Mind sports at home | Learn a sport

New to mind sports? The game in a minute

Read this once before the first card.

The game in short: Two players, White and Black, each have 16 pieces on a board of 64 squares: a king, a queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns. White moves first, then the players take turns, moving one piece each turn. A piece captures by moving onto a square where an enemy piece stands, and that piece leaves the board.
How a game is won: By checkmate. When a king is attacked it is in check, and the player must get it out of check straight away. If there is no way out, it is checkmate and the game is over. A game can also be a draw, for example by stalemate, when the player to move has no legal move but is not in check.
Rules children break first: Touch a piece and you must move it (touch-move).
A king may never move into check.
Pawns move straight forward but capture diagonally.
A bishop always stays on its own colour.
Shake hands before and after the game, win or lose.
At home you need only a board and a partner: The pawn game, one piece at a time, check and checkmate, piece values, the first checkmates, good manners, and then tactics, notation and the habit of checking every move.
Other mind sports: Draughts, go and bridge are mind sports too; these cards cover chess only for now.

Words you will hear (37, in plain language)

Board: The board has 64 squares, light and dark in turn.
File: A file is a column of squares going up the board, named by a letter a to h; a rank is a row across, numbered 1 to 8.
Diagonal: A slanting line of squares of one colour.
King: Moves one square in any direction. Losing it to checkmate loses the game.
Queen: Moves any number of squares in a straight line or diagonal.
Rook: Moves any number of squares along a file or rank.
Bishop: Moves any number of squares along a diagonal, so it stays on one colour.
Knight: Moves in an L shape (two squares one way, then one square to the side) and jumps over other pieces.
Pawn: Moves one square forward (two from its starting square) and captures one square diagonally forward.
Capture: Taking an enemy piece by moving onto its square.
Check: Check is an attack on the king; checkmate is check with no way out.
Stalemate: The player to move has no legal move and is not in check; the game is a draw.
Draw: A game that nobody wins.
Castling: A special move of the king and a rook together to make the king safe.
Promotion: A pawn reaching the far side becomes a queen, rook, bishop or knight.
Piece values: A guide to what pieces are worth: queen 9, rook 5, bishop 3, knight 3, pawn 1.
Trade: Both players capturing pieces, one after the other.
Minor piece: A bishop or a knight.
Back rank: The row a player's pieces start on; a back-rank mate is checkmate along it when the king's own pawns trap it.
Luft: A space made by moving a pawn in front of the king, so it can escape a back-rank check.
Fork: One piece attacking two enemy pieces at once.
Pin: A piece that cannot move without exposing a more valuable piece behind it.
Skewer: An attack on a valuable piece that, when it moves, leaves a piece behind it to be taken.
Discovered attack: Moving one piece out of the way so another piece behind it attacks, or gives check.
Decoy: Luring a defender away; an overworked piece has too many jobs to guard at once.
Sacrifice: Giving up a piece on purpose to gain something better.
Blunder: A bad mistake that loses a piece or the game.
Notation: The way moves are written down (Nf3, exd5, 0-0), and the sheet they are written on.
Touch-move: A touched piece must be moved; to straighten a piece without moving it, say "I adjust" first.
Opening: The start of the game, the middle, and the end when few pieces are left.
Development: Bringing the pieces out from their starting squares in the opening.
Opposition: In endings, kings facing each other with one square between; zugzwang is when any move a player makes worsens their position.
Square of the pawn: An imaginary square used to judge whether a king can catch a running pawn.
Chess clock: A double clock that limits each player's thinking time.
Knight's tour: A puzzle of moving a knight to visit every square of an area.
Tilt: Playing badly after getting upset about a mistake.
Rating: A number that shows a player's strength, earned in rated games.

Try it, nothing to buy

Mark the space once. Every card starts from it.

A suggested first ten sessions (optional)

The cards, level by level

Nobody is late. A beginner of any age starts at Basic.

Basic 6 cards · show· hide Each piece's move, the rules that end a game, the first checkmates, and finishing a whole game. A good order is pawn, rook, bishop, queen, knight, king, then check and checkmate.

Move on when the child can play a whole game and checkmate with two rooks or a back-rank mate.

Intermediate 6 cards · show· hide Attack and defence, tactics as one block (fork, pin, skewer, discovered attack, decoy), the queen and rook mates, notation and special rules.

Move on when the child solves most puzzles of each type and records a game.

Advanced 3 cards · show· hide Openings and endgames, deeper preparation, playing with a clock, and staying calm in tournaments. These need a coach or a club; the cards only describe what to ask.

Teaching this at home

A ball, a wall, a bat or a board. Most of the learning fits a room or a lane.

You do not need to know the sport. Each card tells you where to stand, what to say and what to look at. Pick one thing to say in a session and say only that. The first week looks messy; that is normal. End every session on one that works.

Cards marked At a club are taught by a coach. They tell you what the coach teaches, what is safe at home, and what to ask the club before your child joins.

How to warm up before playing is at workonfitness.com. The rules of the game are at sportsmaze.com.

What should we practise today?

New to mind sports? The game in a minute

Try it, nothing to buy

The cards, level by level

Teaching this at home