The Baronet crest The BaronetUltima Necat

Learn to play chess

Forty-six short lessons, played on a real board, take you from how the pieces move to your first full game against the computer.

The Learn to play chess window with the first course
Help › Learn to play chess: the lessons of the first course, with your progress.

Learning by playing

Each lesson is a few minutes long. It explains one idea in a sentence or two, then asks you to use it on the board: move the rook to the square that attacks both pieces, find the checkmate, get your king out of check. If a move is wrong, the lesson says why and lets you try again.

Your progress is saved as you go, with up to three stars per lesson, so you can stop at any moment and pick up where you left off. If you already know how the pieces move, one click skips the first course.

Open the lessons with Help › Learn to play chess.

Six courses and a graduation

The courses follow the order in which a beginner actually needs things, and each one builds on the one before.

1. The board and the pieces

How each piece moves and captures, and what it is worth.

  1. Meet the board
  2. Setting up
  3. The rook
  4. The bishop
  5. The queen
  6. The king
  7. The knight
  8. The pawn
  9. Capturing and piece values

2. The rules of the game

Everything that decides how a game ends, and how to write moves down.

  1. Check, and how to get out
  2. Checkmate
  3. Stalemate
  4. Castling
  5. En passant
  6. Promotion
  7. Draws
  8. How games end
  9. Reading and writing moves

3. Etiquette and playing over the board

What to expect at a club or a tournament, and online.

  1. Before and after the game
  2. Touch-move
  3. The chess clock
  4. Quiet, please
  5. Resigning, and playing online

4. Fundamentals

The habits that stop you losing games to one-move mistakes.

  1. Don't give pieces away
  2. The routine before every move
  3. Opening principles
  4. Beware of early attacks
  5. Basic mates I: the back rank and the ladder
  6. Basic mates II: king and queen
  7. Basic mates III: king and rook
  8. King and pawn endings
  9. When you are ahead, trade

5. Tactics

The short combinations that win material.

  1. The fork
  2. The pin
  3. The skewer
  4. Discovered attack
  5. Removing the defender
  6. The back rank
  7. Mixed review

6. First strategy

What to do when there is no tactic on the board.

  1. Improve your worst piece
  2. Rooks need open files
  3. Pawn structure
  4. The king: hide, then fight
  5. Making a simple plan

Graduation: Your first game

A real game against The Baronet, from the first move to the last. Everything you have learned, on one board.

  1. Before you play
  2. Play a full game
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For children, parents and returning players

The lessons were written for anyone who has never played, whatever their age. The sentences are short, each lesson asks for one thing at a time, and the board is the same one used for real games, so nothing has to be relearned afterwards.

They are also useful if you learned the moves long ago and never went further. The Fundamentals course - the routine before every move, opening principles, the basic mates - is where most casual players lose the games they should win, and the Tactics course covers the patterns that decide most games below club level.

Tip: after the graduation game, press Analyse this game. The game review at its simplest level of detail is written for exactly this stage, and points at the moments to learn from.

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Start the first lesson

The lessons are included in the free download and work offline, with no account.

✦ Download for Windows✦ Download for macOS

The Baronet Mark IV - 0.300 · Windows 10/11, 64-bit · macOS 11+, Apple Silicon & Intel · Updated September 2026