How to Play Chess: the Basics
| By Jack | Category: Games
The game of chess can be as versatile as are the people who enjoy playing it, but how to play chess does begin with the same basics. Playing a laid-back game of chess can be a relaxing way to spend an afternoon with a friend. On the other hand, it can be an aggressive and mentally challenging duel between two fierce competitors out for the thrill of a good checkmate.
This versatility is probably one of the top reasons why the game of chess has been played and enjoyed by people for thousands of years. If you are interested in learning enough about chess to start to play on your own, then there are a few things that you need to know first…
Rules of Chess: Pieces and Their Moves
There are six different types of chess pieces.
The Pawns, the smallest pieces, can only move space at a time. However, since there are many of them they can be very powerful when used effectively.
The Rooks, or ‘Castles’ can be moved as many spaces as the player needs to move them, but only in a straight line.
The Bishops (the pointy pieces) also can travel great distances across the board, but only diagonally.
The Knights, or ‘horses’, are one of the trickiest pieces to learn how to use effectively due to their L-shaped movements. However, once you know something about chess strategy you’ll learn to love your knights.
The Queen is the most versatile and powerful. She’s the piece that you’ll be sorriest to see taken by your opponent.
A beginner who is first learning about chess pieces may guess that the King, the tallest and most imposing looking piece on the board, is the most valuable and powerful piece. But anyone who knows anything about chess moves knows that the King is actually the weakest link on the chess board.
So What Does ‘Checkmate’ Mean?
The King’s ability to protect itself is very limited, leaving it vulnerable to attack. At the same time, the King is the piece that an opponent will be gunning for the entire time to try to put him into checkmate. Checkmate means that your King is in a position in which it cannot be defended or escape being ‘captured’ by your opponent’s pieces. Checkmate ends the game of chess; if you are the one whose King has been captured, then you lose. How to play chess involves a deceptively simple strategy: putting the other player into checkmate while avoiding it yourself.
Related Posts
No related posts found
