Chess is one of the world's oldest games - there are references to it going as far back as 570 AD, where the game was played in India. Despite its age, chess has remained a popular game, and part of its long-lasting appeal is the simplicity of the game's concept and rules.

Over the many centuries of its history, people have studied the game and published countless works explaining strategies, tactics, and even puzzles. Many players spend large portions of their time studying and memorizing the possible moves and counter-moves, which gives Chess an air of being difficult to understand and impossible to master.

None of that is necessary to play or enjoy Chess. At most, an interested player needs to remember a handful of rules and the movement styles of the six types of pieces. In other words, if you can follow the class system in Team Fortress 2, then you're already putting in more mental effort than required to play Chess.

At its most basic, Chess is a game depicting a battle between two armies. The chessboard provides the limits of the battlefield, while the pieces represent the different units available for the players to command. Each player's ultimate goal is to reach "checkmate", a condition where a player is no longer able to protect their King against the enemy forces.

In order to begin playing a game of Chess, the pieces need to be arranged on the chessboard. New players sometimes have trouble with this, but it's easy once you've had some practice. It helps to remember that the board is mirrored horizontally and vertically at the beginning of the game - if you just remember how the first quadrant is set up, then the rest follow automatically.

Steps to set up the board: Turn the board so that left corner is Black. Rooks go in the corners. Knights stand next to the Rooks. Bishops stand beside the Knights. The King & Queen stand in the center, with the Queen on her own color. The Pawns form a defensive row in front of their army.

The core rules of Chess are as follows:

• One player controls the White army, the other the Black army.
• The player controlling the White army goes first.
• During a turn, a player moves one of their pieces.
• Pieces cannot normally move through spaces that are already occupied.
  • Exception 1:
    Players "capture" an enemy piece by moving one of their pieces into its space. The captured piece is removed from the game.
  • Exception 2:
    Certain types of pieces can "jump" over other pieces. This is treated as if the piece moved around, not through, the occupied spaces.
• If a player manages to move a Pawn to the far side of the board, their Pawn may be exchanged for another piece (known as Promotion).
• If the move places pieces in a way that threatens the opponent's King, the player is to announce that their opponent is in "Check".
• If a player is in Check, they MUST use their turn to remove the threat.
  • This can be done three ways:
    1. Move the King somewhere of out danger.
    2. Move another piece in the path of the threat.
    3. Capture the piece that threatens the King.
• If the player is in Check and cannot rescue their King within one turn, they are in Checkmate and have lost the game.