The Goal of Chess

The two players in a chess game take turns moving one piece at a time, and white always goes first. What is the point of the game though? The goal of chess is quite simple: kill your opponent's king! Of course, this usually first entails capturing his or her pieces while keeping your own, thereby giving you more pieces to use in your attack than your opponent. You can never capture your own pieces. When the opposing king has been placed in a position in which no matter what is done, the next move it will be captured, the game is over and the king is said to be "checkmated". If the opposing king is not in "check" (being directly threatened by a piece or pawn) and neither it nor any other piece can move, the game is a "stalemate" and pronounced a draw. In addition, if fifty moves go by without piece capture or pawn progression the game is pronounced a draw (probably to avoid excessive boredom!). Finally, the game is drawn if neither side can possibly achieve checkmate (king vs king, king vs king and knight or king vs king and bishop).

A sample of how a rook and queen checkmate an opposing king

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