Chess Rules - Chess Notation - Chess Match

Chess Rule

Chess rule has not changed much over the years. Each player has one of two equivalent sets of pieces, each a different color, at the beginning of the game. Each set has six types of pieces, each with its own pattern of movement:

• King
• Queen
• Rook
• Bishop
• Knight
• Pawn

The aim of the game is to checkmate your opponent’s King. Checkmate or ‘mate’ occurs when the king is attacked and cannot escape capture on the next move. Chess is played on a checkered board with 64 alternately colored dark and light squares. The rooks begin in the corners, the knights next to the rooks, the bishops next to the knights, and then the king and the queen. The white and black queens both begin the game on squares of their color. So the white queen begins on a white square and the black queen on a black square. The game begins with white making the first move. The game continues with both sides taking turns until checkmate occurs or one player resigns or both players agree to a draw.

The king can move one square in any direction. The king can also capture an opponent’s piece if it is on one of the squares. The king cannot move onto a square that the opponent controls. Doing so will move the king into check. If the king is under attack (in check), the next move must make sure that the attack has been stopped. There are three possibilities in such a situation – the king must move out of check, or the attacking piece must be captured, or a single piece has to be moved between the attacker and the king to eliminate a direct attack. If the king is under attack and there is no immediate way to end the attack, the game is over.

The rook can move any number of squares either horizontally or vertically. The rook cannot jump a piece of either color. The rook captures as it moves.

The bishop can move any number of squares diagonally, but it cannot jump a piece of either color. The bishop can move in only one direction at a time, either forward or backward. The bishop captures as it moves. Because they move diagonally, the bishops will always remain on a square of the same color on which they started the game.

The queen combines the powers of the rook and the bishop. So the queen can move horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. The queen can move far in one direction as long as there are no pieces on its path. The captures as it moves. The queen is thus the most powerful piece on the chessboard. It is quite risky to bring out the queen early in game, because if you lose your queen, you are quite likely to lose the game.

Not every game ends with a checkmate. Many players chose instead to resign. When they believe there is no longer any hope, they award the win to the opponent. When white wins, the score is recorded as 1-0 whereas when black wins it is recorded as 0-1.

Between evenly matched opponents, a chess game usually ends in a draw. In a draw, nobody wins, and is recorded as ½ - ½. There are six kinds of draws:

• Draws by agreement
• Stalemates
• Perpetual check
• Three-fold repetition
• Insufficient mating material
• The 50-move rule

Chess Notation

Chess notation is used to record and describe a chess game. Descriptive chess notation (also called descriptive notation, English notation, and English descriptive notation) is a notation for recording a chess game and was very popular in the past. The squares are identified by what piece originally starts there, followed by how many squares from that player’s perspective.

Algebraic chess notation is the notation used today by all competition chess organizations and in most books, magazines, and newspapers. Each square of the chessboard is identified by a unique coordinate. The file letter and rank number uniquely identifies each square of the board.

An uppercase letter identifies each type of piece, except the pawn. English-speaking players use K for king, Q for queen, R for rook, B for bishop, and N for knight. Pawns are indicated by the absence of such a letter.

Every move of a piece is indicated by the piece's initial, plus the coordinate of the destination square. For example Be5 means move a bishop to e5, Nf3 means move a knight to f3, c5 means move a pawn to c5.

When a piece makes a capture, an x is inserted between the initial and the destination square. For example, Bxe5 means bishop captures the piece on e5.

Portable Game Notation (.PGN) is a computer-processable format for recording chess games, both the moves and related data. The chess moves themselves are given in Algebraic chess notation. The usual filename extension is ".pgn". Most chess programs recognize this format.

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