Part I · First steps Chapter 1 of 40
The board and the pieces
There is a game that ends after two moves by White and two by Black. By the end of the chapter you will read its record and deliver that mate yourself, because you will know the board, the names of the squares and where the pieces stand.
What to know first: nothing, this is the start of the course
What you will learn
- set the board down the right way round and put the pieces on it
- name any square by its coordinates and find it, whichever side you look from
- see the files, ranks, diagonals, centre and wings on the board
White made two moves, Black made two, and White was checkmated. No mate comes faster. Press the "next" arrow beside the board and watch what changes.
The moves are written beside the board: 1. f3 e5 2. g4 Qh4#. For now it is a cipher, and the key comes at the end of the chapter. White pushed pawns twice, Black pushed a pawn and brought out the queen, and the game was over: Black's last move checkmated the white king. Checkmate means the king is attacked and nothing can save it. Chess is played for that moment. We say a little about it here, and chapter 5 gives the full story.
In this chapter we learn to read such a record without a cipher. The letters and numbers in it are addresses of squares, and in half an hour you will find any of them at a glance. At the end we return to this game, and you will deliver a similar mate yourself.
Sixty-four squares
A chessboard is a square of eight rows of eight, 64 in all. Each one is a square. The squares alternate: light, dark, light again. The pieces and the players are called white and black, whatever their real colours: a wooden board is cream and brown, and on a screen it can be anything. "White has moved", "Black has resigned".
The number 64 comes with an old legend. The inventor of chess asked the ruler for a reward in grain: one grain for the first square, two for the second, four for the third, doubling all the way to the last. The ruler laughed at such a modest request, until someone did the sums. The 64th square alone would need more than nine billion billion grains, and that is the wheat harvest of the whole world for several centuries.
The board lies between the players so that each of them has a light square in the near right-hand corner. This is the only rule about the board itself, and it is broken more often than any other: it is easy to turn the board the wrong way, and then the pieces no longer line up. A rhyme helps: "light on the right".
You sit down at the board and see a dark square in your near right-hand corner. What do you do?
Opposite corners of the board are the same colour: two dark and two light. Turn the board a quarter of a turn and a light corner lands on the near right, for both players at once.
Files, ranks, diagonals
The squares form lines, and almost every rule of chess is stated in terms of those lines. There are three kinds.
The first kind is the file: a column of squares that runs from you to your opponent, like a lane on a road. The second is the rank, which lies across the board, left to right. The board has eight files and eight ranks, each with eight squares, and the colours alternate along both. Any file crosses any rank at exactly one square. That is soon going to give every square a name.
Lines are not there for decoration. Almost every piece moves along its own lines, and an experienced player sees not 64 squares on the board but a network of roads: which are open, which are blocked, where each piece is looking. We start training that eye in the next chapter.
The third kind of line is the diagonal. It runs aslant: from one square to the next, which touches it only at a corner. The longest diagonals cross the whole board from corner to corner, eight squares each. The nearer to the edge, the shorter the diagonals, and in the very corners they have just two squares.
Which line is marked on the board?
Each marked square touches the next only at a corner: one step to the right and one step up at the same time. That is what a diagonal looks like. Notice that all its squares are light.
What colour are the squares of a single diagonal?
Squares that touch at the corners are always the same colour. So a piece that moves only along diagonals can never reach a square of the other colour. There is such a piece, the bishop, and in chapter 2 we will see what follows from this.
Every square has a name
The files are labelled with letters: seen from White's side, they run a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h from left to right. The ranks are numbered 1 to 8: the first is under White's hands, the eighth is Black's. A file and a rank cross at one square, so a letter and a number together name the square exactly, as in Battleships: e4, a1, h8. The letter always comes first, then the number. These are the coordinates of a square.
The letters are said as in the alphabet: "a", "bee", "see", "dee", "e", "ef", "gee", "aitch". The square e4 is "e four" and h8 is "aitch eight". On the boards of this course the letters and numbers are printed on the edge squares: letters along the bottom, numbers down the left.
Now find a few squares yourself. On the first level the trainer names a square and you click it. On the second a square is marked and you name it. The board gives you the letters and numbers on both levels, and the exercises never run out: keep going until the answer is instant. Leave the third and fourth levels, without labels and from Black's side, for later.
What is the square in White's near right-hand corner called?
On the right the outermost file is h, and the rank nearest White is 1. That makes h1, and it is a light square: the "light on the right" from before.
It is useful to know a few landmarks by heart. The light corners are h1 and a8, the dark ones a1 and h8. At the start of a game the kings stand on the e-file and the queens on the d-file.
