Every rule you need to know — board setup, piece movement, special rules, and how games end.
Chess is played on an 8×8 board with 64 squares. Each player controls 16 pieces. The goal is to checkmate the opponent's king — putting it in a position where it's under attack and can't escape.
Place the board so each player has a light-colored square in the bottom-right corner. The first row (closest to you) holds your back-rank pieces; the second row holds your pawns. Standard order left to right: rook, knight, bishop, queen, king, bishop, knight, rook. The queen always starts on her own color.
Each piece has a distinct movement pattern. Pawns advance one square (or two on their first move) and capture diagonally. Knights move in an L-shape and can jump over other pieces. Bishops move diagonally. Rooks move horizontally and vertically. Queens combine rook and bishop movement. Kings move one square in any direction.
Castling: once per game, the king moves two squares toward a rook, and that rook jumps to the square the king passed over. En passant: a pawn that moves two squares can be captured as if it had moved only one, but only on the very next move. Promotion: a pawn reaching the 8th rank is replaced with a queen, rook, bishop, or knight (usually a queen).
Check is when the king is under attack — the player must respond by moving the king, blocking the attack, or capturing the attacker. Checkmate is check with no escape — the game ends. Stalemate is when a player has no legal moves but is NOT in check — the game is a draw.