Learn chess

How to Play Chess: A Beginner’s Guide

This page takes you from setting up the board to playing a complete game: how each of the six pieces moves — with a live board to try each one — what check, checkmate and stalemate mean, the three special moves, and a miniature game to replay. Work from top to bottom at your own pace; the relevant sections link to focused rules pages for the fine print.

What you need to know before move one

Chess is a two-player game on an 8×8 board of 64 light and dark squares. Each player begins with sixteen pieces: eight pawns, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, one queen, and one king. Players take turns making one move each — you cannot pass — and an ordinary capture removes an enemy piece by moving onto its square. (En passant is the one capture that looks different.) The objective on the board is checkmate: attacking the king when no legal reply can remove the attack. If you want the win condition and the other ways a game can finish spelled out in full, see the goal of chess.

Step 1: set up the board

Turn the board so each player has a light square in the near-right corner ("light on the right"). Fill your second row with the eight pawns. On your back row, work in from the corners: rook, knight, bishop — then the queen goes on the central square matching her own colour (white queen on light d1, black queen on dark d8), and the king takes the last square beside her. If your queens are not facing each other down the same file, something is swapped. The full piece-by-piece walkthrough, with the common mistakes, is at how to set up a chess board.

Step 2: White moves first

White always makes the first move, and turns then strictly alternate. Moving first brings a modest practical advantage, so casual players often choose colours at random and tournament pairings generally try to balance each player’s games with White and Black. There is no passing and no moving twice: one legal move per turn, every turn. More on the first-move advantage at which colour goes first.

Step 3: learn how each piece moves

The boards below are live: select a piece and try its moves, and the board will reject and explain illegal attempts. Knights can jump over intervening pieces; bishops, rooks and queens cannot. An ordinary capture lands on the captured piece’s square, while en passant is the special exception. The one-page overview lives at how the pieces move.

The pawn — forward to move, diagonal to capture

A pawn moves one square straight forward. From its starting square it may instead move two squares if both are empty. It captures one square diagonally forward — never straight ahead — and can never move backward. A piece directly in front prevents it from advancing. On the board below, the white pawn can push to e5 or capture the black pawn with exd5 — try both. Full detail (including why pawn moves are so committal): how pawns move and capture.

The knight — the L-shaped jumper

The knight moves in an L-shape: two squares in one direction, then one square at a right angle. It is the only piece that jumps over anything in the way, and it always lands on the opposite-coloured square from where it started. From a central square it may reach as many as eight destinations; from a corner, only two. Pick up the knight below and watch the ring of destinations appear. Deep dive: how the knight moves.

The bishop — diagonals only, one colour forever

The bishop slides any number of squares diagonally until something blocks it. Because diagonals never change colour, each bishop is locked to light or dark squares for the whole game. The two starting bishops therefore complement one another by covering opposite colour complexes. Try the bishop below and notice it can only ever touch dark squares. Deep dive: how the bishop moves.

The rook — straight lines, any distance

The rook moves any number of squares horizontally or vertically — along ranks and files — but never diagonally. It is worth about five points, second only to the queen, and it partners the king in castling (coming up in step 5). Rooks start the game buried in the corners and come alive when files open up. Deep dive: how the rook moves.

The queen — rook plus bishop

The queen moves any number of squares in any straight line — ranks, files, and diagonals — combining the rook and bishop in one piece. She is worth about nine points, the strongest piece on the board, and precisely because of that value the classic beginner mistake is bringing her out too early, where she gets chased around while the opponent develops. Deep dive: how the queen moves.

The king — one square, but the whole game

The king moves one square in any direction. It may never move onto a square an enemy piece attacks (never “into check”), and the two kings can never stand next to each other. Early in a game the king usually needs shelter; as material comes off and mating threats recede, it can become an active piece. Deep dive: how the king moves.

What each piece is worth

The standard point values give you a quick material check when considering a trade. They are a guide, not a verdict: activity, king safety, pawn structure and the moves after the recapture can matter more than a one-point difference. More nuance at chess piece values.

