Learning The Chess Board

Let's begin with the chess board. There are sixty-four squares on the chess board. Thirty-two light. Thirty-two dark. When we talk about the game, the lines that run vertically up and down the board are called files, the lines that run horizontally across the board are called ranks, and the lines that cut diagonally through the board are called diagonals.

So these are you're files, these are your ranks, and these are your diagonals.

Now remember, when you set up a chess board, you always want to have a light square in the lower right-hand corner of the board. In the beginning of the game, white always goes first. We'll get to that later.