Two players, White and Black, take turns moving one piece. White moves first. The goal is to checkmate the other king: attack it so that it has no way to escape.
How the pieces move
- King: one square in any direction.
- Queen: any distance in a straight line: across, up and down, or diagonally.
- Rook: any distance across or up and down.
- Bishop: any distance diagonally.
- Knight: in an L: two squares one way, then one square to the side. It jumps over anything in between.
- Pawn: one square straight ahead (two on its first move), but it captures one square diagonally ahead. Pawns never move backwards.
Only the knight jumps. Other pieces stop at the first piece in their way. You capture by moving onto an opponent's piece.
Check and checkmate
When a king is attacked it is in check, and its player must get out of check at once: move the king, block the attack, or capture the attacker. You may never make a move that leaves your own king in check. If you are in check and can't get out, that is checkmate and you lose.
Special moves
- Castling: once per game, the king moves two squares towards a rook and the rook jumps to the square the king crossed. Only if neither piece has moved yet, the squares between them are empty, and the king is not in check and does not cross or land on an attacked square. Tap the king, then the dot two squares away.
- En passant: if a pawn moves two squares and lands beside your pawn, your pawn may capture it as if it had moved one square, but only straight away on your next move.
- Promotion: a pawn that reaches the far side becomes a queen, rook, bishop or knight. You choose; most players pick the queen.
Draws
- Stalemate: the player to move is not in check but has no legal move.
- The same position comes up three times.
- Fifty moves each with no capture and no pawn move.
- Neither side has enough pieces left to checkmate (for example, king against king).
Tap a piece, then one of its dots. The last move is shaded. Undo and the other options are in the ⋯ menu.