Mastering Chess: A Guide to Moving Pieces Like a Pro
Chess is a game of strategy and skill, where each piece on the board has its own unique way of moving. From pawns to queens, each chess piece plays a crucial role in the game.
We will explore the different types of chess pieces and their basic rules for movement. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned player, understanding how each piece moves is essential for mastering the game of chess.
Let’s explore the movement of pawns, knights, bishops, rooks, queens, and kings.
Contents
Key Takeaways:
What Are the Different Types of Chess Pieces?
The different types of chess pieces are called the king, queen, rooks (two of these can be found in the standard-spaced pieces on e1 and h1, White’s kingside, and a1 and h8, Black’s queenside), bishops (in the standard-positioned pieces staring on c1 and f1 and f8), knights (in the standard configuration starting on b1 and g1 and b8 and g8), and pawns (standard configuration as well).
The King (represented by the letter ‘K’) is the most important piece and starts beside the queen initially, holding the two center squares on the back row. The Queen (abbreviated by ‘Q’) starts beside the king. The Rooks (abbreviated by ‘R’) occupy the two corners, the Knights (abbreviated by ‘N’) the spaces next to the rooks on b and g files, and the Bishops (abbreviated by ‘B’) the central center queen square.
What Are the Basic Rules for Moving Chess Pieces?
The basic rules for moving chess pieces are as follows:
- Pieces must move according to their specific type move (e.g., pawns can move forward but only attack diagonally, bishops can only move diagonally).
- Pieces must move to an unoccupied square and if attacking a square must move according to their specific type move. The only exception to this rule is the En passant capturing move by pawns.
- Only rooks and kings can move any distance in a straight line.
Pawn Movement
The pawn is the weakest chess piece and is unique compared to other pieces both in terms of its initial movement and its captures. The initial movement of a pawn is two squares from the second to the fourth rank. This is the only time a pawn can move two squares at once and can apply to any of the player’s pawns. Every subsequent move is one square at a time vertically along a file, with two important exceptions:
- Pawns can capture diagonally.
- En passant: Immediately after an opponent’s pawn moves two squares forward from its starting location to avoid being captured by a player’s pawn. The capturing pawn advances like it was making a traditional pawn capture, then transacts the capturing piece.
How Does a Pawn Move?
A pawn moves by advancing one square forward vertically. After its initial optional two-square move, a pawn moves one square forward or diagonally in order to capture an opponent’s piece. Pawns capture other pieces only if they are on a square diagonally in front of the pawn’s starting position. There are special rules for the en passant capture move and the square to exchange en passant pawns.
What Are the Special Moves for Pawns?
- The En Passant capture
- Underpromotion
- Double movement on initial square.
The en passant capture is a complex, unique, advanced rule in the board game of chess, which many casual players never realize exists. The en passant capture allows a player’s pawn – with no advancements taken on its board journey – to capture an opponent’s pawn which makes a two square move from its starting point despite the fact that the rules say two-square moves allot no chance for captures. However, a pawn using the double-move privilege must implement the en passant capture. Because these double-moves with captures rules are unusual, they are rarely seen outside of chess games at a very high level of play.
Some basic requirements must be met. The opponent’s pawn must already have moved two squares from its starting position. The capturing pawn must be on its starting square. The capture must be made instantly when the opponent’s pawn moves two squares, or the right to capture using this rule is lost. You can see an example of how an opponent can take advantage of and underpromotion in the figure in the What Is An Underpromotion section.
Knight Movement
Knights are the pieces on a chess board with the ability to leapfrog over other pieces. Knights move to any of the 8 squares closest to the square where they start. They are the only pieces which can move over other pieces, although they can never land on a square occupied by one of their own pieces. Knights play an integral part of a chess strategy by putting opponents in check or by threatening multiple pieces at the same time.
How Does a Knight Move?
The knight moves in the shape of an L. The knight in chess moves as close as possible to two steps forward, one step to the left or right delivered from the center of the desired square. As with all pieces, if the move leads to a square where one’s own piece stands, the knight will jump over it.
