Q&A for How to Play Chess

You need a strong defense and to be prepared for almost anything. One of the main strategies of chess is forcing your opponent into a situation where, no matter what he or she does, you are given an advantage, such as capturing a piece or securing a better position.

These are pawns that have reached their eighth row (the opponent's first row) and have been converted to some other piece such as a queen.

Under certain conditions, yes. It is known as castling and is very useful. It was one of the few changes made in the last millennium.

Yes, it can.

A bishop moves diagonally in any direction and as many open squares as it wants. It must stop before coming to a square occupied by a piece of its own color. It can stop on a square occupied by an opponent's piece (thereby capturing that piece).

Usually a pawn moves one square forward. On its first move, it can move either one square or two squares forward. A pawn may move one square diagonally forward if in doing so it captures an opponent's piece.

Yes. Your pawns may each move either one or two spaces forward on their first move. In all subsequent moves, each may move only one space.

Expert moves takes time to learn. You need to learn the basic moves, like protecting every single piece of your chess pieces. After that, you can try to learn to focus on a side to check-mate the king. You might want to know some openings and endgames technique too.

All pieces except pawns can move backwards in directions permitted for the piece in question (e.g. rooks can move straight backwards, bishops can go backwards diagonally, etc.). Promoted pawns can move backwards in the same manner as the piece they've become.

No. The king remains on the board until the very end of the game. If your king can be captured on your opponent's next move, you are in check and must get out of check immediately. You can do so by moving your king to a safe spot, by putting one of your own pieces between your king and the attacking piece, or by capturing the attacking piece. If you are in check and cannot immediately get out of check in one move, you are in checkmate, and the game is over (without your opponent's actually having to remove your king).

A king can move anytime except if a move would put himself into check. A king becomes more powerful toward the end of the game and can help checkmate the other king.

Yes. You can use any piece (except your king) to checkmate your opponent's king. A pawn -- like any other piece -- cannot achieve a checkmate, however, without help from teammates.

Yes, the king can capture a pawn if the pawn is in any adjacent square, as long as the move does not place (or leave) the king in check.

Without seeing the position, it's hard to say. Normally, a king cannot get close enough to the opponent's queen to capture her without putting himself in check, which is illegal. However, there is a situation where the queen is "pinned," which means she can't move, because moving would place her own king in check. Perhaps the computer had pinned your queen, allowing it to place its king right next to your queen without exposing its king to check, and then captured your queen in the next move.

A fool's mate is a checkmate that involves moving your king's F pawn in a way that prevents the knight from blocking and the G pawn is too far forward to block. The opposing queen (or bishop), then will attack diagonally and, assuming the king has no escape, squares (e.g. your queen has moved).

One. Once a checkmate is legitimately declared, the game is over.

Everything takes time, but if you keep learning without a cheat-day or procrastination, you will learn it faster.

The article above and many other wikiHow articles on chess will help you learn what you need to know.

Yes, if moving diagonally forward.

There are a number of ways that you can do this. However, it is very hard to put a king into check without capturing any pieces.

Yes, a promoted pawn may move in any manner permitted to the piece the pawn has become.

If you mean pawns of the king's own color, yes, although that may not be a good defense. An opponent's knight, for example, could place your king in check, and you'd have nowhere to move your king.

Chess is not a game easily mastered. You can learn the basic rules and the moves allowed for the various pieces pretty quickly, but to become truly adept at the game takes years.

Yes, pawns can be near each other.

No, not at all.

This article was created in 2006 and has been changed through the editing process many times since.

Pawns can move forward one or two spaces at the start, one after that and can only attack another piece diagonally forward.

You can check the opponent's king as many times as you can.

You are correct. Several of the above images do show White and Black set up at the wrong ends of the board. White starts on rows 1 and 2. Black begins on rows 7 and 8. (Some chessboards do not even show rank and file designations, although they are useful in the notation of moves.)

The colors are just to make it easy to tell one player's pieces from the other's.