Chess Rules for Beginners: How Every Piece Moves

Chess is a game for two players on an 8-by-8 board. White moves first, the players then take turns, and you win by checkmating your opponent’s king: putting it in check so that it has no legal way to escape (FIDE Laws of Chess, Articles 1.2 and 1.4). The rules below come from the FIDE Laws of Chess, in force since January 1, 2023, with notes where the US Chess rulebook differs.

Setting up the board

Turn the board so the corner square nearest your right hand is light (FIDE, Article 2.1). The US Chess rulebook puts it the same way: the nearer corner to the right of each player is white (US Chess, rule 2C).

Each side has 16 pieces: a king, a queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns. In the back row, from the corners inward, go the rooks, then the knights, then the bishops. The queen and king take the two middle squares. In the official starting diagram the white queen stands on a light square and the black queen on a dark one, which is where the old memory aid “queen on her own color” comes from (FIDE, Article 2.3). The pawns fill the row in front.

How each piece moves

Pieces capture by moving onto a square held by an opposing piece, which is then removed. You can’t move onto a square held by one of your own pieces (FIDE, Article 3.1).

Piece	How it moves
King	One square in any direction (Article 3.8)
Queen	Any number of squares along a row, column or diagonal (Article 3.4)
Rook	Any number of squares along a row or column (Article 3.3)
Bishop	Any number of squares along a diagonal (Article 3.2)
Knight	In an L shape: two squares one way, then one square at a right angle (Article 3.6)
Pawn	One square straight forward, or two on its first move. It captures one square diagonally forward (Article 3.7)

The queen, rook and bishop can’t jump over other pieces (Article 3.5). The knight is the only piece that jumps. A pawn’s forward move needs an empty square, and a two-square first move needs both squares to be empty (Articles 3.7.1 and 3.7.2).

Check and checkmate

A king is in check when an enemy piece attacks it. You may never make a move that leaves your own king in check (FIDE, Article 3.9). When you’re in check, you have to get out of it: move the king, capture the attacking piece, or block the attack.

If there’s no way out, it’s checkmate and the game is over (FIDE, Article 5.1.1). Kings are never actually captured.

The three special moves

Castling

Castling is the only move in which you move two pieces at once. The king moves two squares toward one of its rooks, and that rook jumps to the square the king just crossed (FIDE, Article 3.8.1).

You lose the right to castle for good once your king has moved, and you can’t castle with a rook that has already moved (Article 3.8.2.1). You also can’t castle right now if:

• any piece stands between the king and that rook, or
• the king is in check, would cross a square that’s under attack, or would land on one (Article 3.8.2.2).

The rook itself is allowed to be under attack or to pass over an attacked square (US Chess, rule 8C1).

En passant

When a pawn moves two squares forward and lands right beside an enemy pawn, the enemy pawn may capture it as if it had moved only one square. It moves diagonally to the square the first pawn skipped over. You can only do this on the very next move, or the chance is gone (FIDE, Articles 3.7.3.1 and 3.7.3.2).

Promotion

A pawn that reaches the far side of the board must be exchanged, as part of the same move, for a queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same color. Your choice doesn’t depend on which pieces have already been captured, so you can end up with two queens (FIDE, Article 3.7.3.3).

How a game can end in a draw

Not every game has a winner. Under the FIDE Laws, a game is drawn when:

• Stalemate. The player to move has no legal move and isn’t in check (Article 5.2.1).
• Dead position. Neither player could possibly checkmate, whatever legal moves are played. A king against a lone king is the obvious example. The game ends right away (Article 5.2.2).
• Agreement. Both players agree to a draw, once each has made at least one move (Article 5.2.3).
• Threefold repetition. The same position comes up for at least the third time, with the same player to move and the same moves available. The player whose turn it is has to claim it (Article 9.2).
• The 50-move rule. Each player has made 50 moves with no pawn move and no capture. Again, a player has to claim it (Article 9.3).

FIDE also ends the game automatically, with no claim needed, after a fivefold repetition or 75 moves each without a pawn move or capture (Article 9.6).

The US Chess rules differ a little on those last points. Under US Chess, the tournament director may declare a draw in the fivefold and 75-move cases but isn’t required to (US Chess, rule 14K). US Chess also lists specific endings that count as insufficient material, such as king against king and bishop, where FIDE uses the general dead-position test (US Chess, rule 14D; FIDE, Article 5.2.2). How the pieces move is the same in both rulebooks.

The touch-move rule

In a rated game, touching a piece counts. If it’s your turn and you deliberately touch one of your own pieces, you must move it, as long as it has a legal move. If you deliberately touch an opponent’s piece, you must capture it if you can (FIDE, Article 4.3; US Chess, rule 10B). To straighten a piece without committing to a move, say “I adjust” (or “j’adoube”) before you touch it (FIDE, Article 4.2.1).

In a casual game you can agree to relax it while someone is learning, but expect it in any club or tournament game.

Where to go from here

Once the moves feel natural, the best next step is to play a lot of games and look back at the ones you lose. If you want a smaller game to warm up on, our guide to tic-tac-toe strategy shows the same habit of checking your opponent’s threats before every move.