Everyone once in their life has tried to learn and play chess, recently people got into chess with the rise of chess live streams and organized online & offline chess tournaments. Many people flock to these intense tournaments to enjoy competitive gameplay for entertainment and learning.

Heading to the rules of a Chess game, there are two sides called White and Black. White always goes first. We also need to understand the number of pieces in chess and their names.

Every player has 16 pieces, which is divided in:

• 1 King ♚
• 1 Queen ♛
• 2 Rooks ♜
• 2 Bishops ♝
• 2 Knights ♞
• 8 Pawns ♟

The chess game is won on 2 occasions, 1st is either side of the King gets captured also known as checkmate or the contestant agrees to draw the game.

How do the Chess pieces move?

• King ♚: The King moves from its square to an immediate neighbouring square horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

• Queen ♛: The Queen is the most powerful piece on the chessboard in terms of movement. It can move around for any number of squares in any direction: horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

• Rook ♜: The Rook moves from its line or row.

• Bishops ♝: The Bishops move diagonally across.

• Knights ♞: The Knights also known as horses, jump in an ‘L’ shape. It moves 2 squares in one direction and 1 square perpendicular.

• Pawns♟: The Pawns can move one square forward, or two squares at the start of the game, and diagonally to capture the opponent’s piece.

Chess has some complexity and strategic depth that gets added due to the inclusion of several special moves. You can find some of these special moves below:

• Castling: This move involved the king and rook moving at the same time, the idea behind this is to increase the king’s safety and rook’s activity.
• Pawn Promotion: When Pawn reaches the other end of the board (on the opponent’s side), it is promoted to another piece most likely ‘Queen’. It also can be converted into a rook, bishop, or knight.
• Double-Step Pawn Move: On its first move, a pawn can move forward two squares instead of just one. It’s only limited to starting positions.
• En Passant: En Passant is a special pawn capture in chess that occurs when a pawn moves two squares forward from its starting position and lands beside an opponent’s pawn. The opponent can then capture it “in passing” as if it had moved only one square forward but must do so immediately on the next move. You can read more about it here.

How can I capture another Enemy’s piece?

The International Chess Federation is the regulatory and governing body for chess rules. All India Chess Federation follows the same mandate as International  Chess Federation. You can find legal moves here set by the International Chess Federation.

• King: The king can move one square in any direction, Horizontally, Vertically, or Diagonally.
• Queen: The queen can capture any opponent’s piece by moving any number of squares Horizontally, Vertically, or Diagonally.
• Rook: Rooks can capture any enemy’s piece moving horizontally or vertically.
• Bishop: Bishops can capture any enemy’s piece moving diagonally.
• Knights: Knights can capture the enemy’s piece in the ‘L’ direction.
• Pawns: Pawns can capture an enemy’s piece on a square diagonally.

Setting Up a Chess Board:

Every chess piece has its unique position and it’s universally acceptable. Chess positions are defined as alphabetical on the X-axis and numeric on the Y-axis (Image for Ref). Every chess piece has a mirror image of its opponent You can find how to arrange them below:

• King: The King takes the center position beside the queen. The position used by King on the X-axis is ‘e’ and the Y-axis is to be 1 and 8 by the opponent.
• Queen: The Queen takes its matching color of the side. The position of the queen on the X-axis is ‘d’ and numeric on the Y-axis to be 1 and 8 by the opponent.
• Rook: There are two Rooks on a chess board and they take both the corner positions on the board following the X-axis of ‘a’ and ‘h’ and the numeric values of 1 and 8 in the chess board.
• Bishop: Like Rook, there are two Bishop as well placed beside the knights, the Bishop follows the X-axis of ‘c’ and ‘f’ and the numeric values of 1 and 8 in the chess board.
• Knights: The Knights also known as the Horse in chess are placed next to Rooks, they follow the position of ‘b’ and ‘g’ along the X-axis and the numeric values of 1 and 8 in the chess board.
• Pawns: Pawns are the first line of defence in chess, placed all along the 2nd and 8th row.

These are some basic information one needs to know about before playing chess. The player can delve deeper to build their understanding and improve their skills.

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