How to Play Chess.

Intro: How to Play Chess.

This is for all those people who have lost their rules sheet (there wasn't any in our first chess set) or just haven't learnt how to play and really want to learn now.

So you have (or need):
One chess board, this has 8squares by 8squares, the bottom right corner should be white, (etiquette)
32 "Chessmen" these fellows are your army, instead of the classics "red v blue" it's black v white, there are 16 white and 16 black chessmen.

Please note: All chess sets differ in some ways, especially the decorations of the pieces, but they usually share the same "shape".


Co-collaborater latobada and Burning Questions group.

STEP 1: The Battlefield.

The chessboard is really a battlefield for the chessmen, and the chessmen your army (mentioned earlier)

Your chessboard is a standard black & white squared board with places for all the chessmen,
It is standard that the bottom right corner is a white square.

STEP 2: Pawns.

I will start off with all the chess pieces and their possibilities of attack (moves), Also I will compare like piece to like piece, but any chess piece can attack (take) any other chess piece so long as it is a different colour! So starting off the the least valued piece, The Pawn.

The Pawn is like a foot soldier, he is at the front line and "cannot retreat", they can only move forwards! The Pawn line the front, so there is eight of them, they are usually moved first.

Moves of the Pawn. They are allowed to move two squares to the front of them only if they are still at the starting point, after that they crawl forward one square at a time! (Please view the second picture for an example)

Attacking, Pawns can only attack to to the front as long as it is diagonal, (view third picture)

There is one other thing about the pawn but it is more advanced and will be mentioned later.

STEP 3: Rook or Castle

The moves of a Rook/Castle.
The Rook, (it is also called a Castle but I will be calling it a Rook for now) can only move in straight lines up and down and left and right across the battlefield. The Rook is located in the corners of the board.

The second picture shows available moves of a Rook.

STEP 4: Knight.

The moves of the Knight. the knight can "jump" over other chess pieces, that is he can move first too as it doesn't matter if any pieces are in the way.

The knight can only move in an "L" shape, that is, 2 squares for the "I" (long part of the "L" and 1 squares for the "_" part.

STEP 5: Bishop

The moves of a Bishop.

The Bishop is for diagonal attack only! it can only move diagonal backwards and forwards! The set up for a Bishop is designed so that you have one on a black square and one on a white square, so if you play correctly they will stay that way.

STEP 6: The King

The King is the piece that needs to be protected against being "checked/checkmate'd"

The King is not meant to be an attacking piece, it is more the object of the game, you have to capture you opponants king (more on this in a later step)

The moves of the king is only one square at a time, and must not be in attacking range of any of your opponants pieces! the King can move on any square alsong as it is in these two conditions,

1, it doesn't put him in check
2, he can only go one square at a time.

STEP 7: The Queen

The Queen is the Queen of all the players, she can move all the moves of the chees pieces except the Knight so basically she is a Rook and Bishop rolled into one, she can also stop on any colour square (black or white).
The Queen has the highest value out of all the pieces, which also causes the players not wanting to use her to fight, but as long as you think carefully about your moves she should be safe, everyone makes mistakes and there will be times when your queen is taken, but the battle can still be won without a queen!

STEP 8: The Object of Playing.

So now you should be familiar with all the pieces and their moves the next thing is the object/mission, and tactics.

The Mission/Object of the game is to try and Checkmate the King, this is done by putting him in Check and other pieces so wherever he moves he will be in check, so when he cannot move and is in check it is checkmate.

To clear thing up, a king can never be "taken" he will always be on the board (sort of like immortal) whereas all the other pieces can be "taken". Taken, meaning when one piece (Black) wants to move onto a square which a White piece is on, The Black "attacks" the white so that the White piece is Taken off the board and put to the side, (in other words that piece is dead)

Check is when a king is in the line of attack of an opposite coloured piece, The piece can "take" his square, but remember nothing can take a king so the king has to move immediatly (on his turn naturally) but if he after moving is still in check and cannot move anywhere without being in check, that is checkmate and the colour that checkmated that king wins.

Stalemate, this is when there is only the king left on one side and has been surrounded by his opponants without being in check so the player cannot move, I believe this ends in a draw but I am open to stand corrected on that.

Also two Kings cannot go side by side, the must have 1 square between them! (pics 3&4)

STEP 9: Queening a Pawn.

A Pawn (the little foot soldier) can become a queen if it reaches the other end of the board! this is a very rare occurance but it can be done sometimes. So depending on how you play you can have two queens on one side.

Some people play it slightly differently, so that when a Pawn reached the other end it become the highest value piece that your opponant has "taken" from you, with...

Pawn =1 points*
Bishop =3 points
Knight =4 points
Rook/Castle =5 points
Queen =9 points
The king is "immortal" so isn't listed. (the king is captured not taken!)

*I am pretty sure I got this right, if not, please correct me.

STEP 10: Contributions

I encourage you to make any nessecary contributions to this Instructable, especially on tactics which I have not included.

Any Instructable member can "collaborate" (contribute) by adding themselves to the Burning Questions group as this is a shared Instructable in that group.

Have fun playing chess!!

Comments

[Zovits]

I think according to the official rules the pawn can turn into any piece in the game with the exception of the king and the pawn.
So this way one could have two or more queens or three or more rooks, knights or bishops.

[godofal]

you should go further, with basic openings (the golden rules  and such) simple tactics (forks, double attacks) and most used check-mate positions, and something about winning the endgame and stuff like that.

alot of ppl already know this rule, but get beaten everytime just becouse they gotta think of all this on theyr own, while reading about it can improve ur game ALOT

otherwise, nice instructable.

btw, maybe il do something like that whas i listed above as an instructable, when i have  the time and a nice board to demonstrate  (we have crappy boards, but i dont care  since they work XD)

[killarowa]

Whoa, not many comments for Chess?--But yes, you did forget to mention "Castling" as a move.... when the king can move two spaces through his rook or (castle) on either the King or Queen side--As long as neither King or Rook piece has moved, King is not in check, and there are no other pieces between them (like a Knight or Bishop)

[blksheep]

Did you mention castling? Did I miss it in the steps?

[grimsqueaker]

Nice Instructable! But if step 8 - if your king is in check, you dont' necessarily have to move your king, correct? If you could move another piece fo 'block' the attack, protecting your king, you can do that?

[ll.13]

Yes, aslong as it isn't in check by any other piece.

[omnibot]

The king, that is, must not be in check by another piece. The piece moved can be threatened any old how.

[lemonie]

Pretty good. L

[mrmath]

The more advanced pawn move really isn't all that advanced. It works like this. If you move your pawn out to your fifth row, it is ready to take your opponent's pawns in the adjacent colunms if they move only one step forward on their first move. If they move two spaces, avoiding the capture, you can still capture them, moving your pawn as if they had only moved one space. It is called en passant.

[mrmath]

When a pawn reaches the end row, that pawn may become any piece, except a King, regardless of what is left on the board. It is the player's choice.

[Hugo.B]

Hang on Digby, allow me to collab. on that, it needs attention big time.

H.B.

[latobada]

comment, in mine, what i did, and think might work nicely here, is to have an intro to all teh pieces, and then explain each of their moves. ill show you mine in a sec.