Note: If you are looking for a description of how pawns and pieces move, or how to castle, setup the board, etc. then you should head on over to the Terms & Rules page.
There is a big difference between knowing the rules of chess and knowing how to play. If you had about a million trillion years to think about it, you could figure out the de facto best way to play chess simply based on the rules. Computer algorithms have gotten closer to this than any human ever has. But since you don't have that much processing power or time, the best you can do is to learn from the thoughts of other players and practice as much as you can.
Winning a game of chess
The way that you win a chess game is by putting your opponent's king in "mate," a threat to capture it that cannot be escaped on the opponent's next move. Alternatively, you also win if your opponent resigns. Given that many chess players can think a few moves (or more) forward into the game, resignation is not uncommon when the position is lost.
A note on courtesy: If your opponent has played a particularly beautiful game - or is close to a beautiful mate - it is considered good sportsmanship to play on even if you know there is no way to win or even draw. This is not a rule by any means, but it shows a great respect for the game in high-profile matches.
Drawing a game of chess
Perhaps even more important than winning a game of chess is drawing a game of chess. There are several ways a draw can occur in chess, and knowing each one is key to avoiding the draw if you are on the winning side, or forcing the draw if you would otherwise lose.
There is a big difference between knowing the rules of chess and knowing how to play. If you had about a million trillion years to think about it, you could figure out the de facto best way to play chess simply based on the rules. Computer algorithms have gotten closer to this than any human ever has. But since you don't have that much processing power or time, the best you can do is to learn from the thoughts of other players and practice as much as you can.
Winning a game of chess
The way that you win a chess game is by putting your opponent's king in "mate," a threat to capture it that cannot be escaped on the opponent's next move. Alternatively, you also win if your opponent resigns. Given that many chess players can think a few moves (or more) forward into the game, resignation is not uncommon when the position is lost.
A note on courtesy: If your opponent has played a particularly beautiful game - or is close to a beautiful mate - it is considered good sportsmanship to play on even if you know there is no way to win or even draw. This is not a rule by any means, but it shows a great respect for the game in high-profile matches.
Drawing a game of chess
Perhaps even more important than winning a game of chess is drawing a game of chess. There are several ways a draw can occur in chess, and knowing each one is key to avoiding the draw if you are on the winning side, or forcing the draw if you would otherwise lose.
Another note on courtesy: Some chess players dislike the idea of "forcing" a draw and instead believe one should always play for the win, even if it means risking a loss. This is a personal choice, and neither is considered good or bad sportsmanship, but it is worth noting that some players may be frustrated by their opponents' choices one way or the other.
One way that a draw can occur is intentionally. If both players agree to a draw (in tournament circumstances, this can be strategically beneficial for both players), then the game is a draw.
Another way to draw a game is if there appears to be no way for either player to win. There are several examples of piece combinations that will lead to this situation, e.g. both players having only their king left.
Circumstances where the players repeat a sequence of moves over and over can also lead to a draw. This sequence can be check or non-check moves, but often involves checks because checks are more likely to "force" the other player to make a certain move. The retired term for this is perpetual check, but a broader term for it is threefold repetition, i.e. if the exact same position occurs three times during a game with the same player to move, that is grounds to invoke a draw.
Speaking of repeating something ad nauseam, many tournament settings have a fifty-move rule that can be invoked to declare the game a draw if no captures or pawn moves have occurred in the last fifty moves of the game.
Finally, there is stalemate, the bane of all winning players that sequence the endgame incorrectly. Stalemate occurs when a player has no legal moves left, but their king is not in check. Even if the game could easily be won on the next move, since the active player cannot legally make any moves, the game is immediately a draw.
Controlling the center
One of the long-standing principles of good chess play is the value of controlling the center. How one controls the center is a matter of preference, but it is a fact that most pawns and pieces are stronger in the center. What does stronger mean? In its most simplified form, you can think of a piece's positional strength as the number of squares it exerts influence on (read: can move to/capture).
You can check out this video for a summary of the strength of different pieces from the center of the board. But take my word for it, every piece can move to more squares from the center (except rooks, which always see the same number of squares). However, seeing more squares also means being seen by more squares. So for a piece that is vulnerable, like the king, the center is dangerous. Similarly, the queen is not well suited to the center while there are still lots of pieces on the board. There are too many angles from which the queen can be chased, and force you to waste moves repositioning her to safety while your opponent gains the advantage.
