Among indoor games, chess is one of the most famous and most played. India is the mother country of chess. Chess is said to be good for your brain, it requires strategic thinking, and hence it is being encouraged to play in many countries. There are a large number of benefits of playing chess. They include the sharpening of memory power, relieving mental stress and strain, and reducing the possibility of certain diseases like Alzheimer’s etc.

For anyone who is new to chess, or in fact any other game, it is very important to know the basic rules before playing. A chessboard contains 64 squares, alternative black and white squares which are all embedded on a large board. Each party has 16 pawns, one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, and two bishops.

The Pieces

The King:

Protecting your king from attack whilst attacking the opponent’s king is what will eventually determine whether you win or lose the game. The King is in fact one of the weakest of all pieces, yet the most important. The king can only travel one place at one time in any direction, making it unable to defend itself against attack. So, whenever your king is exposed to danger by you oppositions piece, you need to use another piece in between your king, protecting it from capture.

The Queen:

The Queen is the strongest piece, yet not the most important, as it can travel both in straight lines and diagonally any number of squares at a time.

The Rook:

Rooks can travel in straight lines any number of squares at a time.

The Bishop:

The Bishop is able to move any number of squares diagonally at a time.

The Knight:

Knights travel in an L shape (one corner to the other of any 2×3 rectangle of squares). The knight is able to jump over other pieces.

The Pawn:

Pawns sit on a row in front of your other pieces. If the pawn is on its starting square, you can move it either one or two spaces forwards. A pawn can only move forwards unless it’s capturing, they can only capture sideways 1 square diagonally forward.

The rows of a chessboard can be indicated by numbers from 1 to 8 and the columns indicated by alphabets, say A to H. Every cell is represented by a combination of these numbers and alphabets. There are many different video games which are designed to help tutor you at chess. Chess is a very tough game to understand, but once you understand it, it is quite easy to play chess.