Touched and move
New York City Chess, by Ed Yourdon
All sizes of this photo are available for download under a Creative Commons license
Some beginning players have a tendency to pick up a piece and then start to move this piece over the board searching for a good location. They seem to think with their hands.
Try to think before you move. Do the moves in your head. This will help you to visualize the board and also enables you to think about what your opponent will do after your move.
Even more important the touch-move rule in chess forces you to move or capture a piece you have touched during your turn. Please note the capture part in this rule. If you touch a piece of your opponent you have to capture that piece.
If you are moving a piece the move isn't completed as long as you haven't released this piece. You are even allowed to move a piece in a completely different direction as long as it is a legal move. As soon as you have released the piece the move is considered to be completed and you are not allowed to change your mind. This rules sometimes causes that players are almost afraid to release their pieces. Try to avoid this. Think before you move. Most blunders are made by players that change their mind during the short time frame of the actual move after a rather good evaluation of all the consequences of their intended move.
Summarizing these official rules a piece that has been touched has to be moved. A move is completed as soon as the piece has been released and may not been taken back.
Castled, by Yersinia
All sizes of this photo are available for download under a Creative Commons license.
Castling is a very special chess move. It is the only move in which more than one piece, a King and a Rook, is moved. Castling is only allowed if both the King as well as the castling Rook have not been moved before. As we will see at the end of this lesson there are even more restrictions, but first we explain how to castle.
To castle, move the King two squares toward the Rook, and then move the Rook to the square immediately on the other side of the King.
In the position of the diagram below the white King can castle on either side of the board.
Castling is only allowed when:
- The King and castling Rook have never moved during this game
- The King is not in check at the starting square
- The King is not in check at the destination square
- The King is not in check on the squares is passing through
- All the squares between the Rook and the King are vacant
King-side castling is also called short castling. Queen-side castling is called long castling.
The chess lessons continue with 'the end of the game'.
Glass pawn by pixieclipx
As explained in the previous lesson about the pawn moves a pawn is able to move two squares forward when it has not moved before, but there is a special rule to prevent them to pass an opposite pawn.
On the very next move and only on this next move, this pawn can be captured on the field that has been skipped.
The animated diagram above shows a white pawn that moves two squares forward. It passes a square that is attacked by the black pawn. At the next move Black takes the pawn by placing his pawn on the square. After a little pause the animation will start over again.
Next lesson: Castling.
Black pawn by All Glass Photo (Creative Commons)
The pawns are only allowed to move one square forwards at at time. However, in their first move, they can move two squares if they want. They can only move straight forward and never backwards. And they can only capture one of the enemy pieces diagonally. A pawn that makes it to the other side will be promoted to another piece: a Knight, a Bishop, a Rook or even a Queen! Most of the time the player exchanges his pawn at such a moment for a Queen, but it may be useful to remember that another piece may be choosen.
In the diagram above the normal moves are indicated by the cross marks, while the capture moves of the white pawn are indicated by the black dots. However capture is only possible when one of the opponent's pieces is located at one of these squares.
In the next lesson we will learn another pawn move: En passant.
Knight Glass Chess Piece by stevendepolo (Creative Commons)
The Knight’s move is unusual among the chess pieces. It is the only piece that jumps. The move is most of the times described as two squares horizontally and one square vertically, or two squares vertically and one square horizontally. It may be easier to say that the Knight may jump to any of the outer squares with a different color of the 5 by 5 area around the Knight.
Let’s look at the diagram.
Please note that both the white as the black pawn, as well as any other piece, doesn’t influence the move possibilities of the Knight, as long as the move doesn’t capture a piece of his own or places the own King in check.
Next lesson: the pawn.
Chess Kings by www.butkaj.com
The King can move one square in any direction. The King can also capture an opponent's piece if it is on one of those squares as long as this piece is not defended. The King is not allowed to move himself into check. The following figure illustrates how the King moves. The King can move to any of the marked squares.
Sometimes a special move with the King is allowed which is called castling. This is the only chess move that actually involves two pieces at the same time as we will see at the castling lesson.
Next lesson: the Knight.
Black Queen by rofi
The Queen is the most powerfull piece and combines the powers of both the Rook and the Bishop. It can move horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. However, even the Queen is unable to jump over another piece.
The following diagram gives an overview of these possibilities to move and capture. The white pawn is blocking the path of the Queen. A black pawn on the same place can be captured, but the Queen is still unable to jump over it.
Next lesson: the King.
Bishops by The DeerSlayer
The Bishop can move any number of squares diagonally as long as it doesn’t jump over another piece. At the beginning of the game each player has a Bishop on a white square and a Bishop on a black square. Because of their move possibilities these Bishops will always remain on the same color.
Next lesson: the Queen.
Two white rooks by All Glass Photo
The Rook can move any number of squares in a horizontal or vertical straight line as illustrated in the figure below, but the Rook may not jump over a piece of either color. The destination square has to be empty or occupied by an opponent's piece in which case this piece is captured.
In the castling moves in which two pieces are moved at the same time both the King as well as the Rook are involved as we will see in one of the next lessons.
One final remark about the possibility to move a Rook (or any other piece): A move may never result in a placement of the own King in check.
Next lesson: the Bishop.
Chess motion by teliko82 on Flickr
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