Laws of Chess - The nature and objectives of the game of chess

1.
The game of chess is played between two opponents who move their pieces alternately on a square board called a "chessboard". The player with the white pieces commences the game. A player is said to "have the move", when his opponent's move has been made.

2.
The objective of each player is to place the opponent´s king "under attack" in such a way that the opponent has no legal move which would avoid the 'capture' of the king on the following move.

The player who achieves this goal is said to have "checkmated" the opponent´s king and to have won the game. The opponent whose king has been checkmated has lost the game.

3.
If the position is such that neither player can possibly checkmate, the game is drawn.

Laws of Chess - The initial position of the pieces on the chessboard

1.
The chessboard is composed of an 8x8 grid of 64 equal squares alternately light (the "white" squares) and dark (the "black" squares).

The chessboard is placed between the players in such a way that the near corner square to the right of the player is white.

2.
At the beginning of the game one player has 16 light-coloured pieces (the "white" pieces); the other has 16 dark-coloured pieces (the "black" pieces):

These pieces are as follows:

A white king, usually indicated by the symbol

chess piece white King

 

A black king, usually indicated by the symbol

chess piece black King

A white queen, usually indicated by the symbol

chess piece white Queen

 

A black queen, usually indicated by the symbol

chess piece black Queen

Two white rooks, usually indicated by the symbol

chess piece white Rook  

Two black rooks, usually indicated by the symbol

chess piece black Rook

Two white bishops, usually indicated by the symbol

chess piece white Bishop  

Two black bishops, usually indicated by the symbol

chess piece black bishop

Two white knights, usually indicated by the symbol

chess piece white Knight  

Two black knights, usually indicated by the symbol

chess piece black knight

Eight white pawns, usually indicated by the symbol

chess piece white Pawn  

Eight black pawns, usually indicated by the symbol

chess piece black pawn

3.
The initial position of the pieces on the chessboard is as follows:

initial position of the chesspieces on the chessboard

4.
The eight vertical columns of squares are called "files". The eight horizontal rows of squares are called "ranks". A straight line of squares of the same colour, touching corner to corner, is called a "diagonal".

 


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