The names of the squares do not depend on who is looking. Black sits opposite, and for Black the a-file is on the right and the first rank is the farthest away. The square e4 is still e4 for both. Books usually draw the board with White at the bottom. In the exercises of this course the board is turned to the side that is to move: when Black moves, Black is at the bottom. So before you look for a square, glance at the letters along the edge.
The board is turned to Black. Where is the square a1 now?
For Black the a-file is on the right, and the first rank is farthest away, at the top. So a1 is in the top right corner. The letters and numbers on the edge of the board tell you at once.
The centre and the wings
Squares have districts as well as names. The four squares in the middle of the board, d4, e4, d5 and e5, are the centre. From the centre a piece reaches in every direction, while in a corner half its paths or more run straight into the edge. In chapter 2 this turns into numbers: a queen in the centre can go to 27 squares, and in a corner to 21. That is why the centre is fought over from the first move, and you will see it for yourself here.
The left and right halves of the board are called the wings, after the pieces that stand there at the start. The files from e to h are the kingside, and the files from a to d are the queenside. The names stay even when the king left for the other side long ago.
Six pieces
Each side has 16 pieces of six kinds. Pieces shaped like the ones in this course stand in clubs and at tournaments all over the world, so they are easy to recognise.
| Piece | Letter | How many | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
| King | K | 1 | the tallest, with a cross |
| Queen | Q | 1 | a crown with points |
| Rook | R | 2 | a tower |
| Bishop | B | 2 | a mitre with a slit |
| Knight | N | 2 | a horse's head |
| Pawn | — | 8 | small, with a ball on top |
Beginners sometimes call the rook a castle. Chess books, and this course, say only "rook", "bishop" and "queen". One more subtlety: a pawn is often not counted as a piece. Chess players say "pieces and pawns", and "wins a piece" means winning a knight or a bishop, not a pawn.
The pieces are not equal in strength. The queen is the strongest and the pawn the weakest, while the king is priceless: checkmate to the king means a lost game. Chapters 2 to 4 explain how each piece moves, and chapter 8 what each is worth.
The second column of the table holds the letters used for the pieces in a record of a game. A move is written with the letter of the piece and the square it arrives on: Nf3 means a knight moved to f3, Qh4 a queen to h4. A pawn has no letter, and e4 means a pawn arrived on e4. If the piece captured an enemy piece on the way, an x goes between them: Rxa8 means a rook captured on a8.
Signs follow some moves. + means check and # means checkmate: what these are is explained below. The marks for moves are ! for a strong move, ? for a mistake, !! for a brilliant move and ?? for a blunder, after which a player usually loses. The exercises in this course put such marks right on the board: after a correct move a "!" appears on the square. The whole record of a game is covered in chapter 7.
The setup
Before every game the pieces are set out the same way, and this arrangement is the starting position. It is easiest to set it out in order, from the edges to the middle.
- Pawns in a wall: White on the second rank, Black on the seventh.
- Rooks in the corners: White on a1 and h1, Black on a8 and h8.
- Knights next to the rooks (b1, g1 and b8, g8), bishops next to the knights (c1, f1 and c8, f8).
- The queen on a square of her own colour: White's on light d1, Black's on dark d8.
- The king on the last free square: e1 and e8.
The fourth point is easy to forget, and there is a rhyme for it: "the queen loves her colour". If everything is right, the queens face each other along the d-file and the kings along the e-file, and each black piece stands exactly opposite its white twin, as in a mirror.
Which square does the white queen stand on in the starting position?
The white queen loves a light square, and of the two middle squares on the first rank the light one is d1. The black queen stands opposite, on the dark d8.
What is wrong with this setup?
The white queen stands on the dark square e1, but she should be on the light d1. There is a simple check: the queens face each other on one file and the kings on another. Here the white king ended up opposite the black queen.
Who moves, and how
White always makes the first move of a game. In the first game a draw of lots decides the colours, and after that the players swap colours. The players move in turn: White's move, Black's move, White's again. A move is shifting one of your pieces according to its rules. You cannot skip a move, however much you would like to.
At a real board there is one more rule, which beginners learn at their first tournament: "touch move". If you deliberately touch one of your own pieces on your turn, you must move that piece, as long as it has any legal move. If you touch an enemy piece, you must capture it, if that is possible. You may straighten a piece that stands crooked, but first say "I adjust". On screen the rule does not apply: a piece will not move until you choose a square.
A square can be shown on the board as well as named. In the exercises of this course there is a position on the board and you make a move: click your piece, the board lights up the squares it can go to, then click the one you want. You can drag a piece, too. Which piece moves how is for the next chapters to explain, and here all you need is to find the squares.
