When people think of board games, chess is often one of the first games to come to mind. It’s a classic, elegant, and incredibly complex game that has cemented itself as one of the world’s most popular games.
In chess, players take turns moving their pieces around the square board in accordance with fixed rules. The goal is to force the opponent’s principal piece into a position where it can’t avoid being captured.
Each player begins with eight pawns, which are placed on the second rank nearest to them (White’s pawns are at a2, b2, and c2, while Black’s are at a7, b7, and c7). From there, the rooks, bishops, and knights fill up the first rank for White and the eighth for Black from the outside in. Finally, the king and queen finish up the middle of the board (with the Queen always going on her own color).
Each move must be made to an unoccupied square or one occupied by an enemy piece (which is then captured and removed from play). The exception is castling, where two moves are combined into a single action.
Once a pawn reaches the rank farthest from where it began, it can promote into any minor or major piece, such as a queen, rook, bishop, or knight. Similarly, an enemy pawn on an adjacent file can capture a pawn that is three ranks away from it by landing directly next to it, a technique known as en passant.