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

Please note that in the diagram above Black is not allowed to castle on the King-side. (Look at the white Bishop on c4.)
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)