Rook
The rook captures the way it moves: in a straight line, landing on the enemy piece.
Lesson 3 of 62 min read
Capturing
How pieces come off the board, and the two rules people always get wrong.
Bishop
The bishop slides along a diagonal and lands on whatever is at the end of it.
It can only ever take pieces standing on its own colour of square.
Knight
The knight jumps its L and captures by landing on the enemy piece. Nothing in between matters, because it goes over the top.
A knight can attack pieces that have no way of attacking it back, which is what makes it awkward to defend against.
Queen
The queen captures in any direction, straight or diagonal, from any distance.
King
The king captures by stepping one square onto an enemy piece.
He is slow, but anything standing next to him is still in danger.
Pawn, the exception
The pawn moves straight forward but captures diagonally, one square to either side. It can never take the piece directly in front of it.
This is the single most common thing beginners get wrong. A pawn that has something in front of it is simply stuck.
One more thing: pieces cannot jump
A rook, bishop or queen slides along a line, and it has to stop at the first piece it meets. If one of your own pieces is in the way, that direction is closed to you. The dots on these two boards show every square the white piece can reach.
The rook would love the black pawn up the d-file, but its own pawn is parked in front of it. Its dots stop dead underneath.
Walled in on all sides, and every one of its squares is still available, the black queen included. The knight is the only piece that goes over the top.