How To Play Chess (Complete Guide For Beginners) (2024)

In this chess guide for beginners, you will learn you how to play chess in just three steps.

This guide walks you through everything you need to know from how to set up a chessboard, how to move the pieces, and also the special moves in chess. Whether you’re an adult or part of the younger generation, this article acts as a complete guide for beginners to getting started in the game.

We’ll start with the basics of chess ranging from the moves of the pieces, the basic rules of chess, and some basic strategies of chess that will help you shortcut the learning curve that beginners face.

Even Grandmasters started with learning how to play, this page is perfect for getting started in the game of kings. You’ll also get some tips and advanced guides that are useful for both chess masters as well as the chess beginner.

Here’s what this guide covers.

• How To Set Up The Chessboard
• How The Pieces Move
• The Special Moves

These basics will be explained in detail to try to make it as simple as possible for you to learn. The quicker you learn, the quicker you can start playing on chess.com.

Who Should Read This Guide

Let’s assume that you probably know how to play chess and you are strongly dedicated to playing Chess.

Then you may decide to test your chess abilities through any of the chess playing sources.

That most of the players you would probably decide to play chess with any of your friends or play online chess games.

But the chances are that you would probably lose that game.

After that, you found yourself in two situations.

The first situation is that you decide to give up the game and not to play any game of chess again, this is the worst-case in your chess career ever.

But in the second situation, you would decide to continue playing this game.

For that, you search how to play Chess and start looking for the chess guides that will help you to play better chess and teach you to not only play chess but how to play chess strategically, and also tactically.

Let’s start with the pieces where you will get to know about the various chess pieces and some basic information about the chess pieces.

The Pieces

There are a total of 32 chess pieces at the beginning of the chess game. Each of the chess players starts with the 16 chess pieces:

Name of Piece	King	Queen	Rook	Knight	Bishop	Pawn
Number of Pieces	1	1	2	2	2	8
Symbol

Next, you’ll how to set up a chessboard the right way.

The Chessboard

On the first step of learning chess, I will teach you how to set up the chessboard.

Setting up a chessboard is the first step of learning how to play chess.

But at first, I want to tell you what is a Chessboard.

The chessboard is a dual-colored checkered game board used in the game of chess, consisting of a total of 64 squares i.e., white (light) and black (dark) of 32 squares each.

The chessboard is the place that we use to place all the chess pieces. It consists of the 8 rows, called the ranks, and 8 columns, called the files.

Each file has a letter in front of it, from a-h, and each rank has a number in front of it, from 1-8. These are used to indicate the moves and specific squares on the board throughout the game. This is how players write and read chess notation. Think of it like a language.

Next, we’ll go over how to set up the chess board.

How To Set Up The Chessboard

At the beginning of the game, the chessboard is laid out so that each player has the white (or light) color square in the bottom right-hand side.

You can set up the board by placing the pieces on the following squares.

Placement Square for White	e1	d1	a1 and h1	b1 and g1	c1 and f1	a2-h2
Placement Square for Black	e8	d8	a8 and h8	b8 and g8	c8 and f8	a7-h7
Chess Piece

You can see the initial setup of the chessboard in image given below:

Note: A common mistake seen with beginners setting up the board is mixing up the king and queen placement squares, which is easy to do. An easy way to remember which squares to put them on is to remember that the queen goes on the same color square of the side you’re playing with. If you have the white pieces, the queen goes on the white square. If you’re playing with the black pieces, the queen goes on the dark square. And of course, the king is placed next to the queen.

How To Move The Pieces

Now, you have set up your chess board and chess pieces, that is the easiest task in chess.

So, get ready for the next step of your journey to learn Chess.

Now, I will teach you how to move these chess pieces which makes the base of how to play chess.

All 6 kinds of chess pieces move in their different styles, as there are different characteristics of all the 6 pieces.

The Chess pieces cannot jump or move over other pieces { Exception: the Knight is only the chess piece that can jump over the other pieces } and cannot move to the square acquired by the chess piece of its similar color.

But they can be moved to the squares acquired by the opponent pieces to capture these pieces.

Generally, Chess Pieces are moved into the crucial positions, where they can capture other pieces or make the crucial pressure on the opponent by attacking the opponent’s king, defend their pieces in case of capture, or control important squares in the game to consolidate the position in the game.

Now, I will tell you how all of these chess pieces move that we have discussed above in the table ofInfo About Chess Piecesone-by-one.

How To Move The King

The King is considered as the most important piece in Chess but is the weakest chess piece.

You can see the movement of King that I have described In the Image below and could learn from it.

The King can move only one square, whether it is forward, backward, sideways, or in the diagonal direction.

The main weakness of the King is that it can not move to the square which is attacked by any other opponent pieces.

It is the major weakness of the king that in the check, the king has to be saved, the Player can not move anything else leaving the king in danger.

Now you may wonder to know about what is the check. The Check is a condition in which the King in the Chess is attacked.

There are three ways to protecting your king from check.

1. Move the king to a safe square.
2. Capture the threatening piece.
3. Block the path of check between the threatening piece and the king.

How To Move The Queen

The Queen is considered as the most powerful piece in the Game of Chess, due to its range of movement.

Let’s Learn how to play Chess queen in the game and also how to use it in winning the game.

You can see the movement of queen that I have described In the Image below:

The Queen can move in any direction, whether – straight, backward, sideways, or diagonally as the king but can move as far as possible { i.e. as far as the complete diagonal from a1 to h8 } as long as she reaches its pieces.

As per the Reinfeld values, the Queen has a total of 9 value points.

How To Move The Rook

Let’s Learn how to move the rook in the game and also how to use it in winning the game.

The Rook can move as far as possible but can move only in the forward, backward, or in the sideways directions.

