Games · Full roadmap · ~90 min read · 26 steps
♟️Chess for beginners
Learn the rules, tactics, and habits to play real chess with confidence
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Unit 1
Start here
Course overview
What chess actually is
A hunt for the enemy king
The board and coordinates
Files, ranks, and the light corner rule
Setting up the pieces
Where the 16 pieces start
How the rook and bishop move
Straight lines and diagonals
Unit 2
The queen, king, and knight
The strongest piece, the most important, and the trickiest
How pawns move and capture
The piece that moves and captures differently
What the pieces are worth
A point system for trading
Check, checkmate, and stalemate
The three states that end with the king
Castling
Move the king to safety and activate a rook
Unit 3
En passant and promotion
Two special pawn rules
Reading and writing notation
How moves are recorded
Opening principles
Center, development, king safety
A few named openings
Italian, Ruy Lopez, Sicilian, Queen's Gambit
The fork
One piece, two targets
Unit 4
Pins and skewers
Lining up two pieces on one line
Discovered attacks and double attacks
Moving one piece to unleash another
Removing the defender
Knock out the piece that's holding things together
The blunder-check habit
The one habit that saves the most games
Checkmating with king and queen
Driving a lone king to the edge
Unit 5
Back-rank mate and two rooks
Two more patterns you must recognize
Pawn structure basics
Passed, doubled, and isolated pawns
King and pawn versus king
Opposition and the rule of the square
Common beginner mistakes
The errors that cost the most
A study routine
How to actually get better
Unit 6
Where to go next
Where to go next