Chess Basics

The board and setup

Chess is played on an 8×8 board of alternating light and dark squares. Each player starts with 16 pieces: eight pawns, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, one queen, and one king.

• Your pawns line up on your second rank (row); everything else fills your first rank.
• From the corners inward: rook, knight, bishop — then queen and king in the middle. The queen starts on her own color (the white queen on a light square, the black queen on a dark square).
• White always moves first.

How a turn works

Players alternate turns, one move each. On your turn you move one of your pieces to another square. If that square holds an enemy piece, you capture it — the enemy piece is removed and yours takes its place. You cannot land on a square occupied by your own piece, and you cannot skip your turn.

In Bughouse, captured pieces go to your teammate's pocket instead of leaving the game — but that comes later. Learn the moves first.

How the pieces move

Every piece except the knight moves in straight, unblocked lines — it cannot jump over other pieces.

Pawn

• Moves one square straight forward (never backward). From its starting square it may instead advance two squares in one go.
• Captures diagonally — one square forward-left or forward-right. A pawn cannot capture straight ahead, and a piece directly in front of it blocks it completely.
• A pawn that reaches the far end of the board promotes: it turns into a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of your choice (almost always a queen).

Knight

• Moves in an L-shape: two squares in one direction, then one square sideways.
• The only piece that can jump over other pieces — only its landing square matters.

Bishop

• Moves any number of squares diagonally. Each bishop stays on its starting color for the whole game.

Rook

• Moves any number of squares horizontally or vertically — along ranks and files.

Queen

• Moves like a rook and a bishop combined: any number of squares in any straight direction. Your strongest piece.

King

• Moves one square in any direction. The king can never move onto a square attacked by an enemy piece.
• The king is the whole game: you never capture the king — you trap it (see checkmate below).

Check, checkmate, and stalemate

• Check — your king is attacked. You must deal with it immediately: move the king, block the attack, or capture the attacker. No other move is legal while you are in check.
• Checkmate — your king is in check and there is no way out. The game is over and you lose. Delivering checkmate is how you win.
• Stalemate — you are not in check but have no legal move at all. In standard chess this is a draw, not a loss.

Castling

Once per game, your king and one rook can move together in a single turn: the king slides two squares toward the rook, and the rook hops to the square the king crossed. It tucks your king into safety and brings the rook into play.

Castling is only allowed when all of these hold:

• Neither the king nor that rook has moved yet.
• The squares between them are empty.
• The king is not in check, and does not pass through or land on an attacked square.

En passant (in brief)

A special pawn capture. If an enemy pawn uses its two-square first move to land directly beside your pawn, you may capture it as if it had moved only one square — but only on the very next move, or the chance is gone. It comes up rarely; just know it exists so it never surprises you.

Piece values

A rough guide to what a piece is worth when deciding whether a trade is good:

• Pawn — 1
• Knight — 3
• Bishop — 3
• Rook — 5
• Queen — 9
• King — priceless: losing it means losing the game.

These are guidelines, not laws — and in Bughouse a piece's value also depends on how badly your teammate needs it.

Next step

That is all the chess you need. Read the Quick Start to see how Bughouse turns this into a team game, or head back to Learning for more guides.