Ever wondered “How does each chess piece move?” In order to play chess online or face to face over a chessboard you need to learn how chess pieces move. Each chess piece has its own rules and you should understand them all if you want to win at chess.

This tutorial explains the basics of all chess piece moves and includes a print-friendly diagram (pdf) to download and use during your games. It is suitable for beginners wanting to learn to play chess.

Chess Pieces and How They Move

Pawns

Pawns can only move forward up the board. They normally move one square at a time. The exception is that on their first move they can move two squares, but only on their first move!

A pawn is weak on its own, but it has a unique strength. When a pawn reaches the other side of the chessboard (called the back rank) the rules allow it to be promoted to any other piece (queen, rook, bishop or knight but not king!). Usually, pawns are promoted to queens, but not always – the player moving the pawn chooses.

King

The king can move one square in any direction, providing the square he is moving to is not under threat from an enemy piece – doing so is called “moving into check”. Moving into check is illegal as the opponent could then take the king on their next turn and the game would be over.

Despite his limited mobility, the king is the most important piece on the board – guard him well. When a player cannot move his king away from threat of capture by the opponent this ends the game and is called checkmate. Capture of the opposing king is a primary objective of the game!

A king can also move two squares by the player performing a special move called castling. This rule will be fully explained in a later article.

Queen

The queen can move any number of squares in any direction, providing she moves in a straight line.

Remember though, she cannot move like a knight!

This extreme mobility makes the queen the most powerful piece on a chess board.

Bishop

The bishops can move any number of squares diagonally, but they must always remain on the same colour squares from which they started the game. Each player has one black and one white squared bishop.

Bishops can be very powerful when placed on the long diagonals (corner to corner) or in open positions where there are few pieces remaining occupying squares of their colour.

Knight

Knights have an unusual move that resembles a letter “L”. Knights move twos squares up or down, left or right and then one square at a 90-degree angle to this. This means that if a knight starts on a white square then its next move will land it one a black square and so on.

The knight is the only piece which can “jump over” other pieces and as such can be very useful in cramped board positions.

Rook or Castle

The rook moves in a straight line up or down, left or right, any number of squares. Rooks can only be used in castling if they have not moved previously.

Rooks can be very powerful on open ranks or files, especially in the end game if two rooks can be linked together (doubled).

Additional Information

These are the rules covering the basic moves of chess pieces. There are other moves such as king and queen side castling and en passant which will be dealt with in later, more advanced article (with even more diagrams!).

Chess Etiquette

Chess etiquette for over the board games means that a piece should only be touched once when moving chess pieces. For casual play this is less important, but it is a good practice to aquire the habit of touching and moving pieces once only if you plan to take part in competitive play. Of course this is unimportant in computer chess, but it is good to be aware of.

Chess Piece Moves Diagram Download

How to move chess pieces diagram – a free PDF download for all chess pieces and moves.

Now you know how to move chess pieces how about trying your new knowledge against our computer online chess game? It’s free!

Computer Chess Online - Beginners Guide to Chess Piece Moves

If you have ever wondered “How do I set up a chess board?” this article is for you! Here you will learn how to set up a chess board and pieces correctly in order to play a game of chess under standard tournament rules (F.I.D.E).

This guide is for beginners and those new to chess. It shows the normal set up for over the board (OTB) play.

While every computer chess game will set up the board automatically at the start of a new game, it is still useful to know correct orientation of a chess board and where all the pieces should be placed. This knowledge will enable us to play chess against human players in the sunshine (hopefully!), or at OTB tournaments.

Correct Chess Board Orientation

A chess board is made up of eight rows and eight columns of alternating light and dark colour squares.

Although the squares are often black and white, they may also be other colours. Light and dark shades of red, brown or green are common. Glass chess boards use a system of etching and transparency.

Whatever colour your chess board happens to be, it will have two contrasting light and dark colours. The most common colours for a chess board are black and white.

Correct orientation of a chess board is to have the corner square, on the right-hand side nearest you in the light colour.

At the start of a game, check to see if the right-hand square nearest to you is light or dark. If this square is a dark colour then turn the board a quarter turn (90 degrees) in either direction.

The reason that this is the correct orientation relates to placement of the queen and the ability to record games using standard chess notation.

A helpful mnemonic to remember this is: “Light to the right“.

By convention, images or chess diagrams show white/light pieces at the bottom of the board and black/dark pieces at the top.

How Many Pieces in a Chess Set?

A standard set of chess pieces contains 32 pieces, 16 light and 16 dark pieces. Good quality chess sets may have 34 pieces as they will include an extra queen of each colour.

A standard 32 piece chess set will have eight pawns, 1 queen, 1 king, 2 bishops, 2 knights and two rooks for a total of 16 pieces of each colour.

Rooks are not “castles”. The confusion may have arisen from the chess move called castling.

Where do the Pieces Go?

Each chess piece has its own assigned place in a chess board setup. The easiest way to setup a board for play is to place the pawns first, followed by the major pieces. This avoids reaching over the pawns and perhaps knocking or moving them.

Pawns

All eight pawns are placed in a single row, one rank up from the row nearest to each player.

The bottom yellow row highlights the starting position for the white pawns. The top red row highlights the starting position for the black pawns.

Queen

The queen is always placed on her own colour – white queen on the white square nearest the middle of the back rank.

The black queen faces the white queen from the opposite side of the board. Like the white queen, place the black queen on a square of her own colour.

The correct place for the black queen is the black square nearest the middle of the back rank.

King

The king is placed on the middle square on the back rank next to the queen.

The black and white kings sit on the e file, next to the queen.

Kings always start on a square of opposite colour.

Bishops

Bishops are placed next to the king and queen, one bishop each side.

Each side has two bishops. A bishop sits next to the king or queen.

Some chess articles refer bishops as “Queen’s bishop” or “King’s bishop” depending upon their initial position.

This designation also informs experienced players as to the colour of squares that the piece may move on. This convention avoids phrases such as “white’s white bishop!”

Knights

Each side has two knights. Knights belong next to the bishops.

Place one knight next to each bishop on the back rank.

Chess novices sometimes become confused over knight and bishop placement.

Here is a helpful way to remember correct placement. Bishops are likely to be members of the court and so are near the king and queen, but a knight is often depicted by a horse. No horses in the court!

Rooks

There are now just two chess pieces to place – the rooks.

Each player has two rooks and they are perhaps the easiest of pieces to place as they occupy the corners of the board.

Place each rook in the corner of the board, next to the knights. After all, where else would a knight “live” other than next to a “castle”?

In Conclusion

I hope that you found this guide useful. Now the next time someone asks “How do you set up a chess board?” you can be confident that you know how to set up a chess board correctly.

Of course, if you use our online chess game here on here at computer chess online then setting up the board is simple as pressing “new game”!

Computer Chess Online - How to Setup a Chess Board and Pieces