User Guide

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Pawn

The pawn moves differently regarding whether it moves to an empty square or whether it takes a

piece of the opponent. When a pawn does not take, it moves one square straight forward. When

this pawn has not moved at all, i.e., the pawn is still at the second row (from the owning players

view), the pawn may make a double step straight forward. For instance, a white pawn on d2 can

be moved to d4.

When taking, the pawn goes one square diagonally forward.

There is one special rule, called taking en-passant. When a pawn makes a double step from the

second row to the fourth row, and there is an enemy pawn on an adjacent square on the fourth

row, then this enemy pawn in the next move may move diagonally to the square that was passed

over by the double-stepping pawn, which is on the third row. In this same move, the double-step-

ping pawn is taken. This taking en-passant must be done directly: if the player who could take en-

passant does not do this in the first move after the double step, this pawn cannot be taken any-

more by an en-passant move.

Pawns that reach the last row of the board promote. When a player moves a pawn to the last row

of the board, he replaces the pawn by a queen, rook, knight, or bishop (of the same color). Usu-

ally, players will promote the pawn to a queen, but the other types of pieces are also allowed. (It is

not required that the pawn is promoted to a piece taken. Thus, it is for instance possible that a

player has at a certain moment two queens.)

King

The king moves one square in any direction, horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. There is one

special type of move, made by a king and rook simultaneously, called castling: see below.

The king is the most important piece of the game, and moves must be made in such a way that the

king is never in check: see below.

Queen

The queen has the combined moves of the rook and the bishop, i.e., the queen may move in any

straight line, horizontal, vertical, or diagonal.

Knight

The knight makes a move that consists of first one step in a horizontal or vertical direction, and

then one step diagonally in an outward direction. The knight jumps: it is allowed that the first

square that the knight passes over is occupied by an arbitrary piece. For instance, white can start

the game by moving his knight from b1 to c3. The piece that is jumped over is further not affected

by the knight: as usual, a knight takes a piece of the opponent by moving to the square that con-

tains that piece.