How to set up a chess board

Before you place a single piece, check the board itself. Each player must have a light square in the near right-hand corner. A short way to remember it: "light on the right". The official FIDE Laws of Chess say the same in Article 2.1: the board is placed so that the near corner square to the right of each player is white (FIDE Laws of Chess).

Two terms help with everything that follows. The vertical columns are called files and are named with the letters a to h, starting from White's left. The horizontal rows are called ranks and are numbered 1 to 8, starting from White's side. Every square has a name made of its file and rank, for example e4. White's pieces start on ranks 1 and 2, Black's pieces on ranks 7 and 8.

The step that goes wrong most often is the queen and king. The rule "the queen on her own colour" solves it: the white queen goes on a light square, the black queen on a dark square. On a correctly turned board, that square is always d1 for White and d8 for Black. The king then takes the remaining square in the middle, e1 or e8.

There is a second way to check. When both sides are set up, the white queen and the black queen must stand on the same file, directly opposite each other. The same is true for the kings. If your queen faces the other king, one side has swapped king and queen.

This also tells you which half of the board is which. The half with the queens (files a to d) is called the queenside, the half with the kings (files e to h) is the kingside. You will meet these words in every chess book, for example in castling.

• The board is turned the wrong way. A dark square in the right-hand corner means every piece ends up on the wrong colour. The queen rule then seems to fail. Turn the board by a quarter.
• King and queen are swapped. This is the most common mistake. Remember: queen on her own colour.
• Knights and bishops are swapped. The order from the corner is always rook, knight, bishop. The knights stand next to the rooks.
• The sides do not mirror each other. If one queen stands on d1 and the other on e8, one of the two sides is set up wrong.
• A pawn is missing or a piece is left in the box. Count: eight pawns and eight pieces for each side.

White always moves first (FIDE Laws of Chess, Article 1.2). After that, the players move in turn, one move each. Who gets White is decided before the game. In a casual game, one player often hides a white and a black pawn in closed hands and the other player picks a hand. In a series of games, the players usually change colours after every game. In tournaments, the pairing decides who plays White.

Moving first is a small advantage, so it is fair to alternate. When you play against a computer, you can simply choose your colour or let it be chosen at random.

Three special moves complete the rules:

• Castling: the king moves two squares towards a rook, and the rook jumps over to the square next to the king. Only allowed if neither piece has moved yet, the squares between them are empty and the king is not in check, does not pass through check and does not land in check.
• Promotion: a pawn that reaches the last rank becomes a queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour.
• En passant: if a pawn moves two squares and lands next to an enemy pawn, that pawn may capture it as if it had moved only one square. This is only possible on the very next move.

The goal of the game is checkmate: the king is attacked and has no legal move to escape. Once you know the basics, the checkmate patterns page shows the most common ways to deliver mate, and the chess notation guide explains how to read and write the moves.

The fastest way to remember the setup is to play. On the play against Stockfish page you can play Stockfish 19 at the Beginner level right in your browser, starting from the position above. The Beginner level is limited to Elo 800 on Stockfish's own scale and makes deliberate mistakes, so you have time to think about your moves.

To play against a friend, use two players on one device: one phone or tablet between you, with the board turning after every move or set up for sitting opposite each other. To try out a position, for example only kings and pawns, place the pieces yourself in the board editor. It has a button for the starting position and checks that the position is possible.