Chess Rules: Follow These Rules and be a Champion

Chess is a board game for two people. One player plays with the white pieces, the other player with the black ones. The goal of the chess game is to checkmate the opponent following the chess rules. That means that the king is in chess and has no way of making a move without being threatened by a Check again.

The game is played on a game board with 64 blocks, a square divided into an 8×8 grid. Each field is identified by a letter-number combination. The columns from a to h and the rows from 1 to 8 are counted.

The game board is positioned so that the lower-left corner is labeled a1 from the white player’s perspective.

How The Chess Pieces Move – Chess Rules

1. PAWN – When we talk about chess game rules Pawn is the first chess piece that comes to our mind as pawn can also eliminate a ‘Queen’. Pawn moves in the straight direction to eliminate the obstruction. 

2. KNIGHT (Horse) – 2.5 moves (two squares away horizontally and one square vertically or two squares vertically and one square horizontally). Basically, it moves in an L shape in whichever direction possible.

3. ROOK(Elephant) – Rook plays an important role in the chess game to eliminate all those warriors who can eliminate your ‘King’ and ‘Queen’, along with knowing about the chess rules it is also mandatory for you to know about the Rook’s move. It can only move and capture in a straight line and only stops when obstructed by another piece.

4. BISHOP(Camel) – It can only move and capture diagonally and only stops when obstructed by another piece.

5. QUEEN – Queen can move and capture both diagonally and straight lines. It combines the moves of Bishop and Rook.

6. KING – It can move one step in any direction if that block is not threatened by check or is unoccupied.

Each side has 8 pawns

1. In its First step, the pawn has a choice of moving two blocks forward at once.

2. The pawn can choose to move just one block as well.

3. After that, the pawn only moves one block at a time.

4. The pawn can only kill sideways forward. To put it simply, a pawn moves in a straight line but can take out another piece if it is in the next block forward diagonally.

5. If the pawn reaches the end block, it has a choice of turning into a Queen, a Knight, a Rook or a Bishop.

The Castling

It is the only move in which two pieces are moved, namely king and rook. The king is moved two spaces to the right or left. At the same time, the rook is moved in the direction from where the king was moved and is placed on the box between the king and the starting position of the king.

Requirements for castling:

• The king and rook must not have been moved from their positions.

• There must be no pieces between the king and the rook.

• The king must not be threatened by a Check.

• The king is not allowed to skip a block that is threatened by a Check.

• The king cannot move to a block that is threatened by Check.

• The Gameplay

Suggested Read: Take Advantage Of Badminton Rules – Read These 5 Tips

The White has the first move. White is only able to move a pawn or a Knight(Horse) in the first move. The target is to bring the opposite king in a position from where he cannot move to a safer place when presented with Check. It is called Checkmate.

Checkmate – Chess Game Rules

Checkmate occurs when the king is threatened with a Check and it cannot be moved anywhere to ward off or block the Check and no other player can be moved between the king and the piece that has presented the Check.

As soon as a player’s king is checkmated, he loses the game.

Stalemate – Chess Game Rules

Stalemate occurs when a player’s king is not in check, but it also cannot make a move without putting his own king in Check by the opponent. As soon as there is a stalemate, the game ends in a tie or draw.

Draw

Chess games can end in a draw. This so-called draw occurs when:

1. Both players agree on the tie.

2. Both players no longer have sufficient pieces to checkmate the opponent. e.g. king against the king, king against king and knight, king against king and bishop.

3. For 50 moves no figure has been struck, no pawn has been moved and a player requests a draw.

4. If the pieces move through the same position for the third time and only the same moves are possible.

Keep these chess rules in mind and turn the game in your favour.