Setting up the chessboard

At the start of the game, all your pieces are on your side of the board, and your opponents pieces are all on the opposite side, as far away from your pieces as possible! The center of the board is empty to begin with, although that won't be for too long!

Each chess piece must be on a different square, and seeing that you have 16 pieces, that means that all your pieces will take up exactly two rows at the start. The same goes for your opponent. With 8 rows in total, that means that there will be exactly 4 rows in the center which are all empty.

You start with 8 pawns and these are all placed on your second row - they fill up the entire row and protect the bigger pieces which are all placed on the row nearest to you, your first row.

The only problem is that you have to learn the order in which to place the bigger pieces, as it is the same every time and cannot be changed. The order is as folows:

  • you put a rook at each corner,
  • then you put a knight next to each rook
  • then you put a bishop next to each knight
  • then you put the queen on whichever of the the middle squares is the same color as the queen
  • then you put the king next to the queen