The "hypermodern" approach
When I alluded to how you control the center, I was referencing two main styles of play: classical and hypermodern. You will hear these terms a lot when studying chess theory, so definitely commit them to memory.
The classical approach is very straightforward: control the center by moving pieces there. Don't let the simplicity fool you, having pieces in the center is a big advantage, and can easily determine the flow of the game. If one player controls the center well enough and the other player doesn't setup solid counter-position, the outcome of the game is all but certain.
But there is another school of thought, which developed some time later than the classical strategy, which emphasizes indirect control of the center. To summarize endless thought and theory into a few simple sentences: If the opponent commits to the center, they have made a strong, but inflexible, choice. That choice invites counterattacks which force the opponent to further commit by defending their position. The goal of the hypermodern style is to eventually attack the center position and gain an advantage in the middle and endgame by capturing material (pieces) in the center while also obtaining stronger position. In essence, the hypermodern style makes moves in the opening that trade power for flexibility. Because it keeps its own position flexible, it can more effectively take advantage of an opponent's blunders.
Make the least flexible move first
This may sound strange after reading about the power of flexibility, but as a general rule, in a developed game where "theory" has become less impactful than tactics and positional understanding, it is often correct to make the least flexible move first, all other things being equal.
This simply follows logically: if you are in a position where there seem to be two viable moves, and one of them involves a piece that can reach only two other squares on the board, while the other involves a piece that can reach five other squares, it is often best to move the piece that currently has the least number of legal moves (read: flexibility). This is one reason why you will often see master players make pawn moves on the same turn. There are likely multiple pieces they could move, but they would rather see how the opponent moves their pieces first, so advancing a pawn (which is generally the most inflexible move available on the board) is a good way to bide your time.
Development and its principles
This is a term used to describe the series of moves a player uses to extend their pieces further on the board from the starting position. Generally, it is used in reference to the non-pawn pieces, specifically the knights, bishops, queen, and to some degree the rooks.
Every player should aim to develop their pieces following the same order in every game. What do I mean by this? Well, I do NOT mean you should make the same exact moves every game. What I do mean is that there is a tried-and-true sequence of opening principles that lead to the most advantageous board-states in chess, and you deviate from them at your peril.
Those principles are:
Gambits
A gambit is an opening or defense that presents the opponent with an option to capture material early, but often at the cost of moving an already developed piece twice, or giving up influence over a key square. In other words, trading tempo or positional strength for material. Gambits can either be accepted or declined, and as the name might suggest, accepting a gambit can often lead to "sharper" play - in other words, play that decreases the chance of a draw.
Traps
A trap is essentially a gambit that has a clear wrong choice - the opponent should not accept. Unlike gambits, traps can occur at any point in a game. Most often, they are exploited in the opening because most studies of traps have explored those that can easily occur in the opening. Traps in the middle game or end game are special discoveries unlikely to appear in another game ever again.
Tactics
The term "tactics" is hard to grasp when first learning chess, but it can be described pretty neatly as a strong move in a repeatable position. Said differently, you will often find yourself with opportunities in a chess game similar to opportunities you've seen in other chess games. Recognizing those opportunities when they show up is a great way to start thinking about how you should move. The following things on this page are all tactics you should keep an eye out for. Both to use, and to avoid their use against you!
Fork
A fork is when a single piece attacks two (or more) other pieces at once. Since only one piece can be moved per turn, a fork is a powerful tool for pressuring a player, and potentially getting them to make a mistake.
Pin
A pin involves attacking a lesser value piece, which if moved to evade capture, would open up a higher value piece to capture. A "true" pin would be something like black queen on e5, white knight on e2, white king on e1. Since the king is attacked if white's knight moves, moving the knight is illegal. Also, the knight cannot capture the queen. So the knight is "pinned" to the king and cannot move. If it was instead the white queen on e1, it would not be a true pin (because moving the knight is actually legal in that case), but it would be extremely disadvantageous for white to do so.
Skewer
You can think of a skewer as a reverse-pin. Rather than the valuable piece being behind the attacked piece, the valuable piece is in front. Obviously, the opponent will likely move the valuable piece to safety, but that often means the lesser piece behind that one can be snatched up.
Discovered attack/check
Discovered attacks and checks are where the movement of one piece opens up another attack by a secondary piece that was previously blocked. Generally, this is an attack by the same player's piece. Imagine the same setup as the pin example above, but the knight is a black piece. Moving the black knight would open up the white king to attack by the black queen. That is a "discovered" attack on the king by the queen.
