Knights are the only pieces that jump over other pieces and only capture an opponent's piece if it's on the final square of the move.

Files are columns that go up and down the chessboard, and, since boards are square, each board also has eight of them. There are several ways to end a game of chess: by checkmate, with a draw, by resignation, by forfeit on time. When one player captures a piece from the opponent, this piece will become available to his or her teammate. In a white paper, the American Chess School's Robert Ferguson cited a study conducted with over 4,000 school children.For example, a knight in a corner only has 2 options to move, but from a central square, it has as many as 8 options. Apart from maybe Chernev's Logical Chess Move by Move, Heisman's Back to Basics: Tactics really is the single best book to help 90% of us improve. If an opponent’s pawn would have been able to legally capture the moving pawn had it only moved one square instead of two, the opponent can declare en passant on their next turn and move their pawn diagonally onto the square that the pawn passed through - capturing the pawn as if it had only moved one square. Matches can also end in an agreed draw - for example, as the result of stalemate leaving a player without any legal moves, or if no player can win using available legal moves, a situation known as a “dead position”.

Clocks and Timers - Most tournaments use timers to regulate the time spent on each game, not on each move.As an exception to all other chess pieces, the king is never captured - a player loses the match when the king is placed into checkmate, which would lead to an unavoidable capture on the opponent’s next turn. In tournament play, the promoted pawn would be replaced with whatever piece it was promoted to (usually a queen). Except for the knight, which may jump over pieces, pieces cannot move through pieces of either colour without either stopping (in the same of a piece of the same colour) or capturing them (in the case of a piece of the opposite colour). com/v2/books/282072"}},"bookLoadedStatus":"success","bookExtras":{},"bookExtrasLoadedStatus":"initial"},"adsState":{"pageScripts":{"headers":{"timestamp":"2023-10-31T10:50:01+00:00"},"adsId":0,"data":{"scripts":[{"pages":["all"],"location":"header","script":"

Chess is believed to have been invented in India, where, by the 6th century, it flourished—although the name of the inventor has been lost to history. While most casual players use captured pieces to represent promoted pieces, a pawn can legally be promoted to any piece regardless of whether it has been captured.These are the pure basics to get you playing as quickly as possible, without worrying about timing your turns or defending against specific openings. The game of chess we know today has been around since the 15th century where it became popular in Europe. There are a number of advanced rules that can be used in chess, along with specific openings and board positions known by a variety of names, from the Double King's Pawn Opening to the famous King’s Gambit and Queen’s Gambit.

Chess is a 2-player game where one player controls the white pieces and the other controls the black pieces. Each chessboard has eight ranks, which are numbered from the bottom of the board (where the white pieces start) on up. That is, if I play as White and I take a black pawn from my opponent, that pawn will turn into a white pawn that I can put on the board as part of my army. A piece lost can't be regained, and if you get too far down you'll have a hard time defending against a multi-pronged attack from your opponent. If playing with an optional timer, as in tournaments, the first player to run out of time forfeits the game.

This also keeps the board active and lively—your opponent will be on the alert trying to figure out what you're doing. You’ll learn the laws of chess, its lingo, and engage in the art of the attack with the easy-to-follow, step-by-step explanations found in the latest edition of Chess For Dummies.