Printable
Chess Rules Cheat Sheet
The core playing rules on one printable reference page.
The button opens your browser’s print dialog. Choose a printer, or choose “Save as PDF” to make a file; there is no separate PDF download.
Setup
Board so each player has a light square on their right. Back rank: rook, knight, bishop, queen, king, bishop, knight, rook. Queen on her own colour (white queen on a light square). Pawns fill the second rank. White moves first.
How the pieces move
- Pawn
- Forward 1 (or 2 from its starting rank if clear); captures diagonally; promotes on the last rank
- Knight
- L-shape: 2 + 1; the only piece that jumps
- Bishop
- Any distance diagonally
- Rook
- Any distance straight (ranks and files)
- Queen
- Any distance straight or diagonal
- King
- One square in any direction
Special moves
- Castling — the king moves two squares toward a rook, then that rook moves to the square the king crossed. Nothing may be between them; neither may have moved; the king may not be in check or cross or finish on an attacked square.
- En passant — capture a pawn that just moved two squares, as if it moved one. Only on the very next move.
- Promotion — a pawn reaching the last rank becomes a queen, rook, bishop or knight.
Ending the game
- Check — the king is attacked; you must get out of check.
- Checkmate — in check with no legal move: the game is won.
- Stalemate — not in check but no legal move: draw.
- Other draws — agreement or a dead position. Under the FIDE draw rules, a player may claim after threefold repetition or 50 moves by each side without a pawn move or capture; fivefold repetition and 75 such moves end the game automatically unless the last move checkmates.