The principles of chess: a plain-English cheat sheet
Everything a new player needs, on one sheet. Print it, keep it next to the board, and check it during your games. It works for kids and grown-ups alike.
1. What the pieces are worth
| Piece | Points | How it moves |
|---|---|---|
| Pawn | 1 | Forward one square (two on its first move). Captures one square diagonally forward. |
| Knight | 3 | In an L shape: two squares one way, then one to the side. It can jump over pieces. |
| Bishop | 3 | Any distance diagonally. It stays on one color all game. |
| Rook | 5 | Any distance in a straight line, up, down or sideways. |
| Queen | 9 | Any distance in any direction. Your strongest piece. |
| King | Priceless | One square in any direction. If it is trapped, you lose. |
Rule of thumb: before you trade, count the points. Give up less than you get.
2. The opening: your first 10 moves
- Take the center. Move a pawn to one of the four middle squares. Pieces in the middle control more of the board.
- Get your knights and bishops out early. Pieces that stay home do nothing.
- Castle early. It tucks your king into a corner and brings a rook into the game. Aim to castle in your first 10 moves.
- Don’t move the same piece twice unless you have a good reason. Get everyone into the game first.
- Don’t bring your queen out too soon. Your opponent will chase it with smaller pieces and gain time.
- Connect your rooks. When nothing sits between them on the back row, your opening is done.
3. Every move: check yourself
- What did their last move do? Look for what it attacks or threatens.
- Look for checks, captures and threats, in that order. Check yours first, then theirs.
- Blunder check: is the square you are moving to safe? Can it be captured for free?
Most beginner games are lost by leaving a piece unprotected. These three questions fix that.
4. Tactics: tricks that win pieces
- Fork: one piece attacks two pieces at once. Your opponent can only save one. Knights are great at this.
- Pin: a piece cannot move, because a more valuable piece is right behind it.
- Skewer: the reverse of a pin. You attack a valuable piece, it moves away, and you capture the piece behind it.
- Discovered attack: you move one piece out of the way, and the piece behind it suddenly attacks.
- Hanging piece: a piece that nothing protects. Take free pieces, and don’t leave yours hanging.
5. The middlegame: make a plan
- Give every piece a job. Move pieces to squares where they attack or defend something.
- Put rooks on open files. An open file is a column with no pawns on it. Rooks love them.
- Trade when you are ahead. Fewer pieces on the board make an extra piece count for more. When you are behind, avoid trades.
- Attack where you have more pieces than your opponent.
- Keep your king safe. Don’t push the pawns in front of your castled king without a reason.
6. The endgame: when few pieces are left
- Bring your king out. With the queens gone, the king becomes a strong fighting piece.
- Push passed pawns. A passed pawn has no enemy pawns in front of it or on the columns next to it. It is a future queen.
- Put rooks behind passed pawns, yours or your opponent’s.
- Learn two checkmates: king and queen against a lone king, and king and rook against a lone king. In both, push the enemy king to the edge of the board.
- Watch out for stalemate. When you are winning, always leave the other king a legal move until you can checkmate.
7. Special rules people forget
- Castling: the king moves two squares toward a rook, and the rook hops over to the other side of the king. You can only castle if neither piece has moved, the squares between them are empty, and your king is not in check, does not pass through an attacked square and does not land on one.
- En passant: if an enemy pawn moves two squares and lands right beside your pawn, you may capture it as if it had moved only one square. You must do it on the very next move or lose the chance.
- Promotion: a pawn that reaches the far side turns into a queen, rook, bishop or knight. Almost everyone picks a queen.
- Check: when your king is attacked, you must get it out of danger on your next move.
- Checkmate: the king is attacked and has no way to escape. The game is over.
- Stalemate: the player whose turn it is has no legal move, but their king is not in check. The game is a draw.
- Other draws: the same position happens three times, 50 moves go by for each player with no capture or pawn move, or neither side has enough pieces left to checkmate.
8. Habits of good players
- Slow down. Most mistakes happen when you move too fast.
- Touch-move: in a real game, if you touch one of your pieces, you must move it. Think first, then touch.
- Look at your lost games. Find the one move where things went wrong. That is how you improve.
- Play often. Short, regular games teach more than long study sessions.