Chess Rules in Plain Words

What the game is

Chess is a battle game for two players on a checkered board of 64 squares. Each player commands an army of 16 pieces. You take turns moving one piece at a time. The goal is checkmate: attack the enemy king so it is threatened and has no legal way to escape. The king is never actually captured — the game ends the move before that could happen.

Players: 2. Ages: the official laws set no age; most home sets say 6 and up.

What you need: a chess board (8 rows by 8 columns) and 32 pieces — for each side: 1 king, 1 queen, 2 rooks, 2 bishops, 2 knights, and 8 pawns. One army is light ("White") and one is dark ("Black").

Setting up

1. Set the board so that every player has a light-colored square in their near-right corner. A common memory aid: "white on right."
2. Place the pieces on the two rows nearest each player. The back row, from each player's left corner: rook, knight, bishop, queen, king, bishop, knight, rook.
3. Each queen starts on a square of her own color — the white queen on a light square, the black queen on a dark square. That is why the king and queen land where they do in the row above.
4. Put all 8 pawns in a row directly in front of the back-row pieces.
5. White always moves first.

How the pieces move

• King: one square in any direction — forward, back, side to side, or diagonal.
• Queen: any number of squares in a straight line, in any direction, as long as the path is clear.
• Rook: any number of squares forward, back, or side to side, as long as the path is clear.
• Bishop: any number of squares diagonally, as long as the path is clear. A bishop stays on the same color of squares all game.
• Knight: moves in an L shape — two squares in one direction, then one square to the side. The knight is the only piece that may jump over other pieces.
• Pawn: moves forward one square into an empty square. From its starting square only, it may move forward two squares instead. Pawns capture differently from how they move: a pawn captures by moving one square forward-diagonally onto an enemy piece.
• No piece may land on a square held by your own piece. If you land on an enemy piece, that piece is captured and removed from the board, and your piece takes its square.
• Promotion: a pawn that reaches the far end of the board must be traded at once for a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of its own color (almost always a queen). It cannot stay a pawn or become a king.

How a turn works

1. White moves first. After that, players take turns, one move per turn. You may not skip a turn.
2. A move is legal only if it leaves your own king safe. You may never make a move that leaves your king under attack, and your king may never move into an attacked square.
3. If your king is attacked, it is in check. Your next move must get out of check: move the king, block the attack, or capture the attacking piece.
4. If your king is in check and no legal move can save it, that is checkmate. The game is over and you lose.

Three special moves

1. Castling — a once-a-game way to tuck your king to safety and bring a rook into play at the same time. In one move, the king moves two squares toward a rook, and that rook hops over and lands on the square right beside the king. It counts as a single king move. Every one of these must be true: neither the king nor that rook has moved yet in this game; every square between them is empty; the king is not in check right now; and the king does not pass through, or land on, a square attacked by an enemy piece. It does not matter if the rook itself is attacked, or if the rook passes over an attacked square.
2. En passant (French for "in passing") — if an enemy pawn moves two squares forward from its starting square and lands beside your pawn, you may capture it as if it had moved only one square. Your pawn moves diagonally onto the square the enemy pawn passed over, and the enemy pawn comes off the board. You may do this only on your very next turn. Wait even one move, and the chance is gone for good.
3. Promotion — covered above: a pawn reaching the last row must be exchanged for a stronger piece of your choice right away, as part of the same move.

How you win / how the game ends

• Checkmate: a king in check with no legal escape loses. The player who delivered checkmate wins.
• Giving up: a player may resign at any time. The other player wins.
• Stalemate — a draw: if it is your turn, your king is NOT in check, and you have no legal move at all, the game is a draw. It does not matter how many pieces you have left — stalemate is always a draw, never a win for either side.
• Draw by agreement: at any point, the two players may simply agree the game is a draw.
• Same position three times: if the exact same board position — same pieces, same player to move, same legal moves available — comes up three times, the player whose turn it is may claim a draw. If it comes up five times, the game is drawn automatically.
• The 50-move rule: if 50 moves in a row by each side pass with no pawn moved and no piece captured, the player to move may claim a draw. At 75 moves in a row, the game is drawn automatically.
• Dead position: if neither side could possibly checkmate the other — for example, king against king with nothing else on the board — the game is a draw, because no series of legal moves could ever end it.

Common questions

Can the king capture a piece that is defended by another piece?

No — not because capturing is banned, but because the king would be moving into attack, which is never legal. The king can capture any enemy piece as long as he lands on a safe square.

I touched a piece by accident in a home game. Must I move it?

Only if your table agreed to tournament rules before the game. The strict touch-move law belongs to competitive play under the FIDE Laws; friendly games normally let you take it back.

What happens if a move leaves both kings facing each other?

That position can never legally happen. Kings attack the squares around them, so moving your king next to the enemy king would be moving into check — an illegal move.

Can a pawn move backward, or capture straight ahead?

Neither. Pawns only move forward, and they capture only on the forward diagonals. A pawn blocked head-on by any piece simply cannot move forward at all.

Is a draw the same as nobody winning?

Yes — a drawn game is scored half a point to each player in tournaments, and at home it simply means the game ends even. Stalemate, agreement, repetition, the 50-move rule, and a dead position are the ways it happens.

Source: FIDE Laws of Chess, approved by the FIDE General Assembly in 2022 and in force from 1 January 2023 (FIDE is the world chess federation; the U.S. Chess Federation plays by these same laws of the game, with its own extra rules for rated tournaments). Read in full and rewritten in our own plain words.