Make the first move of a game yourself. The most common way to start is a pawn from e2 two squares forward to e4, taking the centre. How a pawn moves is explained in chapter 4, and for now you only need the two squares.
The starting position, White to move. Move the pawn from e2 to e4.
The pawn on e2–e4 takes its place in the centre. There are several good first moves, and the engine in this course rates two as best: e2–e4 and d2–d4. If you played the pawn from d2 to d4, that answer is accepted too. Most often, though, a game begins with e2–e4.
And here is how a game might go on. Do not watch how the pieces move (that is for the next chapters) but the squares: from where to where.
Can you move two of your pieces in a single move?
A move is one piece. The single exception is castling, a move of the king and a rook together. It is the subject of chapter 6.
Attack, defence and checkmate
A piece can remove an enemy piece from the board by landing on its square. This is a capture, covered in detail in chapter 2. If a piece can capture an enemy piece on its next move, we say it attacks that piece, and it attacks the square where it could capture. You do not capture your own pieces, but you can defend them: if the opponent captures your piece and you can at once capture back, your piece is defended. They are different things: you attack enemy pieces and defend your own. A defence does not stop the opponent capturing, it only promises a recapture.
The white rook on a1 attacks the black knight on a5 (red arrow), and the black pawn on b6 defends the knight (teal). The rook takes the knight. What happens next?
The rook lands on a5, and the pawn on b6 takes it there. White gives up a rook for a knight, and the rook is worth more than a knight. So before you capture, look not only at the enemy piece but at what defends it.
The king is a stricter matter. An attack on the king is called check. You must answer a check at once: you may not leave your king under attack, any more than you may make a move that leaves it under attack. And the king itself never steps onto a square that an enemy piece attacks, even to capture: a king cannot take a defended piece. If there is no defence against the check, because the king cannot move away, nothing can block the line and nothing can capture the attacker, that is checkmate and the game is over. A king is never actually captured in chess: the game ends one step earlier. How to defend against check, and what happens when there is no move to make but no check either, is covered in chapter 5.
A game ends with checkmate, or with a resignation when a player sees that mate cannot be avoided, or, in a game with a clock, when a player runs out of time. Or it ends in a draw, if nobody has won. Draws are covered in chapter 6. Now deliver your first mate yourself: it needs nothing but finding a square.
White to move. The white rook stands in the corner on a1. Move it to the other corner of the same file, the square a8.
The rook went the whole length of the a-file, from the first rank to the eighth. That is check: the rook attacks the king on g8 along the eighth rank. And it is checkmate: the squares in front of the king are taken up by its own pawns, and it cannot step aside to f8 or h8, because that is the same eighth rank, and the rook attacks all of it. Nothing can block the line, and nothing can capture the rook. One move along a file ended the game. In the record it looks like this: Ra8#.
The game from the start of the chapter, decoded
Now the record 1. f3 e5 2. g4 Qh4# is easy to read. A number with a dot is the move number: each number covers White's move and Black's reply. If a record starts with Black's move, three dots follow the number: 2...Qh4#. Where there is no letter, a pawn moves, Q is the queen and # is checkmate. Let us read the moves in words.
Along which line does the queen on h4 attack the king on e1?
The queen and the king are on one diagonal, and all the squares between them, g3 and f2, are dark and empty. While the pawn stood on f2 the diagonal was closed. White opened it with two pawn moves.
This mate has a name: fool's mate. No mate is faster. It can be delivered only if the opponent weakens the squares around their own king. How to begin a game so that this never happens to you is explained in chapter 10.
The last exercise of the chapter. This time White began differently, with the pawns f2–f4 and g2–g4, and Black played e7–e6. It is Black's move, and the board is turned to Black: the eighth rank is at the bottom. Find the mate in one move.
Black to move. White has opened the diagonal h4–e1 to their own king again. Deliver mate with the same move as in the game at the start of the chapter. The board is turned to Black, so look for the squares by the letters on the edge.
Qh4#: the queen goes from d8 to h4 along the diagonal d8–e7–f6–g5–h4, which the pawn move e6 has opened. From h4 it attacks the king on e1 along the familiar diagonal through g3 and f2. The f- and g-pawns have gone forward, and White has nothing to block with.
What's next
You know the board: the names of all 64 squares, the lines, the centre and the wings, and where each piece stands. But the pieces are still on their starting squares, because you cannot move them yet. We begin with the ones whose moves are easiest to see on the lines of this chapter: the rook goes along files and ranks, the bishop along diagonals, and the queen along both. That is the chapter "Rook, bishop, queen".