How to Play Chess: A Complete Beginner's Guide

The board and the goal

Chess is played on an 8×8 board of alternating light and dark squares. Two players, White and Black, start with sixteen pieces each: eight pawns on the second rank and eight major and minor pieces on the back rank. The board is oriented so that each player has a light square in their bottom-right corner ("light on right").

The goal is to checkmate the opponent's king: deliver a check (an attack on the king) the opponent cannot escape from. Capturing pieces is not the goal in itself; it is a means to the end of cornering the king. A game can also end in a draw under several specific conditions, which we cover below.

How each piece moves

• Pawn. Moves one square straight forward (never backward), or two squares on its very first move from the starting rank. Captures one square diagonally forward, never straight ahead. When a pawn reaches the far rank it must promote to a queen, rook, bishop, or knight.
• Rook. Any number of squares in a straight line, horizontally or vertically. Cannot jump over pieces.
• Bishop. Any number of squares diagonally. Each bishop is stuck on one colour for the entire game.
• Queen. Rook plus bishop. Any number of squares horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. The most valuable piece on the board after the king.
• Knight. Moves in an L-shape: two squares in one direction and then one square perpendicular. The only piece allowed to jump over other pieces.
• King. Moves one square in any direction. Cannot move into a square attacked by an opposing piece.

The three special rules beginners miss

Chess has three rules that aren't obvious from watching a few games. Knowing them is the difference between intermediate and casual play.

Castling

A one-time defensive move that swaps the king and a rook in a single turn. The king moves two squares toward an unmoved rook on its starting square, and that rook hops over to sit next to the king. Castling is legal only if the king and rook have not moved, no pieces sit between them, the king is not in check, and the squares the king passes through are not attacked. There are two flavours: kingside (short, faster) and queenside (long, more committal).

En passant

When an opposing pawn moves two squares from its starting rank and lands directly next to one of your pawns, you may capture it on the very next move as if it had moved only one square. This is the only "remembered" move in chess: you must use it immediately or lose the right.

The three draw rules

• Stalemate. If the player to move has no legal moves and is not in check, the game is drawn. Many beginners blunder a stalemate when they have a huge material lead.
• Fifty-move rule. If fifty consecutive moves pass with no pawn move and no capture, either player can claim a draw.
• Threefold repetition. If the exact same position appears three times with the same player to move, either player can claim a draw.
• Insufficient material. If neither side has enough pieces to force a checkmate (lone king vs lone king, king and bishop vs king, etc.), the game is an automatic draw.

Opening principles for your first ten moves

Don't memorize openings yet. Master these four principles instead. They cover 80% of correct early play.

1. Control the centre. Push a central pawn (1.e4 or 1.d4) and aim your bishops and knights at the central four squares.
2. Develop your knights before your bishops. Knights have fewer good squares than bishops, so it pays to commit them early. Nf3 and Nc3 are almost always good moves for White.
3. Castle early. Your king is safer behind a wall of pawns on the side of the board than in the centre where everything happens.
4. Don't move the same piece twice in the opening. Every tempo you spend re-routing a piece is a tempo your opponent spends developing a new one.

How games end

Most games at the casual level end via simple resignation (a player surrenders when they realize they're lost), via checkmate, or by running out of time in timed games. Above the beginner level, the draw rules come into play in roughly one game in three.

Practice with the bot, then play a friend

The fastest way to internalize these rules is to play. Use our solo mode against the AI to practice. Start on Easy to get comfortable with how the pieces interact, then move to Medium and Hard as your tactics improve. When you're ready for a real opponent, start a private room and invite a friend.

准备好玩大老二了吗？

Pick a difficulty and try a game against the AI, or start a private room and invite a friend.