn't |
| 183 | bored, then keep going :) |