How to play Chess

What chess is

Chess is a game for two players on a board of 64 squares. Each side starts with sixteen pieces: a king, a queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns. White moves first, then the players take turns. You win by checkmating the other king: attacking it so that it cannot escape. There is no luck at all.

Playing chess on AllFun

AllFun Chess has six computer levels, from Beginner, who grabs free pieces, through Novice, Casual, Club and Expert to Master, who thinks hard about every move. Play White, Black or let the game pick; your results move a personal rating, so you can watch yourself improve.

Choose 2 Players to play a friend on the same phone or tablet. Play Online finds an opponent for you, and Play a friend gives you a room code to share. Online, each move has a 60-second clock; if it runs out, a legal move is played for you.

Tap a piece to see dots on every square it can reach, then tap a dot, or drag the piece there; a mouse works the same way. Hint, Undo, Draw and Resign sit under the board. The Daily puzzle gives everyone the same position each day: find the checkmate in the number of moves it says.

The rules in full

How the pieces move

• King: one square in any direction.
• Queen: any number of squares in a straight line or on a diagonal.
• Rook: any number of squares along a row or a column.
• Bishop: any number of squares on a diagonal, so it stays on one colour.
• Knight: an L shape, two squares one way and one to the side, jumping over anything in between.
• Pawn: one square straight forward, or two on its first move. It captures one square diagonally forward.

A piece captures by moving onto an enemy piece's square.

Check, checkmate and stalemate

A king under attack is in check, and its player must get out of it at once: move the king, block the attack, or capture the attacker. If none of these works, it is checkmate and the game is over. If the player to move is not in check but has no legal move at all, it is stalemate, and the game is a draw.

Three special moves

• Castling: once a game, if the king and a rook have never moved and the squares between them are empty, the king steps two squares toward the rook and the rook jumps to the other side of it. You cannot castle out of check, through an attacked square or into check.
• En passant: when a pawn moves two squares and lands beside an enemy pawn, that pawn may capture it as if it had moved only one, but only on the very next move.
• Promotion: a pawn that reaches the far row becomes a queen, rook, bishop or knight. Almost always a queen; AllFun's Auto-queen setting does it for you.

Draws

Besides stalemate, a game is drawn when the same position comes up three times, when both sides make fifty moves each with no capture and no pawn move, when too little is left on the board for anyone to checkmate, or when both players agree.

Five tips that win games

1. Fight for the centre. Pieces on the middle four squares control more of the board.
2. Develop, then castle. Bring knights and bishops out before moving the same piece twice, and castle early to tuck your king away.
3. Check every capture. Before each move, ask what your opponent's last move attacks, and whether any of your pieces is left undefended.
4. Count the trade. As a rough guide a pawn is worth 1, a knight or bishop 3, a rook 5 and a queen 9. Trade when you get more than you give.
5. Use the daily puzzle. Mate puzzles teach the patterns that finish games.

A short history

Chess grew from an older game of war played some fifteen hundred years ago, and spread along trade routes to the Middle East and on to Europe. Around the end of the fifteenth century the queen and the bishop gained their long moves, the game became much faster, and modern chess was born.

Chess FAQ