Chess FAQ

Yes, it's a real and official rule, even though it's the move beginners are most likely to accuse each other of making up. En passant lets a pawn capture an enemy pawn that just advanced two squares past it, as if it had only moved one square. It's only legal on the very next move after the two-square advance — if you don't take it immediately, you lose the right to. See the how to play chess page for the full rule with an example.

A pawn that reaches the far end of the board must promote to a queen, rook, bishop, or knight — never a king, and it can't stay a pawn. Most players choose a queen since it's the strongest piece, but choosing something else ("underpromoting") is legal and occasionally the only move that avoids stalemate or wins faster. You can even promote to a second queen if your first one is still on the board.

Check means a king is under attack right now and must be addressed on the next move. Checkmate means a king is in check with no way to escape, which ends the game with a loss for the checkmated side. Stalemate is different from both: the player to move has no legal move at all, but their king isn't in check — that ends the game immediately as a draw, not a win for anyone.

No. A move that would leave your own king in check is illegal, so the king can never legally be captured — the game ends the instant a king is checkmated, before any capture would occur. If you ever see a king "captured" in a casual game, that's a rules mistake, not a real chess outcome.

Castling is a combined king-and-rook move, but it's only allowed if neither piece has moved yet this game, there are no pieces between them, the king isn't currently in check, and the king doesn't pass through or land on a square that's under attack. If any of those conditions fail — even if the king has never technically been in check — you can't castle on that side anymore.

No to both. You cannot castle while your king is currently in check, and you cannot castle if the king would pass through a square that's under attack, even if that square isn't its final destination. The king's final square also has to be safe. The rook, on the other hand, is allowed to pass through or land on an attacked square — only the king's path and destination matter.

A draw means the game ends without a winner — it's not a loss for either player. Draws happen through stalemate, insufficient material to checkmate, threefold repetition of a position, 50 moves passing without a pawn move or capture, or simply both players agreeing to stop. In tournament scoring, a draw is typically worth half a point to each player.

In official over-the-board play, if you touch one of your own pieces on your turn, you must move it if it has a legal move. Touching an opponent's piece means you must capture it if legally possible. It's a rule enforced in tournaments and formal games — casual games often relax it, and it doesn't apply at all when playing online, where a move isn't made until you actually place or drop the piece.

Standard algebraic notation names each square by its file (a–h) and rank (1–8), so a move is written as the piece letter plus the destination square — for example, Nf3 means "knight moves to f3." Pawn moves omit the piece letter (just "e4"), captures add an "x" (Bxe5), castling is written O-O (kingside) or O-O-O (queenside), check is marked with "+", and checkmate with "#."

A rating is a number that estimates a player's strength relative to others, based on results against opponents of known ratings. Beating higher-rated opponents gains you more points than beating lower-rated ones, and the gap between two ratings predicts roughly how often the stronger side should win. Puzzle ratings on this site work the same way — see how puzzle ratings work for more detail.

Solving tactical puzzles regularly is one of the highest-value ways to improve, since it trains you to spot forks, pins, skewers, and mating patterns quickly under real conditions. Try our puzzle library or the daily puzzle to start building that pattern recognition, and check the blog for guides on specific tactics.