Interpose
This is easy. Moving a piece in between an attacking piece and the piece that is attacked is called "interposition" or "interposing."
Defend/Guard
When the position of one piece makes the capture of another disadvantageous or impossible, we call that one piece "defending" another. A "guard" is simply the piece that is doing the defending. Another related tactic is called "removing the guard," where you either capture the guard or force it (or the defended piece) to move away, thus allowing you to attack the original target.
Hanging, or En prise
These are both terms (en prise is French) for a piece being in a position where it is attacked and has no defender.
Sacrifice
To allow the capture of a piece for positional advantage. A sacrifice is often combined with other tactics such as removing the guard.
Windmill
This is a particularly powerful tactic in which a series of moves each end in check, thus forcing the player whose king is checked to leave other material undefended. Knights are particularly good at windmills on their own due to their unique movement pattern. You can also perform a windmill with two or more pieces, alternating their movement. Here is a great game with a great knight-bishop windmill by Bobby Fischer.
Flight Squares, and Luft
One way that a draw can occur is intentionally. If both players agree to a draw (in tournament circumstances, this can be strategically beneficial for both players), then the game is a draw.
Another way to draw a game is if there appears to be no way for either player to win. There are several examples of piece combinations that will lead to this situation, e.g. both players having only their king left.
Circumstances where the players repeat a sequence of moves over and over can also lead to a draw. This sequence can be check or non-check moves, but often involves checks because checks are more likely to "force" the other player to make a certain move. The retired term for this is perpetual check, but a broader term for it is threefold repetition, i.e. if the exact same position occurs three times during a game with the same player to move, that is grounds to invoke a draw.
Speaking of repeating something ad nauseam, many tournament settings have a fifty-move rule that can be invoked to declare the game a draw if no captures or pawn moves have occurred in the last fifty moves of the game.
Finally, there is stalemate, the bane of all winning players that sequence the endgame incorrectly. Stalemate occurs when a player has no legal moves left, but their king is not in check. Even if the game could easily be won on the next move, since the active player cannot legally make any moves, the game is immediately a draw.
Controlling the center
One of the long-standing principles of good chess play is the value of controlling the center. How one controls the center is a matter of preference, but it is a fact that most pawns and pieces are stronger in the center. What does stronger mean? In its most simplified form, you can think of a piece's positional strength as the number of squares it exerts influence on (read: can move to/capture).
You can check out this video for a summary of the strength of different pieces from the center of the board. But take my word for it, every piece can move to more squares from the center (except rooks, which always see the same number of squares). However, seeing more squares also means being seen by more squares. So for a piece that is vulnerable, like the king, the center is dangerous. Similarly, the queen is not well suited to the center while there are still lots of pieces on the board. There are too many angles from which the queen can be chased, and force you to waste moves repositioning her to safety while your opponent gains the advantage.
The "hypermodern" approach
When I alluded to how you control the center, I was referencing two main styles of play: classical and hypermodern. You will hear these terms a lot when studying chess theory, so definitely commit them to memory.
The classical approach is very straightforward: control the center by moving pieces there. Don't let the simplicity fool you, having pieces in the center is a big advantage, and can easily determine the flow of the game. If one player controls the center well enough and the other player doesn't setup solid counter-position, the outcome of the game is all but certain.
But there is another school of thought, which developed some time later than the classical strategy, which emphasizes indirect control of the center. To summarize endless thought and theory into a few simple sentences: If the opponent commits to the center, they have made a strong, but inflexible, choice. That choice invites counterattacks which force the opponent to further commit by defending their position. The goal of the hypermodern style is to eventually attack the center position and gain an advantage in the middle and endgame by capturing material (pieces) in the center while also obtaining stronger position. In essence, the hypermodern style makes moves in the opening that trade power for flexibility. Because it keeps its own position flexible, it can more effectively take advantage of an opponent's blunders.
Make the least flexible move first
This may sound strange after reading about the power of flexibility, but as a general rule, in a developed game where "theory" has become less impactful than tactics and positional understanding, it is often correct to make the least flexible move first, all other things being equal.
