Each side starts with sixteen pieces of six kinds: a king, a queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns. Every kind moves its own way. Learn the six patterns and you know most of the rules.
Two rules hold for all of them. A piece captures by moving onto a square where an enemy piece stands, which then leaves the board; it can never land on one of its own. And no piece can jump over others on its way, except the knight.
In the diagrams, a dot marks each square the piece can reach.
The rook
The rook moves in straight lines, along its row or its column, as many squares as it likes. On an open board it reaches fourteen squares from anywhere.
Other pieces get in its way. A friendly piece stops it a square short; an enemy piece stops it too, but the rook can take it.
The bishop
The bishop moves diagonally, as far as it likes. So it never changes colour: a bishop that starts on a light square stays on light squares all game. That's why each side has one of each, the light-squared and the dark-squared bishop.
The queen
The queen moves like a rook and a bishop together: in any straight line, along rows, columns or diagonals, as far as she likes. That makes her the strongest piece on the board.
The king
The king moves one square in any direction. It is the piece the game is about: when a king is attacked it is in check, and its side must get it out of check at once, by moving it, blocking the attack or taking the attacker. A king may never move into check. When there is no way out, that is checkmate, and the game is over.
The knight
The knight moves in an L: two squares in a straight line, then one to the side. It is the only piece that jumps, so nothing in between can block it. Each jump also lands it on the other colour.
Jumping is why the knights can come out before a single pawn has moved.
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The pawn
The pawn is the odd one out. It only moves forward, one square at a time, but from its starting square it may move two. It can't move backwards, and it can't move forward onto any piece, friend or enemy.
It also captures differently from how it moves: one square diagonally forward. A pawn facing an enemy piece head-on is stuck, but can take whatever stands diagonally in front of it.
Three special moves
Castling moves two pieces at once. The king steps two squares towards a rook, and the rook hops over to the square the king crossed. It tucks the king away and brings the rook towards the middle. You may castle only if neither piece has moved yet, the squares between them are empty, and the king is not in check, doesn't pass through a square that's attacked, and doesn't land on one.
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Promotion: a pawn that reaches the far end of the board must become another piece, a queen, rook, bishop or knight, of its own colour. Almost always it becomes a queen.
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En passant, French for “in passing”: when a pawn moves two squares and lands right beside an enemy pawn, that enemy pawn may take it as if it had moved only one. The chance lasts for the very next move only.
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