How to Play Chess?

The Goal

The goal of chess is to checkmate the opponent's king: the king is attacked and no move can save it. The game is played on an 8x8 board with 16 pieces per player.

How the pieces move

• Pawn: moves one square forward (optionally two on its first move), captures diagonally.
• Rook: moves any number of squares horizontally or vertically.
• Bishop: moves any number of squares diagonally.
• Queen: moves any number of squares in any straight direction.
• Knight: moves in an L shape and can jump over pieces.
• King: moves one square in any direction.

Special moves

• Castling: king and rook move together; the king moves two squares toward the rook and the rook jumps beside it. The path must be clear and the king may not pass through check.
• En passant: when an enemy pawn advances two squares beside yours, you may capture it diagonally on the very next move.
• Promotion: a pawn reaching the last rank becomes a queen, rook, bishop or knight.

How does a game end?

By checkmate, resignation, timeout or a draw: stalemate (no legal move but no check), threefold repetition, the 50-move rule or insufficient material.

Start playing on Matevora

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