How to Win the Game

Your objective in the game of chess is to attack the enemy King in such a way that he cannot escape capture. When you succeed in doing this, you win and the game ends. See below for more details, and also how to perform the move of castling.

Check & Checkmate

The King is said to be in check when he is attacked by any piece. For it being a fundamental law of chess that the King can never be taken, whenever any attack is made upon him, he must be warned by the cry of check by the opposite player. The player whose King is being attacked must now either remove his King out of check onto a square not controlled by an enemy piece, parry the check by interposing a piece between the attacked King and the attacking piece, or capture the attacking man. When he cannot do any of these three things, he is checkmated and the game is won by the other side. It may seem as if all chess games end in victory for White or Black, but actually, a game of chess may end in a draw (a tie). There are several ways in which a game may be drawn:

Draw by Agreement

The players can agree to a draw. This may happen for various reasons - because neither player thinks the game can be won, because both players are afraid of losing, because there is not enough time to finish the game, or even because the position in the game is a total bore!

Draw by Perpetual Check

This refers to a position in which one player can keep checking the other player's King, move after move after move, with no possibility of the defending player being able to stop the checks. The assumption here is that the player doing the checking is at a disadvantage in some way, and is deliberately forcing a draw rather than suffering a loss.

Draw by Insufficient Material

These combinations of pieces cannot bring about a checkmate:

King and Bishop against King.
King and Knight against King.
King and two Knights against King.

Draw by Stalemate

This is a situation in which the player whose turn it is to move is not in check but has no legal moves.

Draw by Repetition of Moves

For this one you'll need to keep a record of the moves in the game using chess notation. If the same position is about to occur for the third time, the player with the move may claim a draw before actually making the move that produces the threefold repetition.

Draw by 50-Move Rule

You'll need to record the moves for this one, too. If a player can demonstrate that the last 50 moves have been made without the capture of a piece or a move by a pawn, that player may claim a draw. So if you come to the end of a game and it's you and your two Bishops against a lone King, you know you won't have unlimited time to work out the checkmate!

Castling

Luckily, a special move is available to players to enable them to get their King into a reasonably safe position. This move is called castling, and it is counted as a single move, although it involves two pieces - the King and one of his Rooks. Castling on the King-side calls for castling with the King Rook (Fig. 21).

Fig. 21 Before castling King-side

Fig. 22 below shows the ending position after the move of castling has been completed.

Fig. 22 And after

As you can see above, the operation of castling on the King-side is performed thus - the King is moved two squares towards the King Rook, and the King Rook is placed on the adjoining square on the other side of the King. A player can also castle on the Queen-side. To do so, he moves his King two squares towards the Queen Rook and places the Queen Rook on the adjoining square on the other side of the King (Fig. 23).

Fig. 23 After castling Queen-side

There are a number of restrictions connected with castling. Firstly, you can only castle once during a game. Secondly, you can castle only when all the squares between the King and the Rook in question are empty (see Fig. 24 below and compare with Fig. 21 above).

Fig. 24 No castling allowed

Thirdly, you cannot castle at all if your King has already moved (you cannot castle even if your King moves back to his original square). Also, you cannot castle with a Rook that has moved (even if it moves back to its original position), but you may be able to castle with the other Rook if it hasn't moved yet and none of the rules here are violated. Fourthly, you cannot castle in reply to a check, but you may be able to castle after the check is disposed of, but again none of the rules concerning castling must be broken. Castling is also impossible if it involves moving the King over or on a square controlled by an enemy piece (Fig. 25).

Fig. 25 No castling allowed

That's it, folks! That's all there is concerning the basic rules & moves of international chess. To learn about chess notation, go to Chess Notation.