Rules — Chess Terms

The laws of chess — how pieces move, special rules like castling and en passant, and what ends the game. These are the definitions every player needs before sitting at the board.

Beginner

Bare King Beginner: A bare king is a king whose side has no other pieces or pawns left on the board.
Body Check Beginner: Body check is not a recognized term in standard chess and has no established definition or usage in rules, tactics, theory, or problems.
Castling Beginner: Castling moves the king two squares toward a rook, which then jumps to the square the king crossed, provided both pieces are unmoved, the path is clear, and the king neither starts in check nor passes through or lands on an attacked square.
Check Beginner: Check occurs when a player's king is under direct attack by an opponent's piece and must be resolved on the next move.
Checkmate Beginner: Checkmate ends the game when a king is in check and has no legal way to escape by moving, capturing the attacker, or blocking the attack.
Chess Clock Beginner: A chess clock is a two-faced timing device that tracks each player's remaining time separately, with players pressing a button after each move to stop their clock and start their opponent's.
Diagonal Beginner: A diagonal is a straight line of same-color squares joined corner-to-corner, along which bishops and queens move.
Draw Beginner: A draw is a tied chess result in which neither player wins and both receive half a point, arising via stalemate, threefold repetition, the fifty-move rule, insufficient material, or mutual agreement.
File Beginner: A file is any of the eight vertical columns of squares on the chessboard, labeled a through h and running from one player's back rank to the other's.
Interposing Beginner: Interposing means placing one of your own pieces on the line between an enemy piece and your king to block a check.
J'adoube Beginner: J'adoube is the phrase a player says to signal they are touching a piece only to center or adjust it on its square, not to move it.
King Beginner: The king is the most important piece because checkmate against it ends the game; it moves one square in any direction but may never enter an attacked square.
Kingside Beginner: The kingside is the half of the board consisting of the e-, f-, g- and h-files, where both kings begin on e1 and e8.
Knight Jumper Beginner: A knight jumper is another name for the chess knight, the only piece that moves in an L-shape and jumps over any pieces in its path.
Pawn Beginner: Pawns are the eight weakest units per side, advancing only forward one square at a time or two from the starting rank while capturing diagonally ahead, unable to retreat, and promoting if they reach the eighth rank.
Promotes Beginner: A pawn promotes when it reaches the opponent's back rank and is immediately replaced by a queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same color.
Rank Beginner: A rank is one of the eight horizontal rows of squares running across the chessboard, numbered 1 to 8 from White’s side.
Skittles Beginner: Skittles are casual, unrated chess games played for enjoyment and practice, usually in a club’s separate room or corner where players relax, chat, experiment, and review moves together after serious play.
Stalemate Beginner: Stalemate is a position where the player to move has no legal moves yet is not in check, so the game ends in a draw.
Time Control Beginner: Time control sets the total time each player has to complete all moves, typically including an increment added after each move.

