Guide · 2026-11-03 · 7 min read

How the chess pieces move: the complete guide, with castling, en passant and promotion

Setting up the board, how each of the six pieces moves and captures, and the three special moves that confuse almost every beginner, with positions you can check on a board.

Chess has only six kinds of pieces, and each moves in one fixed way. A child can learn all of them in an evening. What takes longer are the three special moves, castling, en passant and promotion, which even adults who have "played for years" often get wrong. This guide covers everything, in the order a coach would teach it.

Setting up the board

The board has 64 squares in 8 columns (files, named a to h) and 8 rows (ranks, numbered 1 to 8). Turn the board so that each player has a light square in the bottom right corner. "Light on the right" is the first rule; a board turned the wrong way puts the kings and queens on the wrong squares.

• The rooks go in the corners, then the knights, then the bishops.
• The queen goes on the square of her own colour: the white queen on the light square d1, the black queen on the dark square d8.
• The king goes on the last square of the row, next to the queen (e1 and e8).
• The eight pawns fill the row in front.

White always makes the first move, and then the players take turns, one move each. You may not pass. Captures are made by moving onto the square of an enemy piece and taking it off the board; you can never capture your own piece, and you never jump over pieces (except with the knight).

The rook: straight lines

The rook moves any number of squares along a file or a rank, forwards, backwards or sideways, until something is in the way. On an empty board a rook always controls 14 squares, wherever it stands. Rooks are strongest on open files (files with no pawns) and on the seventh rank, where the enemy pawns stand.

The bishop: diagonals

The bishop moves any number of squares diagonally. Each player has one bishop on light squares and one on dark squares, and a bishop stays on its colour for the whole game. A bishop in the middle of an empty board controls 13 squares; in a corner, only 7. That is why bishops love long, open diagonals.

The queen: rook plus bishop

The queen moves like a rook and a bishop together: any number of squares in any straight line or diagonal. From the centre of an empty board she controls 27 squares. She is the strongest piece, which is also her danger: if you bring her out early, the opponent develops pieces while chasing her.

The knight: the L-jump

The knight moves two squares in a straight line and then one square to the side, like a capital L. It is the only piece that jumps over others, so it can move out at the start of the game before any pawn has moved. A knight always lands on a square of the other colour. In the centre it reaches 8 squares, in a corner only 2, which is where the coaching rhyme "a knight on the rim is dim" comes from.

The king: one square at a time

The king moves one square in any direction. He may never move onto a square attacked by an enemy piece, so two kings can never stand next to each other. The whole game is about the king: when he is attacked and cannot escape, the game is over. (Read check, checkmate and stalemate next.)

The pawn: forwards only

The pawn is the only piece that cannot go back. It moves one square straight forward. From its starting square it may move one or two squares. It does not capture the way it moves: a pawn captures one square diagonally forward. So a pawn that has an enemy piece right in front of it is blocked, and it cannot take that piece.

Special move 1: castling

Castling is the only move in which two pieces move at once. The king moves two squares towards a rook, and that rook jumps over to the square on the king’s other side. Castling on the king’s side is written O-O (the king goes to g1, the rook to f1); on the queen’s side, O-O-O (king to c1, rook to d1).

Castling is allowed only when all of these are true:

• Neither the king nor that rook has moved before in the game (moving away and back still counts as moved).
• All the squares between the king and the rook are empty.
• The king is not in check at that moment.
• The king does not pass over a square attacked by the enemy, and does not land on one.

Note what is not on the list: the rook may be attacked, and on the queen’s side the square b1 (or b8), which only the rook crosses, may be attacked. Only the king’s path matters.

In a tournament, castle by touching the king first and moving it two squares, then move the rook, all with one hand. If you touch the rook first, an arbiter may rule that you must make a rook move instead.

Special move 2: en passant

En passant ("in passing" in French) is a pawn capture that only one pawn situation allows. When a pawn makes its two-square 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 be made immediately, on the very next move, or the chance is gone for good.

The capturing pawn moves diagonally to the square the other pawn passed over (d6 here), and the pawn that moved two squares is taken off the board. If White plays any other move first, exd6 is no longer allowed. Many young players think en passant is a made-up rule when they first meet it online; it is part of the official FIDE Laws of Chess. Our en passant lesson lets a child try it on the board.

Special move 3: promotion

A pawn that reaches the last rank (the eighth rank for White, the first for Black) must be changed at once into a queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour. You choose, and it does not matter how many queens you already have. You may have two or three queens on the board.

Almost always you choose a queen. But look before you choose, because a queen can be too strong:

Choosing a piece other than a queen is called under-promotion. It is rare, but this position shows why the rule lets you choose. In an over-the-board game, if a second queen is not at hand, stop the clock and ask the arbiter for one; do not put an upside-down rook on the square and call it a queen.

What the pieces are worth

When you trade pieces you need to know what you are giving and getting. The usual count: pawn 1, knight 3, bishop 3, rook 5, queen 9. The king has no number: he cannot be traded. These numbers are a guide, not a law: a knight that forks a king and a queen is worth more than any number.

Practise it

• Our free Learn chess course teaches each piece in short levels: the rook, the bishop, the knight, the pawn, then castling and en passant.
• Piece Sight names a piece and asks you to tap every square it can reach: the fastest way to make the moves automatic.
• Then read the 10 opening principles and play your first games against a Castle Rival at the easiest level.

Questions beginners ask

Read next

• Check, checkmate and stalemate: the rules every child must know (and all the ways a game is drawn)
• 6 checkmate patterns every kid must know (with positions to try)