If you've never played chess before, this guide is the perfect place to start. In 5 steps, you'll get to know the board, learn how each piece moves, discover the special moves, understand what checkmate is, and walk away with a practical path to start playing today — right in your browser, with nothing to download.
Chess is played on a square board of 8 by 8 squares, making 64 squares in total that alternate between light and dark. Each player starts with 16 pieces: 8 pawns on the second rank and, behind them on the first rank, a rook in each corner, then a knight, a bishop, the queen, and the king (in that order).
A simple rule for setting up the board: the square in each player's right-hand corner must be white (light). And the queen always starts on a square of her own color — white queen on a white square, black queen on a black square.
The horizontal lines are called ranks (numbered 1 to 8) and the vertical lines are called files (letters A to H). This system lets you describe any move precisely: "pawn to E4" means moving the pawn to file E, rank 4.
The player with the white pieces always moves first. After that, the players alternate, one move at a time.
This is the heart of chess. Don't skip this part — understanding how each piece moves is half the battle when it comes to playing well.
Moves one square forward. On its first move, it can advance two squares (your choice). It captures diagonally, one square forward. The pawn is the only piece that moves differently from how it captures.
Fun fact: if a pawn reaches the last rank of the board, it is promoted to any other piece (almost always a queen).Moves in a straight line, horizontally or vertically, as many squares as you like. It cannot jump over other pieces. It captures the same way it moves.
Tip: rooks become very powerful on open files (with no pawns in the way).Moves diagonally, as many squares as you like. Each bishop is stuck on the color of the square it started on: the one that begins on a light square only travels on light squares, and vice versa.
That's why having the bishop pair (controlling both colors) is considered a small advantage.The most powerful piece in the game. She combines the rook's and the bishop's moves: she travels in a straight line or diagonally, as many squares as you like, in any direction.
She's worth roughly 9 points. Losing your queen early often decides the game.Moves in an "L" shape: two squares in one direction and one more at a right angle (or the other way around). It is the only piece in the game that jumps over other pieces.
The knight is a master of the "fork": double attacks where two enemy pieces are threatened at the same time.Moves one square in any direction. It cannot move to a square attacked by an enemy piece. The king is the most important piece — if it falls, you lose.
Protect the king with castling (see the next section). In the endgame, the king becomes an active piece.Castling is a move that shifts the king and one of the rooks at the same time. It serves to bring the king to safety and activate the rook. There are two types: kingside castling (the king's side) and queenside castling (the queen's side).
To castle, three conditions must all be true:
If an enemy pawn advances two squares on its first move and ends up next to your pawn, you can capture it on the very next move, as if it had advanced only one square. It's a rule a lot of people never learn.
When your pawn reaches the last rank of the board, it is promoted to another piece of your choice (queen, rook, bishop, or knight). In practice, players almost always choose the queen, since it's the strongest piece. Thanks to promotion, you can even have more than one queen on the board.
When the king is under direct attack from an enemy piece, we say it is in check. You are required to get out of check immediately. There are three ways to do it:
If the king is in check and none of the three options above is possible, it's checkmate. The game is over. Whoever delivered the checkmate wins.
Checkmate is the ultimate goal of chess. It doesn't matter how many pieces each side has: being a queen up is worth nothing if you can't deliver checkmate.
Not every game ends with a winner. There are several ways to draw:
Learning the rules is just the beginning. Chess is a game you get better at through practice. Here are a few suggestions for your first few months:
Use our Apprentice mode, with 12 interactive lessons that teach every piece and every concept hands-on. No sign-up. No installation. Right in your browser.
▶ Play nowOnce you're comfortable with the rules, it's worth getting to know:
We'll be publishing dedicated guides on each of these topics soon, right here in /en/learn. If you'd like to catch the next ones, bookmark the site and come back often.