Guides on Learn Chess Basics — Chess for Beginners

How Every Chess Piece Moves — and the Rules You Must Know

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Board and the Pieces

A chessboard has 64 squares arranged in an 8×8 grid. Each player starts with 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns. White always moves first.

Setting up: rooks go in the corners, knights next to them, bishops next to the knights, then the queen on her own colour (white queen on a light square, black queen on a dark square), and the king on the remaining centre square. Pawns fill the entire second rank.

Three Opening Principles That Will Immediately Improve Your Games

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Memorising twenty moves of the Sicilian Defence before you understand why those moves are played is roughly as useful as memorising the words to a song in a language you do not speak. The three principles below are the reasons behind virtually every good opening move. Learn these and you will play reasonable moves by instinct, without memorising anything.

Your First Tactics: Forks, Pins, and Why Pieces Keep Disappearing

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Why Tactics Decide Most Beginner Games

In beginner chess, the game rarely ends with a brilliant sacrifice or a fifteen-move combination. It ends because someone left a piece where it could be taken for free, or missed a simple trick that won material. Tactics — short forcing sequences — determine who loses pieces and who does not. Here are the three patterns you will see repeatedly.