Lesson 2
Special rules
Three moves in chess break the rules you just learned. They look strange the first time you see them, and all three are completely legal.
Did you know? The queen was once a weak piece, the king's advisor, and she could only shuffle one square diagonally. Around 1475 players in Valencia, Spain, handed her the whole board, and the new game was so fast and so dangerous that people called it "mad queen chess". Castling and en passant come from that same shake-up: once the queen could fly across the board, the king needed a way to run and hide.
Castling
Castling is the only move where two pieces move at once. The king travels two squares toward a rook, and that rook jumps over to the other side of the king. It gets your king to safety and brings a rook into the game in a single turn.
You may castle only if all four of these are true:
- Your king has never moved this game.
- That rook has never moved this game.
- All the squares between the king and the rook are empty.
- Your king is not in check, and does not pass through or land on a square that is attacked.
The rook is allowed to travel across a square the enemy is attacking. That rule is only about the king.
En passant
This rule starts more arguments at club than any other, so let us settle it now. En passant is real. It is in the official rule book, and it has been there for more than 500 years.
Use it or lose it. En passant must be played on the very next move. If you play anything else first, the chance is gone for the rest of the game.
Promotion
A pawn that walks all the way to the far end of the board does not just stop there. It turns into a different piece, and nearly everybody picks a queen. That is why even one extra pawn can win you a game.
Check, checkmate and stalemate
When your king is attacked, that is check. You are not allowed to ignore it. There are only three possible answers:
- Move the king to a safe square.
- Block the attack by putting a piece in the way.
- Capture the piece that is giving check.
If none of those three is possible, that is checkmate and the game is over.
Stalemate is a draw, not a win. If the player to move is not in check but has no legal move at all, the game ends immediately in a draw, even if one side has a queen and the other has nothing. Be careful not to throw away your win!
The other ways a game can be drawn
| Draw | What it means |
|---|---|
| Agreement | Both players simply agree to share the point. |
| Stalemate | No legal move, and not in check. |
| Threefold repetition | The same position happens three times with the same player to move. |
| Fifty-move rule | Fifty moves each with no capture and no pawn move. At club we do not count moves, so this one almost never comes up. |
| Insufficient material | Nobody has enough pieces to force mate, such as king and bishop against king. |
Scoring at club. A win is 1 point, a draw is ½ point, and a loss is 0. A draw against a stronger player is a good day.