Chess Rules for Kids: How to Play Chess, Step by Step

Chess has more rules than most board games, but every one of them is simple on its own. This guide explains them in the order children find easiest: what you are trying to do, how to set up the board, how each piece moves, and only then check, checkmate and the special moves. Read it together with your child, one section at a time, with a board in front of you.

The goal of the game

Two players, White and Black, each start with 16 pieces. They take turns moving one piece at a time, and White always moves first. The goal is not to capture all of your opponent's pieces. The goal is to trap the other king so that it cannot escape. That is called checkmate, and it ends the game straight away.

Setting up the board

1. Turn the board the right way. Each player has a light square in the bottom-right corner. Children remember it as "white on the right".
2. Pawns go on the second row. All eight of them, in a line in front of the other pieces.
3. Rooks go in the corners, like the towers of a castle.
4. Knights stand next to the rooks, and bishops next to the knights.
5. The queen goes on her own colour. The white queen starts on the light square in the middle, the black queen on the dark one.
6. The king takes the last square, next to his queen.

When you are done, the two queens face each other across the board, and so do the two kings.

How each piece moves

A few details trip up almost every beginner:

• Only the knight can jump. Every other piece stops when something is in its way.
• Pawns never move backwards, and they capture differently from how they move: straight ahead to walk, diagonally to capture.
• The knight always lands on the opposite colour to the one it started on. Kids love checking this.

The points are not part of the rules. They are a guide to which trades are good: giving a bishop (3) for a rook (5) is a bargain. (More in chess piece values.)

Each piece also has its own page with a board diagram: the pawn, knight, bishop, rook, queen and king. Every other word in this guide, from check to stalemate, is in our chess terms for kids.

Capturing

You capture by moving your piece onto a square where an enemy piece stands. The captured piece is taken off the board and does not come back. Capturing is never compulsory in chess: you may always choose another move.

Check: when the king is attacked

When a piece attacks the enemy king, that king is in check. You can say "check" out loud, which is polite and helps beginners notice. A king in check must get out of it on the very next move, in one of three ways:

1. Move the king to a square that is not attacked.
2. Block the attack by putting a piece in the way (this does not work against a knight, which jumps).
3. Capture the piece that is giving check.

One more rule follows from this: you may never make a move that leaves your own king in check, and two kings can never stand next to each other.

Checkmate: how you win

If the king is in check and none of those three escapes works, it is checkmate and the game is over. The player who gave checkmate wins. The king is never actually captured; the game ends one move before that would happen.

The three special moves

Teach these last. They come up less often, and children who learn them too early tend to mix them up with the normal moves.

Castling

Once per game, a player may move the king two squares towards one of the rooks, and then place that rook on the square the king just jumped over. It is the only move in which two pieces move at once, and it tucks the king into safety. Castling is allowed only if:

• neither the king nor that rook has moved yet in the game,
• every square between them is empty,
• the king is not in check, and it does not pass through or land on a square that is attacked.

Pawn promotion

A pawn that reaches the far side of the board must be swapped for a queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour. Nearly everyone chooses a queen, and yes, a player can end up with two or even three queens.

En passant

This is the rule most adults have forgotten. When a pawn moves two squares on its first move and lands right beside an enemy pawn, that enemy pawn may capture it as if it had moved only one square. The capture must happen on the very next move, or the chance is gone. ("En passant" is French for "in passing".)

How a game can end in a draw

Not every game has a winner. A game is a draw when:

• Stalemate: the player whose turn it is has no legal move, but their king is not in check. This catches out many children who are winning easily, so teach them to leave the losing king a square to move to until they can deliver checkmate.
• Not enough pieces to checkmate: for example, king against king, or king and one bishop against a lone king.
• The same position appears three times, with the same player to move.
• Fifty moves pass for each player without any capture or pawn move.
• Both players agree to call it a draw.

In what order should you teach the rules?

One piece at a time, on an almost empty board, with a small game for each piece. The classic first game is the pawn game: each side has only its eight pawns, and the first player to get a pawn to the other side wins. Then add the rook, then the bishop, then the queen, the king and the knight, which is the hardest for young children. Check and checkmate come once every piece feels easy, and the special moves come last.

If you would like a ready-made plan for this, our free chess lesson plan for ages 5–8 covers the first lesson minute by minute, and How to Teach Your Child Chess If You Don't Play Yourself shows how to stay one step ahead even if you are learning the rules yourself tonight. Wondering whether your child is old enough? Read Chess for 5-Year-Olds.

Quick answers

Who moves first in chess? White, always.

Can the king capture other pieces? Yes, one square away, as long as the piece it captures is not protected. Otherwise the king would be moving into check.

Can a pawn move backwards? No. Pawns only move forwards, which is why every pawn move deserves a moment's thought.

Can you have two queens? Yes. Promotion does not depend on whether your first queen is still on the board.

Is "touch move" a rule? In tournaments, a player who touches one of their pieces must move it. At home, with beginners, it is fine to let them take a move back while they learn.

Practise the rules in ChessWorld

Children remember rules best by using them. In the ChessWorld app, created by Grandmaster Boris Alterman, every rule in this guide has its own short interactive lesson, followed by puzzles that use it straight away, from the first pawn move to the first checkmate. More than 2,000 puzzles, ages 5–12, on phone, tablet and computer.