This simply follows logically: if you are in a position where there seem to be two viable moves, and one of them involves a piece that can reach only two other squares on the board, while the other involves a piece that can reach five other squares, it is often best to move the piece that currently has the least number of legal moves (read: flexibility). This is one reason why you will often see master players make pawn moves on the same turn. There are likely multiple pieces they could move, but they would rather see how the opponent moves their pieces first, so advancing a pawn (which is generally the most inflexible move available on the board) is a good way to bide your time.
Development and its principles
This is a term used to describe the series of moves a player uses to extend their pieces further on the board from the starting position. Generally, it is used in reference to the non-pawn pieces, specifically the knights, bishops, queen, and to some degree the rooks.
Every player should aim to develop their pieces following the same order in every game. What do I mean by this? Well, I do NOT mean you should make the same exact moves every game. What I do mean is that there is a tried-and-true sequence of opening principles that lead to the most advantageous board-states in chess, and you deviate from them at your peril.
Those principles are:
- Make a pawn or knight move first.
- Make a pawn or knight move second.
- Develop both knights and at most three pawns before developing your bishops.
- Only develop the queen after developing the bishops, and keep her away from the center.
- Castle early, and in most games, to the king's side.
- Get your rooks working together (i.e. on the same rank with no pieces interposing) earlier than your opponent does.
- Once the preceding steps of development are accomplished, look to force some advantage with a pawn break (i.e. capturing with a pawn, or moving a pawn to where it will be captured and then recaptured by you).
Once both players have accomplished all of these things, it can readily be said that they are in the "middle game" now. If one player is able to accomplish these things while their opponent has only accomplished a few of them, then the player who has achieved more development is considered to be at a significant advantage.
All of these development principles aims to close a potential weakness in your chess opening play. It is certainly not necessary to follow all of these steps, in the exact order no less, to win a game of chess. However, against a skilled opponent, failing to do these things during a game invites attacks at the weak points which have not been defended with the proper principle.
One brief example: knights are particularly good at defending your position against an active queen, due to their unique movement. If you do not develop your knights, you could easily leave yourself open to a queen-based attack by your opponent. Even worse, also due to the knight's unique movement, it is hard to get them "into the action" quickly. Often, knights can take one or two extra moves to position correctly on the board, which can be too slow to prevent your position from being lost. Therefore it follows: develop both your knights early while the pressure is off.
Openings
An "opening" is one or more moves made by the white pawns and pieces to begin a chess game. There are many different openings that have been standardized through extensive study, and some of them have "lines" or "continuations" of best moves for both players that have been calculated well into the middle game (see also "Games" below). These main lines and studied continuations are often referred to as "theory" or "book moves" or more recently "computer moves" for obvious reasons.
Openings are often described as having particular characteristics, such as being an "attack," or leading to a more tactical game or a more positional game. These descriptors are a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because if you believe a particular type of game is imminent, then you will make moves in that direction. In reality, many openings can "transition" from one type of game to another as pieces are developed. In addition, one of the most powerful strategies a great chess player can employ is to present a novel opening (or obscure the opening goal, perhaps by making moves in a non-standard order) to lure the opponent into a trap.
Defenses
A defense is how black responds to the opening with its moves. Like openings, defenses have also been well-explored and standardized into theory. It should be noted that just because the common term is "defense" does not mean that these must be passive. Many defenses are aggressive and try to put white on the back foot as quickly as possible.
Games
For combinations of opening and defense that have been around for a long time and used in conjunction in countless classic games, often the term "game" is used as a quick reference.
For example, the aptly-named "Four Knights Game" is used to describe a game that starts (or gets to) the current position: 1. e4 e5, 2. Nf3 Nc6, 3. Nc3 Nf6. The two king pawns are developed and cannot move further, and the four nights have been moved forward two ranks and toward the center one rank. This setup is described as usually leading to "quiet, positional play."
Systems
A system is an organization of pieces (or the sequence of moves for one side to get to that structure) that is used against a variety of openings or defenses. In a sense, a system is a strategy for setting up one's pawns and pieces separately from whatever the opponent is doing. Systems are used to bring the game into familiar territory and maximize your ability to use past knowledge. Good systems are based on solid chess principles, so they are always competitive - but they are by no means invulnerable.
Gambits
A gambit is an opening or defense that presents the opponent with an option to capture material early, but often at the cost of moving an already developed piece twice, or giving up influence over a key square. In other words, trading tempo or positional strength for material. Gambits can either be accepted or declined, and as the name might suggest, accepting a gambit can often lead to "sharper" play - in other words, play that decreases the chance of a draw.
