You start out with eight of these so it's worth knowing how they move! Pawns can only move forwards in a straight line. For each pawn's first move they can move two squares forwards (without jumping over anything) from then on they can only move one square at a time. Of course if you only want to move your pawn one square on its first move you can do that instead. Pawns take opponent's pieces by moving forwards diagonally one square to either left or right.
Pawn Promotion
Because pawns can only move forward they would be useless once they got to the other side. This is where pawn promotion comes in. As soon as your pawn reaches the other side of the board you must replace it with a new piece! You can choose any piece apart from a pawn or a king. Almost always people choose to promote to a queen.
Note: contrary to what some people think you can still promote to a queen even if you already have one queen on the board (giving you two queens).
Knights (horses)
Knights can be quite tricky to get to grips with being animals they are unpredictable and can be difficult to keep under control! Knights are the only piece which can jump over other pieces. Knights move in an L shape by moving two squares in any direction (other than diagonally) before stepping one square to the side.
Note: knights can cover a large area around them so it's best to avoid having them on the side of the board where only half of their potential is usable. Here instead of covering eight squares your knight only covers four.
Bishops
Bishops (sit between the knights and the king/queen) can move only diagonally. However they can move any number of squares and can be very mobile. One bishop starts on a black square and one on a white and due to the way they move they will stay on their own colour throughout the game.
It is normal for bishops to be placed somewhere where they cover one of the long diagonals across the middle of the board.
Rooks (castles)
Rooks are one of the simplest pieces to understand yet one of the most powerful. They can move any number of squares in either a horizontal or vertical direction.
Queens
The queen is the most powerful piece you have so make sure you look after it! If you do lose it make sure that you will take your opponent's queen as a result.
The queen combines the moves of the rook and bishop. I.e. moving any number of squares in either a diagonal, horizontal or vertical direction.
Kings
Yes the king is a liability! However in an end game the king becomes a very effective offensive piece. It is after all the only piece apart from the queen which can move in diagonal, horizontal and vertical directions. The difference is that it can only move one square at a time.
Now that you have a general idea of the object of the game and the pieces involved, the next step is to learn how to move these pieces around the chess board. Learning how to move the chess pieces is actually not very difficult. Learning how to move them strategically is another thing altogether. Strategic movement will be covered in another article. For now we'll just concern ourselves with moving them legally.
Starting with the lowest ranked piece and moving up, we have the pawn. Pawn's move one square at a time with one exception. On the first move for each individual pawn, that piece may move 2 squares. After its first move it can only move one square at a time. Pawns have a special ability that no other piece has. If it should happen to make its way to the other end of the board it can be promoted to any piece that the player chooses. Sometimes being just a pawn ahead can mean the difference between winning and losing.
One of the strangest moving pieces in the game of chess is the knight. The knight is the only piece in the game that doesn't move in a straight line in some direction. The knights moves are in what they call an L shape. The movement is a total of 3 squares, which can either be 2 squares to the left, right, front or back and 1 square either left or right or front or back afterwards, or 1 square to the left, right, front or back and 2 squares either left or right or front or back. One thing the knight cannot do is retrace its steps. If it goes 2 squares forward it cannot then go 1 square back. Also, the knight cannot go 3 squares in one straight direction. After moving its first 2 squares it must then turn either left or right, if moving forward or backward, or it must go forward or backward if it moved to the right or left. If it sounds confusing, don't worry. You'll get the hang of it fast.
The bishop is easy to follow. Bishops move on diagonals. One bishop starts on the red squares and the other bishop starts on the black squares. So whichever color the bishop starts on, it must stay on that color for the entire game. Bishops can move any number of squares in a turn as long as they don't run off the board.
Rooks are also very easy to follow. Rooks move either forward or backward or left or right. Rooks can also move any number of spaces. The only way a rook can't move is diagonally. Rooks also have a special move with the king which is called castling. Rooks, which are placed at the far left and right of the board in the rear row (we'll go over piece placement later) can move in conjunction with the king to castle provided that the king and the rook you want to move has not already been moved in the game and there are no pieces between them. To easily remember how to castle, simply do the following. To castle king side, move the king all the to the left of the rook on the king side and then place the rook to the left of the king after you have moved the king. To castle queen side, you move the king 2 squares to the left and then move the rook to the right of the king that you just moved.
The final piece is the queen. The queen can move diagonally like the bishops or forward and backward or right and left like the rooks. In other words, the queen can move any way possible except in a knight movement. Queens are the most powerful piece in the game as these moves should show.
Now that you know how the pieces move it's time to get into more advanced instruction. That's coming in our next instalment.
Both Laurie Heynes & Michael Russell are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Laurie Heynes has sinced written about articles on various topics from Family, Interest. Laurie Heynes is a keen chess player and designer living in the UK. You can see Laurie's newest chess T-shirt designs in his online shop: