Objectives of the game
The objective of each player is to put the opponent’s king under attack in such a way that the opponent has no legal move. The player who achieves this goal is said to have checkmated the opponent’s king and to have won the game.
Leaving one’s king under attack, exposing one’s king to attack and also ’capturing’ the opponent’s king is not allowed – the opponent whose king has been checkmated has lost the game. If the position is such that neither player can possibly achieve a checkmate, the game is drawn.
Although the king is the most important piece, it is usually the weakest piece in the game until a later phase, the endgame.
- The game of chess is played between two opponents who move their pieces alternately on a square board called a chessboard.
The player with the White pieces commences the game. A player is said to ‘have the move’ when his opponent’s move has been completed.
The object of the game is to trap the opponent’s king so that its escape is not possible (checkmate). If a player’s king is threatened with capture, it is said to be in check, and the player must remove the threat of capture on the next move. If this cannot be done, the king is said to be in checkmate.