Pawn

1 point

Knight

3 points

Bishop

3 points

Rook

5 points

Queen

9 points

King

No trade value — the king is checkmated, never captured

Step 4: check, checkmate and stalemate

When a move attacks the enemy king, that is check, and the defender must deal with it immediately — by moving the king, blocking the attack, or capturing the attacker. If none of the three works, it is checkmate and the game is over on the spot; the king is never actually captured. Try it below: the black king is trapped behind its own pawns, and one rook move ends the game. The three escapes, with more examples, are at check and checkmate.

Stalemate: the draw that stings

If the player to move has no legal move at all but is not in check, the game is a stalemate — an immediate draw, no matter how far ahead the other side is. In the position below Black has no legal move and is not in check: half a point each. This is an important danger when converting with a queen, so compare the position with stalemate before practising that basic mate.

Step 5: the three special moves

Castling, en passant and promotion depart from the ordinary movement rules. Each has a live board below and its own page for the exact conditions.

Castling — tuck your king away

Once per game, if neither piece has moved and the squares between are empty, your king may step two squares toward a rook, and that rook moves to the king’s other side — the only move where two pieces move at once. Castling often improves king safety and rook coordination, but it is illegal out of, through, or into check. Try both versions below (kingside O-O and queenside O-O-O), then read the full conditions at castling.

En passant — capturing a two-square pawn move

When an enemy pawn moves two squares from its starting square and lands directly beside your pawn, you may capture it as if it had moved only one square — but only on your very next move, or the right vanishes. Play exd6 below to see where the capturing pawn lands, then read the exact conditions at en passant.

Promotion — the pawn becomes a new piece

A pawn that reaches the far end of the board immediately becomes a queen, rook, bishop, or knight — your choice. A queen is the usual selection, but a knight, rook or bishop can be correct when its different movement gives check, avoids stalemate or serves another concrete purpose. Push the pawn home below, then read pawn promotion for worked underpromotion examples.

Step 6: how ordinary games end

Wins normally come by checkmate, resignation, or a player’s clock running out. Under the FIDE Laws, a flag fall is a draw if the opponent could not possibly checkmate by any legal sequence from the final position. Draws also arise through stalemate, agreement, a dead position, repetition, or a long spell without a pawn move or capture. Threefold repetition and the fifty-move rule generally have to be claimed; fivefold repetition and seventy-five moves end the game automatically, subject to the checkmate exception in the seventy-five-move rule. The full map is at draws in chess.

Step 7: watch a complete first game

Here is a seven-move miniature showing development, a capture, check and checkmate. It is a form of the Légal mate trap: White offers the queen with 5.Nxe5, and after Black accepts with 5…Bxd1, White’s three developed minor pieces force mate by 6.Bxf7+ Ke7 7.Nd5#. Step through it below and watch how the knight and bishops converge on the king; the combination works because of their exact control of the escape squares, not because accepting a queen is always wrong.

A practical opening checklist

You now have the rules needed to play a complete game. You do not need to memorise opening theory before you begin; these habits will usually give you a workable position:

• Put a pawn in the centre — 1.e4 or 1.d4 opens lines for your bishop and queen.
• Develop knights and bishops to useful squares. Avoid repeated moves with one piece unless the position gives you a reason.
• Secure the king before opening the centre. Castling in the opening is a common solution, but check the pawn breaks and safest wing rather than obeying a fixed move number.
• Treat early queen moves carefully. If a minor piece can attack the queen while developing, the queen move may lose time.
• Before every move, check what is hanging — yours and theirs — and examine the opponent’s checks, captures and direct threats.

Now play your first game

Rules make more sense once you use them. Play a full game against the computer at a gentle level; it runs in your browser and allows takebacks while you are learning. The post-game review can then help you locate turning points, although its engine labels are analysis aids rather than a substitute for explaining the position yourself. The beginner path follows with basic checkmates, opening principles and first tactics in a sensible order.

Play your first game freeMeet the computer opponents