Want to learn to play chess quickly and effortlessly. Well, here is your chance to learn how the chess pieces move, all the chess rules, basic strategy, tactics, special rules and more in 5 minutes or less! Just relax and continue to read!

Chess Board Setup

The game of chess is played between two players: one player controls white pieces, the other one control black pieces. The player playing white pieces is typically referred as White. The player playing black pieces is typically referred as Black. The game is usually being played on a chess board. Chess board is composed of 8 x 8 grids of 64 equally sized squares which are alternatively light (white) or dark (black).
The chessboard is being placed between two players in such a way that black square is on the left side of a player, playing white pieces.

The horizontal rows are called ranks. There are total of 8 ranks: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4rth, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th. The vertical columns are called files. There are 8 files on the chess board: A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H. The straight line connecting two squares of the same color "corner to corner" is called diagonal.
At the beginning of the game one player has 16 white colored pieces; while the other one has 16 black pieces (see the diagram above). Here is a list of all chess pieces with their names and symbols.

Moves of Chess Pieces

The player playing with white pieces starts the game. After the white moves, player playing black has a right of move. It is not permitted to skip moves. If it is a player's turn he/she must make a move. It is not allowed to move a piece on a square, which is already occupied by the piece of the same color. If the square is being occupied by a piece of opposite color (opponent's piece), then placement of a piece in place of opponents piece is called "capture". The opponents piece is being removed from the board and the opposite colored piece is being placed on that square instead (as a part of the same move). The objective of the game is to place the opponent's king under attack in such a way that there are no legal moves for opponent. This is called checkmate. The player who checkmates opponent's king wins the game. In a position when it is not possible to checkmate the king, the game is drawn.

Bishop

Bishop is a long range piece that can move anywhere along the diagonal on which it stands (diagonally). Light squared bishop cannot ever get on the dark squared diagonal. Bishop is worth 3 points (1 point ~ 1 pawn). Here is the example of light squared black bishop. In the center it covers 14 squares. However, bishop's best placement is usually on the flank on open diagonal: it cannot be easily attacked and it controls a lot of squares.

Rook

A rook can move anywhere along the file on which it stands (horizontally). Rook generally considered being stronger than bishop since it can control both light and dark squares. In the center rook controls 16 squares. Rook is worth 5 points. The best position for rook is on the open file

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