Chess is played on a square board with 64 squares arranged in an 8x8 grid. The squares alternate between light and dark colors. When setting up the board, make sure each player has a light-colored square in their bottom-right corner.

Each player starts with an army of 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns. The pieces are set up on the two rows closest to each player.

The board has a coordinate system to identify each square. The vertical columns are called files and are labeled 'a' through 'h'. The horizontal rows are called ranks and are labeled '1' through '8'. By combining a file and a rank, you can name any square, like 'e4' or 'h8'. This is called algebraic notation.

Each piece in chess has its own unique way of moving across the board. Capturing an opponent's piece is simple: if one of your pieces can legally move to a square occupied by an opponent's piece, you can move it there and remove the opponent's piece from the board.

The Pawn: Pawns are the foot soldiers. On its first move, a pawn can advance either one or two squares forward. After that, it can only move one square forward at a time. Pawns are unique because they capture differently than they move. They capture one square diagonally forward. They can never move or capture backward.

The Rook: The rook moves in a straight line, as many squares as it wants, horizontally or vertically. Rooks are powerful pieces, especially on open files and ranks.

The Knight: The knight moves in an L-shape: two squares in one direction (horizontal or vertical) and then one square at a 90-degree angle. The knight is the only piece that can jump over other pieces, making it very tricky.

The Bishop: The bishop moves diagonally as many squares as it wants. Because it moves diagonally, a bishop will always stay on squares of the same color it started on. You have one bishop on light squares and one on dark squares.

The Queen: The queen is the most powerful piece on the board. She can move any number of squares in any direction: horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. She combines the powers of the rook and the bishop.

The King: The king is the most important piece, but also one of the weakest. It can move one square in any direction. The king can never move into a square that is attacked by an opponent's piece.

The object of chess is not to capture all the other pieces. The goal is to checkmate your opponent's king.

When a king is attacked by an opposing piece, it is in check. The player whose king is in check must immediately make a move to get out of check. There are three ways to do this:

1. Move the king to a safe square.
2. Block the check by placing another piece between the king and the attacking piece.
3. Capture the piece that is attacking the king.

If a player is in check and cannot make any of these moves, their king is in checkmate, and they lose the game.

There are three special moves in chess that every player should know.

Castling: This is a special move that involves both the king and one of the rooks. It's the only move where you can move two pieces at once. To castle, the king moves two squares towards a rook, and that rook then moves to the square on the other side of the king. You can only castle if:

• Neither the king nor the rook has moved yet.
• The squares between the king and the rook are empty.
• The king is not in check and does not pass through or land on a square that is attacked by an opponent's piece.

Pawn Promotion: If you manage to advance one of your pawns all the way to the other side of the board (the 8th rank for White, or the 1st rank for Black), it gets a promotion! You can replace the pawn with a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same color. Most of the time, players choose to promote to a queen since it's the most powerful piece.

En Passant: This is a French term meaning "in passing." It's a special pawn capture that can only happen immediately after a pawn moves two squares forward from its starting position, landing beside an opponent's pawn. The opponent's pawn can then capture the two-square-moving pawn as if it had only moved one square. This special capture must be made on the very next turn, or the option is lost.

Now that you have the basic rules down, you're ready to test your understanding.

Understanding these rules is the first and most important step. The best way to get comfortable with them is to start playing.