The exception to this rule is in the case of a knight’s move that lands it on an enemy piece. The knight is actually the only piece which can ‘capture’ a piece merely by moving to a square it occupies. This can be seen in the image below, in lines of travel from the initial white knight position of b1 where a3 or c3 (the two defined squares of the ‘L’ move) both capture the black rook at d2.
Knights jump over pieces when making any move in chess, and are the only pieces that can ignore pieces that might be blocking them and jump over enemy pieces to land on the first square after it. The knights are able to move in this way because after one move, they change in color from white to black, or vice-versa, which places them on a tended square. The change in color between the original square and the landing square gives the knights the geometric nature of the covered field, compared to how the bishops perform in a similar way on their own color field. Knights are referred to as ‘functionally colored’, given that chessboards are usually designed ‘vertically-striped’ in colors, to reflect which color pieces are moving where.
What Are the Special Moves for Knights?
The special moves for Knights are their knight’s move which makes them unique among pieces. Knights move as the arcs of the letter ‘L’; they proceed diagonally two squares (not in rank or file), and then one square in a direction orthogonal to the initial two-square move.
The knight is the only piece that may ‘jump’ any intervening piece. This unique pattern makes knights excellent defenders against pinned pieces. The unique behavior means that the total board-control aspect of chess dynamics includes a special role for the knights.
Bishop Movement
Bishops move diagonally and they can move as far as they would like along that diagonal. They can easily move from one side of the board to the other and attack enemy pawns. They change from one-colored square to a different one each time they move square to square. If a player loses both bishops during the game, then the player will have a same-colored square bishop, which will limit their movement and capabilities to some degree.
If the square they started on is white, they must stay on white. If the starting square is black, they must stay on black. Bishops are worth three points. They are essential to controlling the center of the board. Since their diagonal moves go along the center diagonals, they are often the cornerstone of opening pawn defenses. Typically, players wait until the middle or endgame to move bishops around and can be doing it advantageously to secure pawns.
How Does a Bishop Move?
In chess, a bishop moves any number of unoccupied squares diagonally until it is stopped by a piece of its own side, or until it captures an enemy piece by moving to the enemy piece’s square. See Figure 3 for an illustration the squares a bishop covers. Unlike the rook piece, the bishop cannot jump over pieces or change directions once it meets a piece of its color. The Normal rules of chess state that bishops may begin on certain starting squares, but they may move to any square that is a multiple of two (not including zero) in both directions along the diagonal path, so long as they do not go farther than the board allows. Bishops are the only pieces that can change their area of control, but cannot protect their original square.
What Are the Special Moves for Bishops?
Special moves for bishops are called castling and have never been used in real games. There are no special moves for bishops unique to bishops – bishops have special moves in shared with all other chess pieces except for the PPPs, which are uniquely limited while they are allowed to en passant.
En passant is taken from French for “in passing“. It is a chess maneuver in which a player can capture an opponent’s pawn immediately after it moves two squares forward from its starting position and lands next to their pawn. To execute en passant, the two following conditions must be met.
1. The pawn has just moved two squares from its original square.
2. It lands next to an opponent’s pawn that is on the same rank.
The trickiest part of en passant for all pieces is the lack of any other such unique rules as a chess special move.
Rook Movement
How to move the rook in chess? A rook can move any number of squares horizontally or vertically. It can only be obstructed by pieces of its own color, while all squares it crosses must be vacant. The rook captures an enemy piece by replacing it on its square. It is the second most powerful piece after the queen in terms of value.
How Does a Rook Move?
A rook moves like a castle chess piece, horizontally (along ranks) or vertically (along files), any number of squares in a row provided it is not obstructed on intermediate squares. The rook can move to occupy or take an opponent’s piece on its final location if it is so positioned.
Rooks move up and down the board along a straight line. The rook can move 0, 1, or many squares inimducrow, and if necessary it may pass over other pieces in one’s own army to do so. Rooks cannot move on the diagonal, only in a straight line, and cannot jump over other pieces during their scare. Rooks cannot capture other pieces of the same color as them.
