Rules of Chess - Random Trivia Answers

• A1) 64. There are eight rows (also called ranks) and eight columns. In standard algebraic chess notation, the rows are numbered from 1 to 8, and the columns are lettered from a to h. The white queen begins on d1, which should be a light square (remember "queen on color").
• A2) Pawn. Each side starts with eight of the little guys, along with two knights, two bishops, two rooks, a queen, and a king for a total of 16 pieces of each color.
• A3) Knight. It looks like a horse for a reason.
• A4) Castling. The king moves two squares toward the corner, and the rook is placed on the adjacent square on the center side. For castling to be legal, neither the king nor the relevant rook can have moved earlier, and the king can not castle out of, through, or into check.
• A5) Pawn. It moves forward but captures diagonally forward. In addition, from its starting square in the second row, the pawn can move two squares forward, whereas after its first move, it can only advance a single square at a time.
• A6) Queen. Bishops move diagonally, rooks horizontally and vertically, and queens in any of those eight directions.
• A7) En passant (French for "in passing"). If an opponent's pawn goes two squares on its first move, ending directly on the side of your pawn, you can capture it as if it had moved only one square.
• A8) A queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same color. Although most promotions are to queens (using an upside down rook or other placeholder if necessary), underpromotion is sometimes the best move (especially in composed chess problems).
• A9) O-O. Castling on the queenside is written as O-O-O. Note that those are all the letter 'O', not the number zero.
• A10) Draw. Each player earns half a point for a stalemate.
• A11) 3. Draw by threefold repetition can be claimed as the player is making the move that repeats the exact same position for the third time. The exact same position means that the ability to castle and capture en passant on the next move also have to be identical.
• A12) 50. In the past, there have been exceptions to the 50-move rule, such as a king and two knights against a king and pawn and a king, rook, and bishop against a king and rook. Both FIDE (the world chess federation) and the USCF (United States Chess Federation) currently use a strict 50-move rule.