Correct setup of chess board

In chess, the player with the white pieces always moves first. You can decide who plays White and who plays Black through any method of chance. One way is to hide a white pawn in one hand behind your back and have your opponent choose.

If you want to get a game going, there is a chessboard already set up for you at Chess. Updated: Dec 10, , AM. Lay out the light square in the bottom-right corner Set up the pawns on the second rank Put your rooks in the corners Place your knights next to the rooks Bishops go next to knights Queen goes on her color Place your king in the last square available Don't forget, white moves first!

Step 1: Lay out t he board with the light square in the bottom-right corner. Step 3: Put your rooks in the corners. Step 4: Place your knights next to your rooks. The knights, which look like horses, go just to the right and left of the rooks.

Knights move three squares in an "L" shape, first two spaces in one direction, then one space in another, or first one space in one direction, then two in another. Knights can hop over pieces to make their moves, being the only pieces allowed to do so.

Place the bishops to the inside of the knights. The tall, round-topped bishops start next to the knights. Bishops move only along diagonal lines. The left bishop will start on a dark square and always remain on dark.

The right bishop starts on a light square and always remains on light. Place the queen on the remaining, matching-color square. If you are the white side, your queen goes on the remaining white square in the middle of the first rank. If you are playing black, your queen goes on the remaining black square. The queen is one of the tallest pieces in the game and has a spiked crown. She can move horizontally, vertically, or diagonally any number of spaces, making her the most powerful piece on the board.

Place the king on the last open square of the first rank. The king is usually the tallest piece on the board and appears to wear a rounded crown often topped with a cross. The king can move in any direction but only one space at a time. You use the rest of your pieces to protect your king. If you lose your king, you lose the game. Place the pawns along the second rank.

After you've put your major pieces on the first rank, line up the lowly pawns like a protective wall on the second rank. Pawns move forward one space at a time, but they can make a variety of special moves, too.

Once both players place their pieces like shown above, they're ready to play. Review your pieces. Part 2. Win the game by "checkmating" your opponent's king. This occurs when the king cannot escape check no matter what. By contrast, your opponent's king is merely "in check" if you could capture him on your next move but the opponent has a means of escaping.

A player must immediately move their king out of check if it's possible to do so. Once it's apparent that a king cannot avoid being captured on the next move, checkmate is immediately declared, and the game is over. Some players like to say "check" when they make a move that puts the opponent's king in immediate danger. You may not place your own king in check. Such a move is considered "illegal" and must be immediately rescinded.

Capture the opponent's pieces to remove them from the game. If one of your pieces makes a move that ends on a square already occupied by an opponent's piece, you "capture" that piece and remove it from the game. Your piece then takes the captured piece's place on that square. You cannot capture your own pieces or occupy any square with more than one piece. In other words, you cannot move a piece through or to a square already occupied by one of your pieces—with the exception of your knights.

They may move over any other piece but may not end a move on a square already occupied by one of your pieces. With the exception of the pawn , you can capture pieces only with a "normal" move. For example, rooks can capture only with vertical or horizontal moves. You cannot move over a piece to capture another one. If your piece "hits" another piece during its movement, it stops, captures the piece, and stays on that square. The knight is the only exception to this, as it takes a piece only when it ends a move by landing on that piece's square.

Begin with White. White always makes the first move, and the players alternate after that. For players of equal ability, there is a slight advantage to going first. Each turn consists of one player moving one piece. They cannot skip a turn simply because they don't know where to move. If a player has no legal moves and is not in check, the game is a stalemate see below.

The only exception to the "move one piece" rule is called "castling," which allows a player to move two pieces at once in a specific pattern to protect the king. See below for more on castling.

Watch out for stalemate. A game can end in a tie "draw". Stalemate occurs when neither king is in check and the next player to move has no legal move available. If you are in an advantageous position, you would want to avoid stalemate. The opposite is true if you are in a weak position and would love to force a draw.

Stalemate typically may occur when there are only a few pieces left such as pawns blocked by other pawns, and kings that can't move without putting themselves in check. Remember that you can never put yourself in check. Thus, if it's your turn to move and your only available move would put your king in check, the game is over, and a stalemate is declared.

Stalemate does not occur if either king is currently in check. Part 3. Move pawns one space forward. That is usually all they can do, so they're not very useful. However, in certain circumstances, they become quite effective: If your pawn gets all the way to the first rank for White or eighth rank for Black , you can '"promote"' the pawn to any piece other than the king or pawn.

That means that a pawn that has advanced very far along its file becomes quite powerful. Players typically promote to a queen but may promote to another piece to avoid stalemate or use the knight's move promoting to a piece other than the queen is called "underpromotion". In its very first move, a pawn may but does not have to move two spaces forward instead of one. A pawn can capture a piece that is diagonally one square in front of it. It cannot capture an otherwise adjacent piece.

En passant , or "capture in passing", can occur when the opponent moves their pawn two spaces ahead to avoid moving into your pawn's capture position forward-diagonally adjacent. If this happens, only on your very next turn you can move your pawn diagonally into the space they skipped and take that pawn anyway. Move rooks an unlimited number of spaces vertically or horizontally. Rooks move in straight lines forward, backward, or sideways.

They can cross as many vacant squares as they want but must stop if they come to another piece or, of course, the edge of the board. If an enemy piece is in the way, the rook must stop before the piece or capture it. If it's your own piece, it must stop before it comes to that square. Move knights in an "L"-shape. Knights have the most distinctive movement in the game: they "hop" three times, first two spaces in one direction and then one space in a perpendicular direction, or first one space in any direction and then two spaces perpendicularly.

They capture a piece only by finishing their move on a square occupied by an enemy piece. They cannot finish on a square already occupied by a piece of their own color. Move bishops any number of spaces diagonally. I always think this looks really smart and tidy!

Pawns are the least valuable and considered a minor piece on the board but have a more varied movement than you think at first. Once you have completed this guide to get the board set up correctly, find out how a pawn moves in the guide to chess moves. Still calling it a castle? You have two rooks, and they go, one each in the corners on the first rank Back row. The Rooks are primary pieces and can move any number of places on the horizontal squares or vertical squares.

Much like the rooks are often called castles, the knights might also be referred to as horses!! The Knights sit on the inside of the Rooks. Take a look at the guide to how chess pieces move for a full guide on the more unique fashion in which a knight, a complicated piece, can move around the board. They are easily identifiable even after they have moved from their starting squares as they will sit one on white, and the other on black.

Because they move only diagonally , they can never change the color of the square on which they sit, so you always know which is which. You know have only two squares left, side by side, and this is where the King and the Queen will reside. Light-colored queen on a light-colored square, black queen on a black square. The Queen is the most powerful piece in chess. There is only one square left on each side of the board now, and this is where the Kings start the game.

They should have a queen on one side and a bishop on the other. There is no documentation or record as to any reasoning why white should always go first in chess, indeed white pieces were originally red.

White going first became standard over time and helps with notation and record of moves today. These questions are answered in depth above, but for a quick answer, these are the most popular questions asked about setting up a chess board.

The queen is positioned four squares in from the left side of the board between the Queens Bishop and the King.