You can see the movement of Rook that I have described In the Image below:

The Rooks are especially powerful pieces when they are protecting each other and working together in the same files (doubling the rooks on the same files} or in the same ranks (attacking the two files at the same time).

These rooks work well in the open files which make the decisive attack and help to destroy the opponent camp. As per the Reinfeld values, the Rook has a total of 5 value points.

How To Move The Bishop

The bishop can move as far as possible but can move only diagonally. In the game of chess, each bishop starts on a specific color (light or dark color) and also stays on that color even at the end of the game.

You can see the movement of queen that I have described In the Image below, and can learn from it.

These Bishops work well in the pair when they cover the two adjacent diagonals and create a massive attack by covering each other’s weakness.

The Bishop is considered as the best attacking piece for sacrifice due to their high range of mobility and can create a crucial weakness in the opponent’s camp.

The Bishops worked well in the open position, while they became dead in the closed positions on the chessboard.

As per the Reinfeld values, the Bishop has a total of 3 value points.

How To Move The Knight

The knight has very restricted mobility, that’s why it is considered as the most adventurous chess piece and can become a very dangerous chess piece in many situations of the game.

This chess piece can move two squares in one direction, and then one additional move at the 90 degrees. It just forms the shape of the “L” character at the chessboard.

The knight has the special ability that it is the only chess piece that could move over the other chess pieces as it has to complete its total move that makes the L-shape on the chessboard.

Knights are opposite to the bishops in terms of their characteristics. As the Bishops work well in the open positions, the Knights play an outstanding role in the closed positions.

As per the Reinfeld values, the knight has a total of 3 value points.

How To Move The Pawn

Pawn are considered as the weakest piece in chess. The pawn can only move up to only one square. However, they can move two squares forward if at their initial position (i,e, when the particular pawn hasn’t been moved yet), the pawns can move up to two squares.

Pawns can capture only one square diagonally in front of it. But there is a restriction to the pawns in chess that they can not move backward, nor they could capture the square behind it. This becomes the weakest point for the pawn that if any piece is to be put on the square just in front of it, the pawn becomes dead virtually, as it can not move forward, nor it could capture that piece.

As per the Reinfeld values, the Pawn has a total of 1 value point.

How To Promote A Pawn

Pawns have a unique ability that enabled them to be promoted to any of the other piece if they reach the back rank, except for a king. This is known as pawn promotion. It means that if any of our pawns reach to the opposite side of the chessboard (i.e. 8th rank for the white or 1st rank for the black) then the pawn can take place of any of the pieces (except the pawn itself and the king), and is said to have been promoted.

Only a pawn could be promoted to be any of the chess pieces of its color.

But there is a misconception existing in our chess society that it could be promoted to the exchanged piece and can have as many specific pieces as possible (maximum 10, as the Rook, Bishop, and Knights could be of that quantity).

There is a major misconception and a strong as well as the strange belief in the chess society (mainly in the beginners) that the pawn would be changed to the piece that acquires that particular square at the initial position (i.e., the white pawn reaches on the a8 square would be promoted to the Rook, as this square is acquired by the Black rook at the initial position).

The Pawn can be promoted to the desired piece at any of the least-squares.

Usually, the strongest piece is to be promoted, depending on the particular situation.

Special Moves in Chess

While learning the chess game, the beginning chess players quickly learn to play the fundamental moves of all the chess pieces and the capturing moves that we had discussed earlier in the second step.

But that’s all. There are a few special chess moves or chess rules that are also considered as an exception and also different from the basic chess moves. Even these moves violate the fundamentals of chess.

Sometimes, we are even forced to say that “Hey!, What’s The Nonsense”. But whatever they are, they make the chess game more fun and interesting in the real sense.

So let’s discuss these special chess moves one-by-one.

Castling

Castling is chess is a special move where a rook and the king both move to different squares, depending on whether the player is castling kingside or queenside, for the purpose of protecting the king. A player can only castle once in the game and neither the rook nor the king must not be moved ever before in that game.

In the castling, the king can move the two squares towards the rook.

This special move could be considered as one of the best defensive options in the crucial moment of the chess game.

To enable the option of castling, there are certain requirements or the conditions that have to be met at first. These requirements are as follows.

• The king must not be moved in that particular game ever before, it must be king’s first move
• The Rook must not be moved in that particular game ever before, it must be rook’s first move
• If one of both the pieces were moved ever before, then the castling is not possible.
• All the squares between both the pieces (king and the rook) must be empty.

That’s all we have discussed here how to do castling in chess.

This how you could learn how to play castling in chess and could clear all your doubts from your mind regarding how to play chess.

En Passant

Another special move called En Passant, is one you may have not seen before. It’s one of the boldest moves in the game.

This is very important segment of how to play chess and in mastering the chess game.

The en passant moves violate the basics of chess principles and laws and also based on its own chess rules and principle and are widely used chess rules in the chess world.

In this chess move, when the opponent’s pawn placed the file adjacent to our pawn moves the two squares at first, then our pawn that is in the 5th or 4th rank for white and black respectively.

Then the en passant move is played, in which our pawn captures that pawn in the square behind the square of the opponent’s pawn { i,e,. The pawn on the a7 square moves to the a5 square and our pawn is on the b5 square at that time then our pawn can capture that pawn on the a6 square }.

But there is also a restriction that the en passant move could be done only the next move, otherwise, the player could no longer perform that move to that pawn in the rest of the game.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

In this guide, we went over all of the fundamental basics on how to play chess.

I hope this chess guide helped you to understand how to play chess, and the basic chess moves. If you want to read other chess guides, the most helpful guides would be how to get better at chess and how to stop blundering.

If we didn’t include a topic here and think we should include it, let us know by submitting your thoughts to the suggestion form and we’ll add it into the guide.