Welcome to this audio guide on the basics of chess. In this deck, you will learn what the board looks like, how each piece moves, and the main rules like check, checkmate, and castling. We will also cover how a game starts, how it can end, and a few simple ideas to play better. After each short explanation, you will answer a quick question out loud to check your understanding. Learning by listening and speaking will help you remember the ideas more naturally, just like talking through a game with a friend.

Let’s start with what chess is. Chess is a two player strategy game played on a square board with sixty four squares. One player controls the white pieces and the other controls the black pieces. Players take turns, and white always moves first. The goal is not to capture every piece, but to trap the enemy king so it cannot escape. This final trap is called checkmate.

The chessboard has sixty four squares arranged in eight rows and eight columns. The squares alternate light and dark colours. Each row across is called a rank, and each column up and down is called a file. At the start of the game, each player has sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns. All of your pieces start on your first two ranks, the two rows closest to you.

It is important to know how the board is oriented. When you set up a chessboard correctly, each player should have a light coloured square on their right hand corner. There is a simple phrase to remember this: light on the right. If the board is the wrong way around, the pieces will not be in their correct starting squares.