Intermediate

Action Chess Intermediate: Action Chess is the informal North American name for rapid chess at the longer end of the scale, most often G/25 or G/30 with or without a small increment, giving enough time for real calculation while still allowing two or three games in an evening.
Antichess Intermediate: Antichess is a chess variant in which captures are mandatory and the player who captures the opponent's final piece or leaves the opponent with a lone king that has no legal moves wins.
Atomic Chess Intermediate: Atomic Chess is a chess variant in which every capture causes an explosion removing the captured piece, all adjacent non-pawn pieces, and the capturing piece itself unless it is a pawn, fundamentally changing piece values and king safety.
Auto-Flag Intermediate: Auto-flag is an online chess server setting that automatically ends the game and awards the win on time when a player’s clock reaches zero, without requiring the opponent to make a manual claim.
Berserk Enjoyer Intermediate: A Berserk Enjoyer is a player who frequently activates the berserk option in online arena tournaments, halving their starting clock time in exchange for two points instead of one on a win.
Blitz Intermediate: Blitz is chess played with a fast time limit, usually five minutes or less for the whole game.
Bronstein Delay Intermediate: Bronstein Delay is a chess-clock method that, after a player completes a move, restores to their remaining time the smaller of the preset delay or the time actually spent on that turn.
Bughouse Intermediate: Bughouse is a team chess variant played on two boards where partners immediately pass captured pieces to each other for drops on their own board on any later turn.
Candidate Master Intermediate: A Candidate Master is the lowest official FIDE title, awarded automatically to any player who reaches a published FIDE rating of 2200.
Capture Intermediate: Capture is the act of moving your piece onto a square occupied by an opponent's piece and removing that piece from the board.
Cheapo Intermediate: A cheapo is a simple tactical trick or swindle played to catch an inattentive or time-pressed opponent.
Chess Cop Intermediate: A chess cop is an online player who actively polices rules by reporting suspected cheating, illegal moves, or etiquette violations to moderators or platforms.
Chess960 Intermediate: Chess960 (also called Fischer Random) is a chess variant in which the back-rank pieces are placed randomly at the start, subject to constraints that preserve castling options and balance.
Classical Champion Intermediate: A classical champion is the player holding the world title won under standard time controls, distinct from rapid or blitz formats.
Crazyhouse Intermediate: Crazyhouse is a chess variant in which captured pieces can immediately be dropped back onto the board as the capturer's own pieces, following standard movement rules.
Dead Draw Intermediate: A dead draw is a position offering neither side any realistic winning chances even against suboptimal defense, typically from insufficient material or blocked structures that prevent all progress.
Duck Chess Intermediate: Duck Chess is a variant in which players alternate moving a shared, uncapturable duck to any empty square, where it blocks lines of attack and cannot be ignored.
En Passant Intermediate: A special pawn capture allowing a pawn to take an enemy pawn that has just advanced two squares, as if it had moved only one square.
Fairy Chess Intermediate: Fairy chess refers to variants that use non-standard pieces, boards, or rules, created mainly for composing problems and puzzles rather than tournament play.
Fide Intermediate: FIDE is the international governing body for chess that maintains the official Laws of Chess, operates the global rating system, awards titles such as Grandmaster, and organizes the World Championship cycle and Chess Olympiad.
Fide Handbook Intermediate: The FIDE Handbook is the official rulebook published by the International Chess Federation that sets out the laws of chess along with regulations for titles, events, and fair play.
Fischer Random Intermediate: Fischer Random, also called Chess960, is a chess variant invented by Bobby Fischer in which each player's back-rank pieces are placed randomly in one of 960 legal arrangements, subject to constraints preserving castling and opposite-color bishops, to reduce reliance on memorized opening theory.
Flag Champ Intermediate: A flag champ is a player who repeatedly wins by exhausting the opponent’s clock rather than by checkmate or resignation.
Flag Hanger Intermediate: A flag hanger is a player who refuses to resign a lost position in a timed game, continuing solely in hopes that the opponent’s flag will fall before checkmate.
Flag Monkey Intermediate: A flag monkey is an informal term for a player who prioritizes winning on time by exploiting clock pressure rather than seeking a decisive position or checkmate.
Flag Rat Intermediate: A flag rat is a player who deliberately plays low-quality or random moves quickly in fast time controls, hoping to win on time rather than through superior play.
Flagging Intermediate: Flagging is winning a game by time forfeit when the opponent’s clock reaches zero, regardless of the board position.
Perp Intermediate: Perp is shorthand for perpetual check, a repeating series of checks that forces a draw by repetition.
Queen Intermediate: The queen is chess's most powerful piece, able to move any number of squares vertically, horizontally, or diagonally.
Rook Intermediate: The rook moves any number of unoccupied squares horizontally or vertically without jumping, captures by replacement, starts on the a- and h-files, and gains maximum power on open files by attacking their full length or reaching the seventh rank.
Sandbagging Intermediate: Sandbagging is deliberately losing games to lower your rating and enter weaker sections for an easier path to prizes.
Smurf Intermediate: A smurf is a strong player who creates a new low-rated account to face much weaker opponents, typically for easy wins or low-pressure practice.

Advanced

Centaur Advanced: In fairy chess a centaur is a piece that moves either as a knight or as a non-royal king.
Fairy Pieces Advanced: Fairy pieces are chess units whose movement or capture rules differ from the standard king, queen, rook, bishop, knight, and pawn, used chiefly in variants and problems.
Grasshopper Advanced: A grasshopper is a fairy chess piece that moves any distance along queen lines but must hop over an intervening piece of either color to land immediately beyond it.