There are 16 rooks in a standard came of chess, 8 of each color. Their notation is R. The rooks are placed in the corners of the board next to the knights. Rooks can be developed to occupy or attack the center of the board, via the open squares connected to the center where pawns have been exchanged. The rooks always move along ranks and files and switching between the two ensures the greatest mobility.
An unobstructed rook can control fourteen squares from the center of the board. When developed, rooks work the best in correspondence with friendly knights or bishops. Placing more pressure on these pieces encourages the enemy to exchange them. Rooks are particularly useful for mobilizing along the 8th rank as the center of the board has a lot of scope. It offers them the ability to influence as few as possible of the twenty square blocks on the field.
What Are the Special Moves for Rooks?
Plus castling, rooks can also perform a rook lift. This involves moving a rook to the back rank so that it becomes mobile up or down the board. This is an advanced tactic and is used to give a player more options of which area of the board they can control. This is one of the most powerful techniques a chess player has in his chess-playing arsenal, as this iconic example by Fischer demonstrates.
Queen Movement
The queen is the most powerful chess piece, having the combined power of the rook and bishop pieces. The queen may hence move any number of squares along a rank, file, or diagonal. This is shown in the image below that shows the allowable queen moves from a and d files when a white king is adjacent to a horizontally aligned black queen..
Provides complete details on every possible move by a queen from given file and the number of legal moves in brackets (from initial position).
-
a-file (16 moves):
May only move along the a-file. May move only along a1-h8 diagonal, resulting in 15 legal moves. -
b-file (18 moves):
May move by two squares along the a2-h7, and a7-f2 diagonals, but cannot move along the b1-h7 diagonal, resulting in 17 legal moves. -
c-file (18 moves):
There are no unblocked central squares for a queen at the starting position to move along the main diagonal. This results in 15 legal moves despite there being more possible moves. -
d-file (18 moves):
May only move along the d-file. May move only along a8-h1 and a1-h8 diagonals, resulting in 15 legal moves. -
e-file (21 moves):
There are no blocked squares in the center of the board preventing a queen in the initial position from moving along the center diagonal. A queen beginning on the e-file may make 21 moves, including to the center. -
f-file (18 moves):
May move by 2 squares along the diagonal f6-c3 but must avoid g6 and f5, resulting in 15 legal moves. -
g-file (18 moves):
May move by 2 squares along the diagonal g2-b7 but must avoid f2 and g3, resulting in 15 legal moves. -
h-file (16 moves):
May only move along the h-file. May go diagonally only along the a8-h1 diagonal, resulting in 15 legal moves.
Queens do not jump over occupied squares, so the target square must be vacant.
How Does a Queen Move?
A queen piece moves any number of squares in a straight line horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Every chessboard has only one queen piece. The queen is the second most powerful piece on the board and its movement style is a combination of the rook plus the bishop’s move. This means that functionally the queen is capable of moving one or a combination of any of the number of squares a rook and bishop may move to or through. This greatly distinguishes her movement from that of any other piece on the board. As with every piece, the queen may not cross squares that are occupied by the player’s own pieces.
If any opponent’s piece occupies the target square of the queen’s movement, it may capture that piece (the queen capture move). Queens may change direction at every square and do not automatically end their trajectory. In this way, a queen’s move can be as short as one square, as long as the entire board, or even longer since the targets of its movement are only squares not occupied by its own pieces. The way in which this move is combined with the existing movement patterns of other pieces makes the queen the best possible piece to always have on the board.
What Are the Special Moves for Queens?
The special moves for queens are king’s side castle, queen’s side castle, and en passant when the queen is on its own home of the board. In King’s side castle, the queen crosses the king’s square and rests beside it. In queen’s side castle, the queen crosses the queen’s square and moves to the d2 square. The special pawn move in conjunction with the queen is high unlikely. Only when the pawn move which allows it to execute the special pawn move. The probability that a queen lives throughout the game up until this time period, especially when it also is one of two bishops left on the board, is low 0.018%. But if your opponent tries to use this special move, the queen captures the opponent’s pawn by switching from a pawn capture pattern to a cross from the opponent’s pawn at the exact coordinates where the special pawn movement was executed.
