If you are just beginning, set up your chess board from the outside working in: You can set up your chess board in whatever order you want, whether you put your pawns first or start from the back and move up. Once all the pieces are set up completely, the two armies will be facing each other as mirror images. When setting up your chess board, the color of the queens should coordinate with the colors on the board so, the light queen is positioned on a light square, and the dark queen on the dark square. These are the smallest pieces on the board. The bishops are the next tallest after the queen and typically hold a miter. The rooks are the pieces shaped like towers. This piece will have a crown with several points. Typically the King will be the tallest piece and have a cross on the crown. However, a standard chess game has the following pieces for each color: Many chess boards and pieces are works of art, with intricate hand carved pieces or even pieces that represent cartoon or movie characters. Many chess sets have diagrams that show you exactly how to set them up according to the numbers on the grid.įirst make sure you have all the right pieces. Chess is played on a board with a checkerboard of sixty four squares, half white and half black, or another dark color. When learning how to play chess, one of the first things you will need to learn is how to set up the chess board.

Skilled chess players can put a king in checkmate in just a few moves others can spend hours playing chess with no checkmate. Checkmate occurs after a series of strategically-placed moves make it so the King is blocked in and can’t move from that position on his next move. The object of chess is to be the first to put your opponent’s King in checkmate. And while it only takes a little while to learn how to play the game, you can spend your entire life perfecting your strategy.

Many people enjoy the skill and strategy that the game requires. Chess is the most popular board game in the world.

Setting up a chess board