Beginner guide
How the chess pieces move
Chess is played on an 8×8 board by two players, White and Black. White always moves first. Each side starts with 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns.
King
Moves one square in any direction. The king can never move into check. Lose the king to checkmate and you lose the game.
Queen
The most powerful piece: any number of squares in a straight line, horizontally, vertically or diagonally, as long as nothing is in the way.
Rook
Any number of squares horizontally or vertically.
Bishop
Any number of squares diagonally. Each bishop stays on its starting colour for the whole game.
Knight
Moves in an "L": two squares in one direction and one square to the side. It is the only piece that can jump over other pieces.
Pawn
Moves forward one square, or two squares on its very first move. It captures one square diagonally forward. Pawns never move backwards.
Special moves
Castling. The king moves two squares toward a rook, and that rook jumps to the square the king crossed. Allowed only if neither piece has moved, the squares between them are empty, and the king is not in check and does not pass through or land on an attacked square.
En passant. If a pawn moves two squares and lands right beside an enemy pawn, the enemy pawn may capture it as if it had moved only one square, but only on the very next move.
Promotion. A pawn that reaches the last rank becomes a queen, rook, bishop or knight (almost always a queen).
Check, checkmate and draws
Check means the king is attacked; you must get out of check immediately. Checkmate means the king is in check and there is no legal way out, which ends the game. A game is drawn by stalemate (the player to move has no legal move and is not in check), by agreement, by threefold repetition, by the 50-move rule (50 moves by each side without a capture or pawn move) or by insufficient material.