You’re ready to start a fierce chess battle with an old friend. You have the chessboard. You have the chess pieces. “No mercy!”, you have yelled. But suddenly, you discover that you have forgotten where the king and the queen go. 😠 Aarghh!

Relax! No problem. Here is a quick guide for you to learn how to correctly place the king and the queen on the chessboard. 😂

Correct Placement for the King and the Queen on the Chessboard

Quick Tips

• Be sure that the chessboard is set with a light square at your right hand.
• The king and the queen go on the very first rank of yours, in the middle squares there.
• Your queen goes in a square of her same color.
• The king and the queen face across the board the enemy king and queen.
• Your king goes on a square with the color opposite to the one of your queen.
• If you are playing Black, your queen goes on a dark square and your king goes on a light square.
• If you are playing White, your queen goes on a light square and your king goes on a dark square.

When you go to play chess online, you don’t need to worry about all of this. But if you want to play on your very own chessboard, you will certainly need to have this guide at your hand. 👀

Additional Tips

Squares and Pieces in Two Colors

A chessboard has squares in two colors. The chess pieces come in two colors too. However, the color of the pieces must not match the color of the squares. As an example, it is very common to see boards with squares in green and white, paired with pieces in black and light yellow.

White and Black

One color is traditionally called white, and the other color is traditionally called black. Pieces and squares come in those “two colors”.

Light and Dark

The white squares are also known as light squares, while the black squares are also known as dark squares.

Your Side

You must choose a side, the player you are. If you choose Black, all your pieces will be the black ones. If you choose White, all your pieces will be the white ones.

Pro Tips

How does a pro in chess know the right placement of the king and the queen on the chessboard? Coordinates, that is the key! The same way you use addresses to find a place in the town, a chess player can use coordinates to find anything on a chessboard.

🤓 While you learn more and more about chess, you start discovering fascinating things like how to win in chess just with your queen or how to win in chess just with your king 🤔 or, even, how to win in chess without a check!

Left to Right

If you are the kind of chess player who is not afraid to learn about coordinates on the chessboard, you will not have any problem setting up everything. You should know that all starts from left to right, with the column ‘a’ at the left, and the column ‘h’ at the right, when you are playing White. You should also know that the columns aren’t called like that, but instead they are called files. So, the board goes from the a-file to the h-file.

Bottom to Up

The chessboard uses numbers and letters for coordinates. From bottom to up, there are eight rows, numbered from 1 to 8. About the rows, you know that at the lower side goes the row number 1, when you are playing White. Then, going up, the last row at the top is the number 8. And, in the same way as columns are called files, the rows are called ranks.

The white queen goes on the d1-square and the white king goes on the e1-square.
The black queen goes on the d8-square and the black king goes on the e8-square.

This is all that you need to know about the correct placement of the king and the queen on a chessboard!

Share it with that friend of yours, which is always arguing with you about the correct placement for the king and the queen whenever you are going to play chess.