Chess
Challenge your mind with the king of games
Chess puts two armies on an eight by eight board, White and Black, with six kinds of pieces that each move a different way. The goal is checkmate: attack the enemy king so it cannot move, block, or capture its way to safety. Nothing is hidden, so every loss traces back to a move you can find.
How to play
Playing Chess
- 1
Tap a piece to select it, then tap the square you want it to land on.
- 2
Move rooks in lines, bishops diagonally, queens both, knights in an L, kings one square; landing on an enemy captures it.
- 3
Push pawns one square ahead, two on their first move, and capture with them diagonally instead.
- 4
Answer check by moving the king, blocking the line, or taking the attacker; if you cannot, that is checkmate.
- 5
Promote any pawn that reaches the far rank, and castle early to move your king off the center.
- 6
Watch for stalemate: an opponent with no legal move and no check draws instead of losing.
Tactics
Three ways to get better at Chess
Count the material
Value a pawn at one, a knight or bishop at three, a rook at five, and a queen at nine. Trade pieces when you are ahead on that count, and avoid trades when you are behind.
Own the center early
Push a center pawn, develop knights and bishops toward the middle, then castle. Moving the same piece twice in the opening gives your opponent an extra developing move while you stand still.
Rook behind the pawn
Tarrasch's rule: put your rook behind a passed pawn, whether it is yours or your opponent's. Behind your own pawn the rook gains scope with every push; in front of it, the rook slowly runs out of squares.
Inside Reel Games
Chess in the swipe feed
Chess lives in the same vertical feed as everything else, one swipe up or down from the game you were just in. The board appears at once, with no loading screen in between. It all runs on the phone, so a tunnel, a plane, or dead airport Wi-Fi costs you nothing, and no ad ever cuts in between games.
Good for the hour after dinner when nothing else is urgent.
Next up
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