Traps
A trap is essentially a gambit that has a clear wrong choice - the opponent should not accept. Unlike gambits, traps can occur at any point in a game. Most often, they are exploited in the opening because most studies of traps have explored those that can easily occur in the opening. Traps in the middle game or end game are special discoveries unlikely to appear in another game ever again.
Tactics
The term "tactics" is hard to grasp when first learning chess, but it can be described pretty neatly as a strong move in a repeatable position. Said differently, you will often find yourself with opportunities in a chess game similar to opportunities you've seen in other chess games. Recognizing those opportunities when they show up is a great way to start thinking about how you should move. The following things on this page are all tactics you should keep an eye out for. Both to use, and to avoid their use against you!
Fork
A fork is when a single piece attacks two (or more) other pieces at once. Since only one piece can be moved per turn, a fork is a powerful tool for pressuring a player, and potentially getting them to make a mistake.
Pin
A pin involves attacking a lesser value piece, which if moved to evade capture, would open up a higher value piece to capture. A "true" pin would be something like black queen on e5, white knight on e2, white king on e1. Since the king is attacked if white's knight moves, moving the knight is illegal. Also, the knight cannot capture the queen. So the knight is "pinned" to the king and cannot move. If it was instead the white queen on e1, it would not be a true pin (because moving the knight is actually legal in that case), but it would be extremely disadvantageous for white to do so.
Skewer
You can think of a skewer as a reverse-pin. Rather than the valuable piece being behind the attacked piece, the valuable piece is in front. Obviously, the opponent will likely move the valuable piece to safety, but that often means the lesser piece behind that one can be snatched up.
Discovered attack/check
Discovered attacks and checks are where the movement of one piece opens up another attack by a secondary piece that was previously blocked. Generally, this is an attack by the same player's piece. Imagine the same setup as the pin example above, but the knight is a black piece. Moving the black knight would open up the white king to attack by the black queen. That is a "discovered" attack on the king by the queen.
Interpose
This is easy. Moving a piece in between an attacking piece and the piece that is attacked is called "interposition" or "interposing."
Defend/Guard
When the position of one piece makes the capture of another disadvantageous or impossible, we call that one piece "defending" another. A "guard" is simply the piece that is doing the defending. Another related tactic is called "removing the guard," where you either capture the guard or force it (or the defended piece) to move away, thus allowing you to attack the original target.
Hanging, or En prise
These are both terms (en prise is French) for a piece being in a position where it is attacked and has no defender.
Sacrifice
To allow the capture of a piece for positional advantage. A sacrifice is often combined with other tactics such as removing the guard.
Windmill
This is a particularly powerful tactic in which a series of moves each end in check, thus forcing the player whose king is checked to leave other material undefended. Knights are particularly good at windmills on their own due to their unique movement pattern. You can also perform a windmill with two or more pieces, alternating their movement. Here is a great game with a great knight-bishop windmill by Bobby Fischer.
Flight Squares, and Luft
An empty square that a piece can move to in order to escape an attack is called a "flight square." Luft is german for "lift" and is used to describe a space available for your king to leave the first (or eighth) rank if it is threatened. In essence, luft is a specific type of flight square for the king. One of the most well-studied types of checkmate is the "back-rank" mate, which forces the opponent's king into a space where it cannot leave the rank it is on (usually the rank it started on), and then makes an attack that hits every square on that rank that the king can get to. Since the checked player would need to move another one of their pieces before the king can escape the threat, the king has no "luft" and it is mate.
Zugzwang
This is a german term for a state of the game where the active player has only moves that would weaken their position. Since they cannot pass without making a move, the player is forced to make a bad move.
Zwischenzug
This is another german term for a counterattack that forces the opponent to abandon an attack they were making. For example, if the opponent threatens your knight with capture by their bishop, but then you respond with a move that threatens their queen, they will generally be forced to move their queen and not follow through on capturing the knight.
Zugzwang
This is a german term for a state of the game where the active player has only moves that would weaken their position. Since they cannot pass without making a move, the player is forced to make a bad move.
Zwischenzug
This is another german term for a counterattack that forces the opponent to abandon an attack they were making. For example, if the opponent threatens your knight with capture by their bishop, but then you respond with a move that threatens their queen, they will generally be forced to move their queen and not follow through on capturing the knight.
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