Chess resources and links

The links that follow are organized from beginner to intermediate.  Many have exercises that a new chess player can work on with the help of a more experienced player, or that a child can work on with their parent, whether the parent knows chess or not.  They are designed to be photocopied, handed out, and explained in person.  They fill the page they're printed on and are packed with information.  You are free to use the pdf files (links in bold) we developed for your own educational purposes.  If you would like to make comments or suggest changes, please write to us at

• Basic chess rules introduces the pieces, how they move, how they capture, check and checkmate, stalemate and draws, point values, and a little bit of algebraic chess notation.  Read about chess online at Wikipedia.  It is loaded with information and good links.  Learn how to play chess at a site that is good for parents.  It will literally talk you through dozens of basic topics.  It also has lots of exercises.
• How many moves can you make? is a simple exercise in counting how many spaces each piece can move to, depending on where it is on the board.
• Follow this link to professorchess.com for an exercise on spotting checkmate, stalemate, or a possible move for the black king.  It is good for students who have just learned how the pieces move.
• Checkmating patterns lets beginners simply set up pieces to checkmate the black king.  Later they can learn how to play the endgame, for now, they just need to know what the very end will look like.
• One move checkmates is a set of nine puzzles to recognize how to checkmate the opposing king.  They are fairly realistic situations.  Solutions here. Practice more here.
• Protecting pieces and trading helps beginners recognize the value of protecting pieces, not hanging them, and discusses the concept of trading pieces and the value of the pieces.  Practice spotting hanging pieces here.
• Pawn Structure follows up on the previous handout by explaining how pawns protect one another in diagonal chains.
• King and rook endgames introduces two ways for a king and rook to checkmate a king.  Parents can easily play the role of the endangered king and run around the board for hours until the new player learns to think ahead enough to force checkmate.  This is a great chance for students to practice thinking ahead:  If I do this, what will my opponent do?  Practice checkmating online:  king and two rooks | king and queen | king and rook | king and two bishops
• King and pawn endgame exercises concern how to use a king and one or more pawns, promote a pawn, perhaps to a rook, to lead to a king and rook endgame.
• Forks, pins, and skewers introduces some middle game tactics that can be used to gain an advantage.  Prevent your opponent from using these against you!  Practice pins here.  Practice forks here and here.
• Bobby Fischer game and annotation of games introduces algebraic chess notation, how to record the moves in a game, and how to re-play the game and analyze the moves.  It illustrates with the 1956 "Game of the Century" between Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer.  Read about the game here and follow the moves at the bottom of this page.  If you want to see more games, search here.
• Three openings illustrates three common ways for chess games to start
• If you want to set up chess board positions, use this site with Internet Explorer.  You can save it to your hard drive, too.  On a PC, press Alt-PrtScr to copy the window so you can paste it into Paint or Word or an email.
• Chess score sheet gives you a nice way to keep track of your moves in a game.