King Movement
The king piece is fairly limited in its movements. It may move one square in any direction, sometimes also referred to by chess players as the king’s square.
The king has the unique power to make a special move known as castling with one of the two rooks before either piece has moved. The king moves two squares towards a Rook on its original square, and that Rook moves towards the King’s square, and then the King moves to that side of the board for castling. It cannot move into a square that is under attack by an opponent’s piece.
Castling may be undertaken if the King and Rook have not moved previously, if there doesn’t yet exist any pieces between the King and the chosen Rook, and if neither the King, Rook, or the space both are trying to move over are under an opposing piece’s threat.
King’s movement is important in the end game, but not so much in the middle and opening games. During opening play, it is best to get the king to safely castle near the center of the opposing board. In the middle game as well, the king’s role is to not move but entrench himself for defense. During the end game, the king develops the ability to freely roam around the board to his advantage.
How Does a King Move?
A king is the most vital piece in chess. The main role of the king is to avoid being placed in checkmate which would end the game. The king is a piece that can move like a queen but in only one space at a time. Once a game is drawn out and both players have few pieces left, it is the king’s job to have enough movement on the board to avoid being captured.
A king moves on the board by utilizing any of the remaining 8 squares around him. The king is restricted in his movements because unlike the queen, it cannot jump over any pieces blocking its path. The king is weak at attacking because it can only move one square at a time, A player should preserve his or her king as long as possible and should not activate him until opponent pieces are significantly reduced and the end of the match is near.
As an agile piece, the king should not just stay in one area of the board. Use the king in the endgame to fork multiple simultaneous threats. This basically puts the opponent in a position where whatever move he or she makes, it will result in an even more unfavorable board position. Master the technique known as opposition. It is used to force the opponent out of certain chess squares such that they are protected for the weaker pieces. Opposition is when unequal kings face each other, with less than three square spaces between them, moving into the row or column so that your opponent is forced out.
What Are the Special Moves for Kings?
The special moves for Kings in chess are meant to be known and seen when the player may be able to draw a game that would otherwise be lost, or even execute the rare smothered, stalemate, or two-move checkmate. Kings have three special moves, one on each of their sides and one involving another piece type.
Special move 1: Castling if the king and rook have not previously moved.^1
Special move 2: An allegiance move wherein the player moves the king into the line of fire to protect another piece because Kings may be captured.
Special move 3: When the pawn ability promotion is used to turn a pawn into another piece which is advantageous at that time rather than a queen, the king is the only piece moved. In the case of a king move that accomplishes a pawn promotion, this counts as a special move.^(4)
Frequently Asked Questions
How to Move Pieces in Chess?
1. How do I move the knight in chess?
To move the knight, you can either move it in an L-shaped pattern or jump over other pieces on the board. The knight is the only piece that can jump over other pieces.
2. What is the correct way to move the bishop?
The bishop can only move diagonally, and it must stay on the same color squares throughout the game. This means it can never cross over to the opposite color square.
3. Can pawns move backwards in chess?
No, pawns can only move forward, one square at a time. The only exception is the first move of a pawn, where it can move two squares forward.
4. How do I promote a pawn in chess?
If a pawn reaches the other end of the board, it can be promoted to a queen, rook, bishop, or knight. The player can choose which piece to promote the pawn to.
5. Can a king capture a piece in chess?
Yes, a king can capture a piece if it is in a position to do so. However, a king is not allowed to move into a position where it can be captured in the next move.
6. How does castling work in chess?
Castling is a special move where the king and rook can switch places. The king moves two squares towards the rook, and the rook moves to the square next to the king. This move can only be done if the king and rook have not moved yet and there are no pieces in between them.
