Gameplay

When a game of chess begins, one player has been assigned the sixteen black pieces while the other has the white pieces. The colours are chosen either by a friendly agreement or by a tournament director. White always moves first and has a slight advantage over black. The pieces should be set up on a standard chessboard with a white square in the bottom right hand corner.

Each chess piece moves a different way.

• The rook moves along horizontal and vertical lines.
• The bishop moves in diagonal lines of the same colour.
• The queen is a combination of the rook and bishop (it can move diagonally, horizontally and vertically).
• The knight can jump over occupied squares and moves in an L shape.
• Pawns can move forward just one square at a time (they can move two squares if they haven't moved off their starting square). Pawns are unusual because they attack diagonally and not in the direction of movement.
• The King is the most important piece, yet it can only move to an adjacent square.

When a piece is captured (or taken) the attacking piece moves towards and replaces the enemy piece on its square (en passant being the only exception). The king cannot be captured in regular chess, because if a king is under attack (known as check) then the player must move the king out of check. If a player is unable to get their king out of check it is called checkmate and the game is over.

Chess games do not have to end in checkmate. Often at the higher levels chess games end in a draw (tie). A draw can occur under many situations including: mutual agreement to draw, stalemate, threefold repetition or the fifty move rule.