Chess 101

I believe chess is a game every young man should learn how to play. Since there are many people who do not know the rules of chess, I am going to outline them in this article. I may post more articles on chess in the future. So enjoy!

Chess is a turn-based game between two players. Each player tries to attack his/her opponent’s king. When the king is attacked this is called check and the defender has 3 choices.

He can move his king to safety.
He can capture the attacking piece.
He can block the attacking piece.
Also, a player is not allowed to place himself in check.

If the defender can not do any of the above actions, this is called checkmate and he loses.

Below is a picture depicting how the board is set up. The white king is on the right and the black king is on the left. The white queen is on a white square and the black queen is on a black square. White always plays first.

To capture a piece one must move his/her piece onto the square of the piece he/she would like to capture. The captured piece is then removed.

The standard starting position for a chess game.

Now I will demonstrate how each piece moves.

The king can move to any empty adjacent square. Remember, you can not move your king into check.

Pawns move forward one square and on their first turn they are allowed to move two squares.

Pawns capture pieces by moving diagonally. If a pawn reaches the opposite end of the board, it must be replaced by a bishop, knight, queen, or rook.

Bishops can move up to 8 empty squares diagonally. The white bishop will always stay on white squares and the black bishop will always stay on black squares.

Rooks can move up to 8 empty squares vertically and horizontally.

Hopefully this post has helped you learn the basics of chess. All these rules can be quite daunting at first, however, I am confident that you will be able to teach yourself this amazing game. If I publish any future posts about chess, I will make sure to give you tips, tricks, openings, advanced moves, and more. If you have any questions, there are lots of great chess videos online and you can leave a comment on this post.

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~ Pax Tecum, The Catholic Newsboy

Oh, one more thing! Saint Maximilian Koble’s favorite game was chess and supposedly he was very good at it too.