First lets start with the rooks. Beginners often call them castles. You aren't going to make this amateurish mistake are you?

Each player starts with two castles (erm, I mean rooks), one in each of the corners nearest their own side. In algebraic notation, white's rooks start on "a1" and "h1", while black's rooks start on "a8" and "h8".

The rook moves orthogonally to the players (forward, backward, left or right) any number of squares. In the lower diagram you can see that white's rook can move to any of the squares marked with an 'X'.

A rook cannot pass through another piece on the board. The white pawn on "g3" is blocking the way to square "h3" for the rook.

It captures an opponent piece by occupying the square on which an enemy piece stands. The rook also participates, along with the king, in a special move called 'Castling'. (Explained later in later section).

Rooks are most powerful towards the end of a game, where they can move unobstructed by pawns and control large numbers of squares.

Oh look, it's the horse piece that jumps. No no no, it's not called a horse or jumpy piece, it's a knight.

The knight move is unusual among chess pieces. When it moves, it can move two squares horizontally and one square vertically, or two squares vertically and one square horizontally. The complete move therefore looks like the letter 'L'.

Each player starts with two knights, which start on the rank closest to the player. Expressed in algebraic notation, the white knights start on "b1" and "g1", while the black knights start on "b8" and "g8".

Unlike all other standard chess pieces, the knight can 'jump over' all other pawns and pieces to its destination square. It captures an enemy piece by moving onto it's square.

The knight is the only piece that can move at the beginning of the game before any pawn move has been made. In most situations the best square for the initial move of each knight is one towards the centre. Knights are usually brought into play slightly sooner than the bishops and much sooner than the rooks and the queen.

Each player begins the game with two bishops, one light-squared and one dark-squared. In algebraic notation the starting squares are "c1" and "f1" for White's bishops, and "c8" and "f8" for Black's bishops.

The bishop has no restrictions in distance for each move, but is limited to diagonal movement, in any direction. Bishops cannot jump over other pieces. A bishop captures by occupying the square on which an enemy piece sits.

The bishops may be differentiated according to which wing they begin on, i.e. the king's bishop and queen's bishop. As a consequence of its diagonal movement, each bishop always remains on either the white or black squares, and so it is also common to refer to them as light-squared or dark-squared bishops.

Because the bishop has access to only thirty-two squares of the board, it is rather weaker than the rook, to which all sixty-four squares of the board are accessible. Furthermore, a rook on an empty board always attacks fourteen squares, whereas a bishop attacks only seven to thirteen depending on how near it is to the centre.

The queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of their first rank next to their king. Beginners often accidentally interchange the placement of the queen and king. The white queen starts on a white square, and the black queen on a black square. In algebraic notation, the white queen starts on "d1", and the black queen on "d8".

The queen can be moved in a straight line vertically, horizontally, or diagonally, any number of unoccupied squares as shown on the diagram, thus combining the moves of the rook and bishop.

Beginners just love getting this piece out as soon as possible, in the hopes of plundering the enemy position and possibly even delivering an early checkmate. While effective against other beginners, this strategy is disadvantageous against experienced players. With no other pieces developed, an attack by the queen alone can be easily repelled. Moreover, because the queen is too valuable to exchange for a lesser piece, the defender can often gain time and space by threatening an exposed queen and forcing her to retreat.

Don't try to be clever and place your queen into play too early on in the game.

The Queen maybe the most powerful piece in chess but the King is the most important. Any other pieces can disappear and the game goes on, but once the king is overpowered the game is over. You might therefore expect it to have ferocious strength. Unfortunately this isn't so.

If a player's king is threatened and cannot escape capture, the king is said to be in 'checkmate', and the player which owns that king loses the game. A similar condition, 'check', is when the king is threatened but can escape capture - being in check does not end the game though.

White starts with the king in the middle-right of their first rank (between the queen and the king-side bishop). Black starts with the king directly across from the white king. In algebraic notation, the white king starts on "e1" and the black king on "e8".

A king can move one square in any direction (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally). The exceptions to this rule are that it may not move onto a square that is threatened by an enemy piece, or one that is already occupied by another piece on its own side. As with most pieces, it captures by moving onto a square occupied by an enemy piece.

It is important to note that a king cannot be moved onto a square that is threatened by an enemy piece. In the lower diagram white's king cannot move onto squares "b4", "c4" or "d4" because those squares are threatened by black's rook. We'll examine the king in more detail in a later section.

Pawns are unusual in movement and use. Unlike all the other pieces, pawns may not move backwards. Normally a pawn moves by advancing a single square, but the first time each pawn is moved from its initial position, it has the option to advance two squares. Pawns may not use the initial two-square advance to jump over an occupied square. Any piece directly in front of a pawn, friend or foe, blocks it's advance.

The initial placement of the pawns is shown in the upper diagram to the left. In the next diagram down, the pawn on "g4" may move to "g5", while the pawn on "d2" may move to either "d3" or "d4". Pawn on "c6" cannot move forward, it is blocked from doing so by black's knight.

A pawn that advances all the way to the opposite side of the board (the opposing player's first rank) is promoted to another piece of that player's choice. The pawn is immediately (before the opposing player's next move) replaced by a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same colour. More about promotion in 'special moves' section.

Unlike other pieces, the pawn does not capture in the same way as it moves. A pawn captures diagonally, one square forward and to the left or right. In the lower diagram, the white pawn may capture either the black knight or the black bishop. It cannot capture black's queen.

As well as the pawn promotion, it also has one other special move called 'en passant' (from French: in [the pawn's] passing). Beginners commonly get confused about this move. It doesn't really happen that often, so the rule gets forgotten about. But it's really quite simple. More about it in our 'special moves' section later.