--- title: "How to Teach Your Child Chess: Set Up the Board, Learn the Pieces and Play Your First Game Tonight" description: Set up the chess board, learn what each piece does and play your first game with your child tonight. A step-by-step guide for parents. author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2026-11-03T09:00:49.154Z updated: 2026-11-03T11:00:47.777Z canonical: https://richdadmagazine.com/article/how-to-teach-your-child-chess image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/pexels-6115021.webp categories: Fatherhood, Family & Relationships content_type: Guide publication: Rich Dad Magazine schema_type: Article --- Nearly 1,250 children from 49 European federations sat down in Hersonissos, Crete, on 2nd November for the start of the [European Youth Chess Championship](https://www.europechess.org/european-youth-chess-championship-2026-starts-in-crete/). The youngest are playing in the under-8 section, and the event runs until 13th November. Many of the best players in the world learned at home first. India's Nihal Sarin, now one of the top grandmasters, started at six when his father gave him [a chess set](https://richdadmagazine.com/article/birthday-presents-for-11-and-12-year-olds) to keep him busy during the school holidays. You do not need to be a strong player to teach your child. You need a board, ten minutes and the seven steps below. ## How to Set Up a Chess Board Turn the board so that each of you has a light square in the bottom right-hand corner. Children remember this with 'light on the right'. Put the rooks in the four corners. The knights go next to them, then the bishops. The queen goes on the square of her own colour, so the white queen stands on a light square and the black queen on a dark one. The king takes the last square beside her. The eight pawns fill the row in front. Ask your child to set up the board before every game. After a week, they will do it faster than you. ## Chess Piece Names and How Each One Moves Teach one piece an evening and play a few moves with it before adding the next. - **Pawn:** moves one square forward, or two on its first move. It captures one square diagonally forward and can never go backwards. - **Rook:** moves any number of squares in a straight line, forwards, backwards or sideways. - **Bishop:** moves any number of squares diagonally. Each bishop stays on its starting colour for the whole game. - **Knight:** moves in an L shape, two squares one way and then one square to the side. It is the only piece that can jump over others. - **Queen:** moves like a rook and a bishop together, in any straight line or diagonal. - **King:** moves one square in any direction. It is the piece you must protect, and the game ends when it is trapped. ## Start With the Pawn Game Clear the board except for the pawns. The first player to get a pawn to the far side wins. The pawn game teaches your child that pawns move forward, capture diagonally and block each other. It also shows them, in five minutes, that every move changes what the other player can do. Once the pawn game feels easy, add the rooks, then the bishops, then the knights and finally the queens and kings. ## Explain Check and Checkmate A king is in check when another piece attacks it. Your child has three ways out: move the king, put a piece in the way or capture the attacker. Checkmate means none of the three works. The game ends there, and the king is never taken off the board. Set up a king and queen against a lone king and let your child hunt the king into a corner. It is the first checkmate most children learn, and it shows them how two pieces work together. ## Teach the Three Special Moves Last Leave these until your child is comfortable with everything else. - **Castling:** the king moves two squares towards a rook, and the rook jumps over to the other side of the king. You can castle only if neither piece has moved, the squares between them are empty and the king is not in check, does not pass through check and does not land in check. - **Pawn promotion:** a pawn that reaches the far side of the board turns into any piece you choose. Most players choose a queen. - **En passant:** when a pawn moves two squares forward and lands beside an opponent's pawn, that pawn can capture it as if it had moved only one square. The capture must happen on the very next move. ## Chess Piece Values and a First Plan Give your child a simple scoring system so they can judge a swap: - Pawn: 1 point - Knight: 3 points - Bishop: 3 points - Rook: 5 points - Queen: 9 points Then teach three opening ideas. Move a centre pawn first. Bring out the knights and bishops next. Castle early to keep the king safe. Keep the queen at home for the first few moves, as she is easy to chase around the board. ## How to Keep Your Child Playing Chess Keep games short and stop while your child still wants another one. A young child learns more from five quick games than from one long one. Do not let them win. Play without your queen, or without both rooks, so the game is fair and the win is real. When your child makes a good move, say so, even in a game they go on to lose. Ask them to tell you why they made a move. Explaining a plan out loud is how children learn to think two moves ahead. When they start beating you, free sites such as Lichess and the puzzles on ChessKid give them new opponents, and most towns have a junior club that meets after school or at weekends.