THE GAME OF CHESS.

_Pixabay

Chess seems difficult, but it isn't. If you are bored and you need to think, that's the game for you. Not everybody likes board games, but I'm here to make you love it.

I'm not an expert in it, I can teach you and you might end up knocking me out. Chess has its rules, all you need to do is learn each rule, the movement and thinking you need to do to win all depends on you.

I've once beaten my master, but that's after losing more than 50 times in a row. Yes! I'm not exaggerating.

I mentioned the game has its rules. The rules are simply movements you make. Every piece found on a chess board has its movement. I will be revealing those pieces and the movement they make.

Only two people can play the game of chess. Well, that's a fact we all know. Each player has the some number of chess pieces. You will understand what I meant by chess pieces soon. A chess has 64 square spaces. It is arranged in 8x8 gird. Each player has a dark and a white square in the lower left and lower right hand side respectively.

HOW THE BOARD IS ARRANGED
Unlike draught, Chess pieces have its arrangements. You don't place each piece anyhow on the board.

Each player gets 16 chess pieces. 2 rooks, 2 bishops, 1 king, 1 queen, 2 knights and 8 pawns.

The pawns are placed on the second row of the board.

At the first row, the rooks are first placed at the corners, then, the Knights follows, the bishops comes next, the queen and the king are also placed next to each other.

_{Staxringold (2006) CC BY-SA 3.0 in wikimedia commons}

Let's take a look at each chess piece and explain how they are moved.

ROOKS.

The rooks can move forward, backward or side ways at any length provided there's no piece where it moves. Not clear?
When there's a piece near a rook, the rook simply can't move sideways where the piece is. The piece is obstructing the movement. Meanwhile if it's the opponents piece, the rook can take charge of the space and the opponents piece will be seized.

That's basically what the game entails, try to take charge of your opponent's piece. Pursue his/her piece and take charge of the space it was. That way, you win! And you seize the piece, meaning one less piece for the opponent.

Interesting right?

KNIGHTS.

It has an horse shape as you can see, so the reason why it is called Knight is explainable enough.

Knights moves in an "L" shape. It has a different movement from others. Don't get it twisted, all a Knight need is three box shapes, and it is the only piece that can jump pass other chess pieces.

A Knight can move two steps vertically and the last step horizontally. Or rather, two steps horizontally and the last step vertically. It can't move forward or backward like others. Its movement is funny but very needful.

The "L" shape should come in mind when moving a knight.

BISHOP.

A bishop can only move diagonally. The length it moves is determined by the user. It can't jump through a piece, you can capture an opponents piece with it when his/her piece is on The diagonal direction the bishop is facing.

It moves backward or forward, but diagonally. Another thing is, a bishop can't leave it's box shape color. A bishop placed on the dark side of the chess board will forever remain in the dark side and vice versa.

QUEEN.

This is the most powerful piece on a chess board. It can move in any direction. It's a combination of a rook and a bishop.

The queen can move diagonally at any length, it can move forward, backward and side ways too at any length provided it doesn't jump a piece.

It's advisable to be careful when moving the queen. You wouldn't want to get it killed at the early stage of the game.

KING.

This is the most important piece on the chess board. When your king is captured, you lost the game. Every other piece on the board protects the king and try to capture the opponent.

The king is in fact the laziest piece on the board. It can only move diagonally, backward and forward, but in only one step. When you nice a king backward, you can only move it in one step, unlike others.

Kings are not used for attacking.

PAWN.

Pawns are the first attackers. And they have strict movements. A pawn can only move one step forward except the first movement where it can jump one step.

You can choose to move a pawn by jumping a step during the first movement. Other movement of that pawn will be one step forward. A pawn cannot move backward.

When capturing, a pawn moves
Diagonally. If there's a piece at the front of a pawn, be it yours or the opponent's, it can't move.

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Those are the pieces on a chess board and how they move.

Now, there are things you need to know also.

PROMOTING A PAWN IN CHESS.
We don't want to keep moving one step forward and capturing diagonally. A pawn can be given the role of other powerful pieces. Yes! It's possible, there's a way to do that. You are promoting the pawn.

When a pawn reaches the opponent's side of the board, it gets promoted. You can promote it to any piece, but most times, pawns are promoted to queens.

A pawn is the only piece that can be promoted.

CASTLING.
Most chess players don't know about this. It seems confusing, but, I'll be putting you through.

The rook and the king are needed for castling.

Castling is done when you want to remove your king from its initial position. Perhaps you want to place it somewhere more safer. The king is restricted to some movements, so castling can be done.

To castle, you simply move the king two steps towards the rook and move the rook back to the opposite direction of the king.

Before castling, make sure that's the first king's move, the first rook's move, there mustn't be any piece between the king and the rook, and the king mustn't be in check and mustn't pass through check.

Once the above rules is followed, then, you can castle. It's great way to keep your king safe.

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The player with the white pieces starts the game. He gets the first move.

That's basically all you need to know to play chess. The more you play, the better you become.

Don't forget!!!
Protect your king and don't give your pieces out. Every one of them is valuable, you need them to checkmate your opponent's chess pieces.

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