How to play Chess

The goal

Moving

• Tap one of your pieces to pick it up: the squares it can move to are marked (a ring means a capture). Tap a square to move there, or drag the piece.
• White moves first. Choose White, Black or Random in New game; playing Black turns the board around.
• The last move is shaded yellow, and a king in check glows red.

How the pieces move

• King: one square any way. Queen: any distance in a straight line or diagonal. Rook: straight lines. Bishop: diagonals. Knight: an L shape, jumping over pieces.
• Pawns move one square forward (two from their starting square) and capture one square diagonally forward.
• You can never make a move that leaves your own king in check.

Special moves

• Castling: move the king two squares toward a rook, and the rook jumps over to its other side. Only if neither has moved, the squares between are empty, and the king isn’t in check, passing through check or landing in check.
• En passant: if a pawn moves two squares and lands beside your pawn, your pawn may take it as if it had moved one square, but only on the very next move.
• Promotion: a pawn reaching the far side becomes a queen, rook, bishop or knight of your choice.

Draws

• Stalemate (the side to move has no legal move but isn’t in check) is a draw, as is a position where neither side has enough pieces left to mate.
• When the same position has come up three times, or 50 moves each have passed without a capture or pawn move, either side can claim a draw. Five repeats or 75 moves end the game as a draw by themselves.
• You can offer a draw once per move. The computer accepts only when it thinks it isn’t doing better.

Help and levels

• Hint shows the move the computer would play for you. Undo takes back your last move and the computer’s reply.
• Easy plays like a beginner and makes mistakes. Normal sees short tactics. Hard thinks for a second or two and is tough to beat.
• Resign ends the game as a loss. Starting a new game in the middle also counts as a loss.

Questions

Strategy guides