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F I
D E L A W S O F C H E S S & S W I
S S P A I R I N G |
| FIDE
LAWS OF CHESS |
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The
FIDE Laws of Chess cover over-the-board play.
The English text is the authentic version of the
Laws of Chess, which was adopted at the 71st FIDE
Congress at Istanbul (Turkey)
November 2000, coming into force on 1 July 2001.
In these Laws the words 'he', 'him' and 'his'
include 'she' and 'her'. |
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| PREFACE |
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The
Laws of Chess cannot cover all possible situations
that may arise during a game, nor can they regulate
all administrative questions. Where cases are not
precisely regulated by an Article of the Laws, it
should be possible to reach a correct decision by
studying analogous situations, which are discussed
in the Laws. The Laws assume that arbiters have the
necessary competence, sound judgment and absolute
objectivity. Too detailed a rule might deprive the
arbiter of his freedom of judgment and thus prevent
him from finding the solution to a problem dictated
by fairness, logic and special factors.
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| FIDE appeals to all chess
players and federations to accept this view. |
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| A member federation is
free to introduce more detailed rules provided they: |
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| a. |
do not conflict in
any way with the official FIDE Laws of Chess |
| b. |
are limited to the
territory of the federation in question; and |
| c. |
are not valid
for any FIDE match, championship or qualifying event, or for
a FIDE title or rating tournament.
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| Article
1: The nature and objectives of the game of chess |
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| 1.1 |
The game of
chess is played between two opponents who move their pieces
alternately on a square board called a 'chessboard'. The
player with the white pieces commences the game. A player is
said to 'have the move', when his opponent's move has been
made.
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| 1.2 |
The objective
of each player is to place the opponent's king 'under
attack' in such a way that the opponent has no legal move
which would avoid the 'capture' of the king on the following
move. The player who achieves this goal is said to have
'checkmated' the opponent's king and to have won the game.
The opponent whose king has been checkmated has lost the
game.
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| 1.3 |
If the position is such that
neither player can possibly checkmate, the game is drawn.
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| Article
2: The initial position of the pieces on the chessboard |
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| 2.1 |
The chessboard
is composed of an 8x8 grid of 64 equal squares alternately
light (the 'white' squares) and dark (the 'black' squares).
The chessboard is placed between the players in such a way
that the near corner square to the right of the player is
white.
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| 2.2 |
At
the beginning of the game one player has 16 light-colored
pieces (the 'white' pieces); the other has 16 dark-colored
pieces (the 'black' pieces): These pieces are as follows:
| A
white king, usually indicated by the symbol |
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| A
white queen,
usually indicated by the symbol |
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| Two
white rooks, usually indicated by the symbol |
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| Two
white bishops, usually indicated by the symbol |
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| Two
white knights, usually indicated by the symbol |
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| Eight
white pawns, usually indicated by the symbol |
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| A
black king, usually indicated by the symbol |
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| A
black queen, usually indicated by the symbol |
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| Two
black rooks, usually indicated by the symbol |
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| Two
black bishops, usually indicated by the symbol |
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| Two
black knights, usually indicated by the symbol |
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| Eight
black pawns, usually indicated by the symbol |
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| 2.3 |
The initial position of the
pieces on the chessboard is as follows:
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| 2.4 |
The eight
vertical columns of squares are called 'files'. The eight
horizontal rows of squares are called ranks'. A straight
line of squares of the same color, touching corner to
corner, is called a 'diagonal'.
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