Stages of a Chess Game (Part One)

Choice of Colour

Once you have a partner who as agreed to play a game of chess with you the first thing that must be done is the choice of colour each player will use.

White goes first by convention and therefore has a small advantage (about 30-40 Elo). In casual human chess games the stronger player, if of a sporting nature, will often play black in order to even up the chances of each side winning. If amenable, the assignment of colour can also be carried out by mutual consent.

If agreement cannot be reached, or there is desire for random chance to be used, then another method used by human players to decide who will use what colour chess pieces is to take two pieces (usually pawns), one of each colour and conceal them from the other player in the hands. One colour chess piece in each hand. The player is then asked to choose between the two hands so that when it is opened the colour of the piece is revealed. Good sportsmanship dictates the player show the contents of the other hand also, once the choice has been made.

Pre-game Arrangement of Chess Pieces

The chessboard should be placed so that the left hand square nearest the player is black. This orientation of the chessboard is the same for both players and enables the chess pieces to be set up correctly. If the left corner is white then it forces the King and Queen to swop starting positions. This is an incorrect set up as the piece used to signify the Queen always starts the game on a square of her own colour.

It is customary in human games for players to set up their own chess pieces on the chessboard. The pieces should ideally be placed near the middle of the squares so it is clear which square they are occupying. This placement doesn’t have to be exact, but it is bad sportsmanship to place them on the lines of the squares as it makes it hard for the opposing player to know where you have moved the piece to.

If we start at the left hand square nearest the player (the black one, remember?) the chess pieces used are: Rook, Knight, Bishop (also known as Queen’s Bishop), Queen, King, Bishop (also known as King’s Bishop), Knight and Rook. These eight pieces fill up the “back rank” of the chessboard for either player.

The row of squares immediately in front of this back rank is called the second rank. Again, this can be confusing to a novice player as White’s second rank is black’s 7^th rank, but I will explain this in greater depth in another article. This second rank has eight pawns placed upon it, one for each square.

If these steps were carried out correctly you have a chessboard that looks similar to the image above.

Congratulations! You are ready to play.

Please follow the links to the other articles in this series.

Contact Me

This concludes the first part of a series of articles about the stages of a chess game. Although I love chess and enjoy it a lot I also write science fiction and blog about this extensively (along with chess) at my personal blog: Dave Felton – 40 something writer wannabe, feel free to come and visit.