Rules of Chess

Home * Chess * Rules of Chess

Rules of Chess, (Laws of Chess) the basic rules about the nature and objectives of the game of chess along with rules concerning a competition of chess playing entities (human, computer, teams), such as equipment used, time control, conduct and ethics of players or operators of chess engines, accommodations for physically challenged players, adjournment and adjudication rules, and recording of moves using chess notation.

=Basic Rules= Chess is a two-player board game. Orthodox chess and Chess960 use a 8x8 chessboard and sixteen pieces of six types for each player, set up in the initial position or one of 960 Chess960 start positions. Each type, King, Queen, Rook, Bishop, Knight and Pawn moves and captures in a distinct way. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king. Games do not necessarily end in checkmate - a player who expects to lose may resign, and a game can also end in a draw in several ways.

=Competition Rules= The standard rules of over the board (OTB) chess between humans, and in parts, humans and computers , are set by FIDE with possible modifications by some national organizations and affiliates, in particular concerning fast chess and Chess960. Correspondence chess rules are set by the ICCF. The ICGA applies their ICGA Tournament Rules for computer chess events they organize, in particular the World Computer Chess Championship and World Chess Software Championship, so far played OTB. Online computer chess tournaments such as former CCT and TCEC define their own rule sets.

=Computer Assistance= While computer assistance is encouraged in advanced chess and in particular freestyle chess and de facto standard in correspondence chess, it is considered cheating in human online chess tournaments with standard time control. =See also=
 * ICGA Tournament Rules

=Publications=
 * Helmut Pfleger, Frederic Friedel (2001). Cheating in Chess. Advances in Computer Games 9
 * The Board of ICGA (2013). Rules for the 20th World Computer-Chess Championship. ICGA Journal, Vol. 36, No. 1
 * David J. Barnes, Julio Hernández-Castro (2015). On the limits of engine analysis for cheating detection in chess. Computers & Security, Vol. 48
 * Ingo Althöfer (2018). Computer-Aided Game Play and Computer Cheating: Examples from Chess, Shogi, and Go. Extended Abstract as pdf

=Forum Posts=
 * FIDE rules expert wanted! by Harm Geert Muller, CCC, August 19, 2008
 * Adjudication rules by Don Dailey, CCC, January 27, 2013

=External Links=
 * Rules of chess from Wikipedia
 * Talk:Rules of chess
 * Chess from Wikipedia

OTB Chess

 * FIDE Handbook
 * FIDE Handbook E. Miscellaneous / 01. Laws of Chess / FIDE Laws of Chess taking effect from 1 January 2018
 * FIDE Handbook E. Miscellaneous / 03. Regulations for Play with Computers
 * 7th Edition Rule Book Chapters Now Available For Download; Updated For 2020—Newly Adapted Chapter 10 Added | US Chess.org

Correspondence Chess

 * ICCF Rules
 * ICCF Endgame Tablebases
 * The United States Chess Federation - US Chess CC Rules

Computer Chess

 * WCCC Rules (ICGA Tournaments) » ICGA Tournament Rules
 * TCEC Leagues Season rules » TCEC

Cheating

 * Cheating in chess from Wikipedia
 * A history of cheating in chess (1) by Frederic Friedel, ChessBase News, September 29, 2011
 * A history of cheating in chess (2) by Frederic Friedel, ChessBase News, October 04, 2011
 * A history of cheating in chess (3) by Frederic Friedel, ChessBase News, December 18, 2011
 * A history of cheating in chess (4) by Frederic Friedel, ChessBase News, February 28, 2012
 * A history of cheating in chess (5) by Frederic Friedel, ChessBase News, October 06, 2014


 * New FIDE anti-cheating rules ChessBase News, September 17, 2014

=References= Up one level