The bishop may move as far as it wants, but only diagonally. Each bishop starts on one color (light or dark) and must always stay on that color. This means that the knight can always move to the closest square that is not on its current row (rank), column (file) or directly adjacent diagonally.

The king is the most important piece, but is one of the weakest. The king can only move one square in any direction - up, down, to the sides, and diagonally.

Castling involves a player moving the king piece two squares towards the rook with which they are castling, before moving the rook to the square that the king moved ‘through’. This effectively puts the rook adjacent on the other side of the king, while the king moves two squares towards the space in which the rook started the game. Regardless of whether castling is performed with the rook closer to the king (kingside) or one square further away (queenside), the king only ever moves two spaces. Knights: Move 2 squares horizontally or vertically, then 1 square to the right or left of that second square. Knights are the only pieces that jump over other pieces and only capture an opponent's piece if it's on the final square of the move. It's never too late to learn how to play chess—the most popular game in the world! Learning the rules of chess is easy: The different chess pieces, from left to right: pawn, rook, knight, bishop, queen, king. | Image credit: Agzam/Pixabay How to move chess pieces Knights move in a very different way from the other pieces – going two squares in one direction, and then one more move at a 90-degree angle, just like the shape of an “L”.

Each of the 6 different kinds of pieces moves differently. Pieces cannot move through other pieces (though the knight can jump over other pieces), and can never move onto a square with one of their own pieces. However, they can be moved to take the place of an opponent's piece which is then captured. Pieces are generally moved into positions where they can capture other pieces (by landing on their square and then replacing them), defend their own pieces in case of capture, or control important squares in the game. How to Move the King in Chess Rooks: Go as many squares as possible horizontally or vertically. If one of your pieces is in the way, the rook has to stop at the square just before. If one of your opponent's pieces is in the way, capture it with your rook and stop there. Take note of the special moves that pawns, rooks, and kings can make. These moves aren't anything you really need to worry about during your first few games, but you want to at least know they exist. As your play advances and you get more comfortable, you'll find that you use them more and more. [4] X Research source The most important thing you can do to get better at chess is to play lots of chess! It doesn't matter if you play at home with friends or family, or play online, you have to play the game a lot to improve. These days it's easy to find a game of chess online!Chess960: In Chess960 (Fischer Random), the initial position of the pieces is set at random. Pawns keep their normal initial position but the rest of the pieces are arranged randomly. Have fun— Don't get discouraged if you don't win all of your games right away. Everyone loses – even world champions. As long as you continue to have fun and learn from the games you lose then you can enjoy chess forever! Each square has a coordinate and each piece is represented by an initial (N for knight, B for bishop, Q for queen, R for rook, and K for king). En passant - French for ‘in passing’ - is one of the most famous moves in chess. En passant occurs when a pawn moves two squares forward as the result of its optional starting move. Players’ pieces are set up in the two horizontal rows (known as ranks) closest to each player. The second rank - ie. the second row from the player’s perspective - consists of a line of eight pawns, each placed on a single square.

Maybe all this information can overwhelm you a little bit. That is why we put at your disposal these frequent questions that usually occur in those people who are beginning to enter the world of chess. We hope they're useful to you!While most casual players use captured pieces to represent promoted pieces, a pawn can legally be promoted to any piece regardless of whether it has been captured. For example, a player may have multiple queens as the result of promoting pawns, or multiple bishops able to move along diagonal lines of the same colour depending on the square on which the pawn was promoted.