The chessboard

The board has 64 squares in an 8×8 grid. Columns are called files and are labelled a to h. Rows are called ranks and are numbered 1 to 8. Every square has a name made from its file and rank, such as e4.

Each player starts with 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns. White always moves first. The bottom-right square from each player's view is a light square.

A good way to remember the queen's place: the queen goes on her own colour. The white queen starts on a light square (d1) and the black queen on a dark square (d8).