Chess is an age-old board game that pits opponents against each other, testing their wits, battle strategy, intelligence, patience, and all sorts of other human values, onto a 64-square board. The basics of chess are, well, pretty basic, but once you learn the foundations there are literally thousands of books on strategy and theory out there for you to peruse.
Once you have the basic moves down, you might want to learn the strange, weird rules that have come about over time. Many of them—rules that are in place during tournament play, especially—have only been introduced within the last couple hundred years (relatively short for the lifespan of chess), or even the last decade!
These are 18 of the weirdest chess rules that you should be aware of, if you happen to be in a tournament or aren’t just playing for fun with your friends.
21 Touch-Move
The Touch-Move rule is highly enforced and strict in tournament play, so it’s important to know. The rule states that if you intentionally (or unintentionally) touch one of your pieces, you MUST move that piece, as long as you have a legal move. Also, if you touch one of your opponent’s pieces, you must take that piece, as long as you’re allowed to. Games have been won and lost on this rule alone.
20 Pawn Promotion Isn't Just For A New Queen
In competition play, when a pawn reaches the opposite side of the board, it “promotes.” You can turn it into a queen (most common), a rook, a knight, or a bishop, even if one of those pieces hasn’t been taken. So, yes, you can have two queens, or three rooks, etc. Usually, this means turning a pawn into a queen, but there are plenty of times when it makes sense to under-promote, as it were, and go for a lesser-strength piece.
19 Pawn Promotion Arbitration
This is a specific rule to pawn promotion that recently happened during a game between masters. GM Bator Sambuev was playing IM Nikolay Noritsyn. Noritsyn advanced his pawn to be promoted, but unable to find a queen anywhere (Sambuev was holding his, which is a bit malicious), he took a rook and placed it upside down, to denote it being a queen. An arbiter immediately came over and stated that the upside down rook was a rook, not a queen, because the FIDE rules were very specific about it. He ended up losing the game, and felt he was cheated.
18 J’adoube: “I Adjust”
This is an offset of the Touch-Move rule, which states that you must move a piece once you touch it. Basically, if a player wishes to adjust the position of a piece on a square—because their OCD is getting the better of them, or for whatever reason—the player must alert their opponent of their intention, before touching the piece, by saying “J’adoube,” or “I adjust.” Another part of the Touch-Move rule: when castling, the king must be the first piece touched. If you touch the rook, you must move it, which screws up the castle.
17 Insufficient Losing Chances
This complex rule would take paragraphs to explain, but here’s the short version. Insufficient Losing Chances (ILC) works like this: When a player has achieved what he/she believes is a certain or extremely probable draw (a “book draw”), and there are less than five minutes remaining on their clock, they may claim a draw by ILC. An arbiter will decide if a draw is certain. If they make the claim when they have more than 5 minutes on the clock, they will be penalized 1 minute, or 0 minutes and warned if it seemed like they acted in good faith.
16 Correctly Positioned Board
If it’s discovered during the game that the starting position was incorrect (very rare), the game is restarted. If the board is oriented incorrectly and it’s discovered during the game, the game is continued with the pieces transferred to their correct spots on the board. If the game starts with the colors of the pieces reversed, the game continues. Regional organizations have different rules for this rare inconsistency, so be sure to check beforehand.
15 Unusual Time Rules
There are some strange issues with clock management that are decided before the game. For instance, the player with the black pieces, in tournaments, gets to decide which side the clock is located. This could inconvenience you if you’re faster with one hand than the other, but it will probably only be a big deal if you’re playing speed chess, where being quick with your moves and clock-stoppage is crucial.
14 The 50-Move Rule
This obscure rule has been replaced by another in some tournaments, but you might still hear it from time to time. The rule states that a play can claim a draw if no piece has been captured or no pawn has been moved in the previous 50 moves. The “50mr” as it’s called, is designed to stop endgames from going on forever, such as if neither player has any idea how to end a game.
13 The 75-Move Rule
Recently, as of 2016, the 75-Move Rule was adopted in place of the 50-Move Rule. It’s just an extension of 50mr that’s specifically designed for tournaments so that chess games don’t go overly long. An arbiter will enforce this rule for you, which meands that you or an opponent do not need to claim a draw after the 75 moves are up.
12 Three-Fold Repetition
This little-known rule is an important one. The rule states that if the same position has been repeated three times and no progress has been made, you can claim a draw, even if those moves weren’t subsequent. It’s simple enough to enforce, but you have to be paying attention: you’ll most likely need a record of the game (every move written down) to enforce this one, since it’s difficult to work out in practice.
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10 Kingside Castling
Kingside Castling is probably the most known and common of the “special” chess moves—one that most beginners learn early on, but it comes with a lot of stipulations. Kingside castling is when you move the king from e1 to g1, or e8 to g8, and the rook “jumps over” the king and is placed on the other side of it, to “defend” it. Neither king nor rook can have moved during the entire game before you castle.
9 Queenside Castling
Also called “long-side castling,” this rule is lesser known, and some might think it looks illegal because you’re moving the rook three spaces (from a1 to d1, or a8 to d8). Here are cases when castling is not permitted (in both instances): if the king is in check, or will move through a square that would place it in check; if the king would be in check after castling; if there are pieces standing between your king and rook; if either king or rook moved before the castling.
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6 Time Control
Even if you’re winning, if your time runs out in a timed chess match, you are considered defeated. You must press the button sticking out on your end of the clock (on the left) after each move, ensuring that the button gets ejected so the opponent’s time starts. Games are constantly decided by time control, and the only time you can pause the clock is if you have to ask a tournament arbiter about a rule or accuse your opponent of something.
5 Using One Hand At All Times
There are some very strict rules about the clock and Move Touch. Firstly, you must press the clock with the same hand that you move your piece. This is heavily enforced, so it doesn’t look like you’re trying to do something underhanded. Furthermore, you must move with one hand only, at all times. Don’t use both hands to move (you shouldn’t have to)—you’ll be penalized.
4 Handshake Rule
This seems like an outdated rule, but it still stands. In a tournament, you must shake your opponent's hand before the match. If you do not, you forfeit the match. This almost happened to GMs Ivan Cheparinov and Nigel Short. Cheparinov refused to shake Short’s hand, Short complained, and Cheparinov forfeited the match. The decision was appealed and overturned, and Cheparinov had to apologize. The game eventually took place, with Short winning for real.
3 En Passant
This move gets a lot of beginners upset because it looks like an illegal move. It’s very specific to pawns and the beginning of the game. It comes from the French, “in passing.” Basically, if a player exercises to move their pawn two squares on the initial move, and that move places his pawn next to the opponent’s pawn, the opposing player can take that pawn diagonally “in passing,” as if it had only moved one square, first, and then the other. It must be done immediately and no other move can happen first, or else the pawn will have “passed” you. This picture explains it.
2 Stalemate
This is a strange one for beginners who believe they’re winning, but the game ends in a draw and the points are split equally. It basically goes like this, “if you move, your king is toast, but you can’t move.” Your king isn’t in check or checkmate, but any move it makes will put it in check or checkmate. If the king is not checkmated and cannot move anywhere, the game is a draw, strangely enough.
