Chess is a strategic board game in which two players take turns moving their pieces across a board made up of 64 squares. Pieces are moved according to specific rules, with each type of piece moving in different ways. Chess is one of the oldest and most popular games in the world and many people have played it for hundreds of years. The rules for chess can be learned quickly but mastering them takes much longer!
Pawns
A pawn moves forward one square, except for its first move where it can actually move forward two squares. If there is an opponent’s piece diagonally in front of it can capture that piece by moving to the square that the piece occupies. Pawns are the least valuable pieces on a chessboard as they cannot move backwards and only capture diagonally forward or horizontally backward (but not vertically).
King
The king moves one square in any direction. The special move of castling means that you move the king two spaces towards a bishop and then placing the rook on the other side of the king. You can only castle if neither your king or bishop has moved, there are no pieces between them and they are not under attack by an opponents piece.
Knight
The knight moves in a very unusual L shaped pattern. The pattern consists of two squares horizontally or two squares vertically and then one more square either vertically or horizontally from there. Knights have the ability to jump over pieces which makes them more mobile in a crowded board than other pieces.
Queen
The queen is the most powerful piece in chess and can move any number of squares along a row, column, or diagonal.
You may have figured out by now that the queen is worth nine points. It can move any number of squares along a row, column, or diagonal. It is crucial to save your queen for as long as possible as it is a piece that will be most beneficial in capturing other queens and kings.
Bishop
A bishop can move any number of squares along a diagonal line but cannot move past other pieces. Each player begins with one bishop which starts on either light or dark colored square depending upon whether it is white or black playing first
The bishops are sometimes also called the “elephants” because they look like an elephant trunk. Bishops can only move in one direction, diagonally and may not jump over other pieces as they do so. Bishops are limited to a maximum of eight squares per turn.