2.
The objective of each player is to place the opponent´s king "under attack" in such a way that the opponent has no legal move which would avoid the 'capture' of the king on the following move.

The player who achieves this goal is said to have "checkmated" the opponent´s king and to have won the game. The opponent whose king has been checkmated has lost the game.

3.
If the position is such that neither player can possibly checkmate, the game is drawn.

Laws of Chess - The initial position of the pieces on the chessboard

1.
The chessboard is composed of an 8x8 grid of 64 equal squares alternately light (the "white" squares) and dark (the "black" squares).

The chessboard is placed between the players in such a way that the near corner square to the right of the player is white.

2.
At the beginning of the game one player has 16 light-coloured pieces (the "white" pieces); the other has 16 dark-coloured pieces (the "black" pieces):

These pieces are as follows:

A white king, usually indicated by the symbol			A black king, usually indicated by the symbol
A white queen, usually indicated by the symbol			A black queen, usually indicated by the symbol
Two white rooks, usually indicated by the symbol			Two black rooks, usually indicated by the symbol
Two white bishops, usually indicated by the symbol			Two black bishops, usually indicated by the symbol
Two white knights, usually indicated by the symbol			Two black knights, usually indicated by the symbol
Eight white pawns, usually indicated by the symbol			Eight black pawns, usually indicated by the symbol

3.
The initial position of the pieces on the chessboard is as follows:

4.
The eight vertical columns of squares are called "files". The eight horizontal rows of squares are called "ranks". A straight line of squares of the same colour, touching corner to corner, is called a "diagonal".