The rules of Horde Chess are pretty similar to those of classic chess, making them extremely easy to learn for chess players. Those who are not familiar with chess yet will need some time to get used to it. If you already know the basic rules, go on to learn 10 useful tips for better play.
This article uses material from Wikipedia‘s page for chess rules, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike Licence 3.0. They adapted by me to match the Horde Chess rules.
General
The starting position is this:
Each player plays on his turn. The first player to move is the player of the white pawns.
Movement
Basic movement
Pawns move straight forward (relative to the player’s point of view), and captures diagonally.
Pawns on the first 2 rows can move 2 steps forward.
A knight moves to the nearest square that is not on the same rank, file, or diagonal. Alternatively, you can think about it as moving two squares horizontally then one square vertically, or moving one square horizontally then two squares vertically, in an “L” pattern. The knight jumps over other pieces to the new location.
The bishop moves any number of vacant squares diagonally.
The rook moves any number of vacant squares horizontally or vertically.
The queen moves any number of vacant squares horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
The king moves exactly one square horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. The king moves also as a part of a castling, described below.
Castling
The special move of castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook, then placing the rook on the other side of the king, adjacent to it. Castling is only permissible if all of the following conditions hold:
- The king and rook involved in castling must not have previously moved;
- There must be no pieces between the king and the rook;
- The king may not currently be in check, nor may the king pass through or end up in a square that is under attack by an enemy piece. The rook is permitted to be under attack and to pass over an attacked square during castling;
Of course, castling applies only for black.
En passant
When a pawn advances two squares from the second row and ends the turn adjacent to a pawn of the opponent’s on the same rank, that pawn of the opponent’s pawn may capture it as if it had moved only one square forward. This capture is only legal on the opponent’s next move immediately following the first pawn’s advance. The diagrams demonstrate an instance of this: if the white pawn moves from a2 to a4, the black pawn on b4 can capture it en passant, moving from b4 to a3 and removing the white pawn on a4. If the white pawn moves from f1 to f3, the black pawn on e3 cannot capture it.
Check
The black must not let his king be under threat of capture. When white makes such a threat, we call it “check” and black must immediately remove it.
If it is not possible to get out of check, the player of the white pawns wins the game (see the next section).
Game ending
If the black player’s king is placed in check and there is no legal move that player can make to escape check, then the game ends, and the player of white pawns wins. This is called checkmate.
If no white pawns remain on the board, the player of the black pieces wins.
A draw happens in the following cases:
- It is a player’s turn, and he can make no legal move. We call this situation a stalemate.
- Both players agree to a draw after one of the players makes such an offer.
- Fifty-move rule: There has been no capture or pawn move in the last fifty moves by each player and the last move was not a checkmate.
- Threefold repetition: The same board position has occurred three times with the same player to move and all pieces having the same rights to move, including the right to castle or capture en passant.
What next
Once you have learned the Horde Chess rules, you may want to play some games on Lichess. Then you may want to read a game review, learn some common openings, and see position spotlight posts. Have fun!