Chess rules for beginners 3

In this lesson, you will learn what is a promoted pawn, Check and checkmate, Draw and the relative values of pieces.

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10.Promoted Pawn

We discussed in chapter 8 how pawns have the most complex rules of movement. Pawns can’t move backward, they can only move forward and capture sideways. What happens when a pawn reaches the farthest possible square?

Whenever a pawn (black or white) reaches the last rank, it can promote into a queen, rook, bishop, or knight. We can see that for white the last rank is the 8th rank, and for black it is the 1st rank.

 While this may not happen very often in the early stages in the game, in the later stages pawn promotions determine the outcomes of games.

11.Check and Checkmate

What is a check? Check is a condition in chess when a player’s king is under threat of capture. The player who is in check must remove their king out of check in their next move.

 There are three ways to remove a check:

1. Capture the piece that is giving check.

 In the given example, we can see Black’s king is in check. Black’s only way to get rid of this check is by capturing the bishop on h7. Because the bishop on h7 is not protected by any piece, this is a legal move.

2. Moving the king away from check

 As we can see, the bishop is now protected by the knight. Black can’t capture the bishop; however, black can move his king to the h8 square.

3. Blocking the piece giving check

 It is also possible to stop a check without moving the king.

In this position, black could move his king to h8 and move away from the line of attack; furthermore, he can place a piece in bishop’s diagonal to protect his king.

Now that we’ve discussed the three ways in which you can check your opponent, let’s look at the following position:

 Black is in check. What are all the possibles moves black can make to remove the threat of capture?

Think carefully and after you think all the possible moves, scroll at the end of the chapter to see the solution.

 What happens when a player can’t get out of check?

In other words, what if there is no legal move that allows a player to remove himself from the check? When this happens, it is considered checkmate and the player who is checkmated loses the game.

 This position is similar to the positions discussed earlier. The difference is that white can’t capture the bishop or move out of bishop’s line of attack.

This means black is checkmated and white wins the game.

Solution to the problem:

 There are six ways in which black can get out of check.

 ·        The king can move to a7 or a8

 ·        The rook can move to c7

 ·        The queen can move to c7 or d6

 ·        The knight can jump to e5.

12.Draw

 There isn’t always a winner and a loser in chess. There are several reasons why a chess of game may end in a draw:

 1. Both players agree on a draw.

 2. Both players have traded enough pieces so that it is impossible for either player to checkmate the other.

 3. Either player can declare a draw if the same position is reached three times.

 4. Either player can declare a draw if 50 chess moves (50 white and 50 black) have been made and not a single pawn move or a piece has been captured.

5. It is one’s player turn to move, and while he is not in check, he does not have any legal moves. This is called stalemate

Let’s look at a position to understand more what stalemate is.

We can see that white has no legal moves in this position. We can also see that black has cornered the king and has an extra queen.

If it was white to move, this position would be drawn, because white has no legal moves. If it was black to move, black could realize any move to avoid stalemate and checkmate white in the future.

13.Relative value of chess pieces

 Because every single piece in chess has unique movement, they possess different strengths and weaknesses. For this reason, it is important to know the “value” or “points” each piece has. While these points do not give you an absolute tool to evaluate every single position in chess, they help you understand which trades are beneficial and which trades you should avoid.

 Let’s look at the relative value of every single piece:

 The pawn is worth 1 point

 The bishop is worth 3 points

 The knight is worth 3 points

 The rook is worth 5 points

 The queen is worth 9 points

 Because whoever checkmates (“captures”) the opponent’s king immediately wins the game, it is said that the king has infinite value.

Read all chapters: http://chess-teacher.com/chess-rules