Castling, en passant, promotion, stalemate and the draw rules — explained properly.
Almost every club player has lost a game to a rule they thought they knew. These are the six that cause the most trouble, with the exact conditions rather than the rough version.
The king moves two squares toward a rook and the rook hops over. It is illegal if the king has moved, that rook has moved, the king is in check, the king passes through an attacked square, or the king lands on one. Note what is NOT on that list: the rook may pass through an attacked square, and the rook may be attacked.
The Academy has an interactive drill for exactly this — the position is set up for you, you make the moves on a real board, and it tells you immediately whether you have it. Reading about a chess idea and being able to execute it are different skills, and only one of them wins games.
If a pawn advances two squares and lands beside an enemy pawn, that pawn may capture it as though it had only moved one. The capture must be made immediately — one move later and the right is gone forever.
The Academy has an interactive drill for exactly this — the position is set up for you, you make the moves on a real board, and it tells you immediately whether you have it. Reading about a chess idea and being able to execute it are different skills, and only one of them wins games.
A pawn reaching the last rank becomes a queen, rook, bishop or knight — your choice, and you may have nine queens. Underpromotion to a knight is not a party trick; it is the correct move whenever a knight gives check that a queen cannot.
The Academy has an interactive drill for exactly this — the position is set up for you, you make the moves on a real board, and it tells you immediately whether you have it. Reading about a chess idea and being able to execute it are different skills, and only one of them wins games.
No legal move and not in check is a draw, not a win. It is the single most common way a winning position is thrown away, and it is always caused by the same thing: taking every piece instead of delivering mate.
The Academy has an interactive drill for exactly this — the position is set up for you, you make the moves on a real board, and it tells you immediately whether you have it. Reading about a chess idea and being able to execute it are different skills, and only one of them wins games.
The same position, with the same side to move and the same rights, occurring three times, may be claimed as a draw. It does not need to be three times in a row.
The Academy has an interactive drill for exactly this — the position is set up for you, you make the moves on a real board, and it tells you immediately whether you have it. Reading about a chess idea and being able to execute it are different skills, and only one of them wins games.
Fifty moves by each side with no capture and no pawn move is a draw. In practice it matters in exactly one place: knowing whether your endgame technique needs to be fast as well as correct.
The Academy has an interactive drill for exactly this — the position is set up for you, you make the moves on a real board, and it tells you immediately whether you have it. Reading about a chess idea and being able to execute it are different skills, and only one of them wins games.
The ideas on this page can be read in fifteen minutes. Making them automatic takes a few weeks of practice — which is why every section here has a matching interactive drill rather than just an explanation.
No. Every item on this page is a pattern or a principle, not a variation. Patterns are recognised, not recalled, and the way to build recognition is repetition on a board.
Work down this page in order. It is arranged from the most immediately useful to the most situational, so the earliest sections will change your results fastest.
Yes. Every lesson in the Grandmaster Gains Academy is playable free in the browser with no sign-up, and the engine will rate your moves afterwards so you can see where the idea broke down.
197 interactive lessons covering exactly these ideas, free in your browser, no sign-up needed.
♔ Open the AcademyCoaches use Grandmaster Gains to assign these drills and see who actually did them. See the trainer classroom.