The FIDE Laws of Chess cover over-the-board play.
PREFACE
The Laws of Chess cannot cover all possible situations that may arise during a game, nor can they regulate all administrative questions. Where cases are not precisely regulated by an Article of the Laws, it should be possible to reach a correct decision by studying analogous situations which are discussed in the Laws. The Laws assume that arbiters have the necessary competence, sound judgement and absolute objectivity. Too detailed a rule might deprive the arbiter of his freedom of judgement and thus prevent him from finding the solution to a problem dictated by fairness, logic and special factors.
A member federation is free to introduce more detailed rules provided they:
b. are limited to the territory of the federation concerned, and
c. are not valid for any FIDE match, championship or qualifying event, or for a FIDE title or rating tournament.
BASIC RULES OF PLAY
Article 1: The nature and objectives of the game of chess
1.1 The game of chess is played between two opponents who move pieces alternately on a square board called a ‘chessboard’. The player with the white pieces commences the game. A player is said to ‘have the move’ when his opponent’s move has been ‘made’. (See Article 6.8)
1.2 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. The player who achieves this goal is said to have ‘checkmated’ the opponent’s king and to have won the game. Leaving one’s own king under attack, exposing one’s own king to attack and also ‘capturing’ the opponent’s king are not allowed. The opponent whose king has been checkmated has lost the game.
1.3 If the position is such that neither player can possibly checkmate, the game is drawn.
Article 2: The initial position of the pieces on the chessboard
2.1 The chessboard is composed of an 8×8 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.
2.2 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):
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This is very helpful. Thank you.
fide article 1.1 says the player with white commences the game, this is not fair, nor is it logical and the only special factor is members of a “eurocentric think” have created theses rules to favor the white player. I have emailed President Obama twice concerning this unfair,biased and disrespectful law and will continue to pursue this change so black has “equal rights” to the first move and then we can get a more precise understanding of our royal game we call chess. Peace.
Lionel Davis,
you have serious issues and you need professional help.
White and black are just one of many colours and thats all they are. They are perfectly equal along with all other colours.
I agree. There is no reason why Black should not move first, as long as Black’s moves are in the ‘first to move’ left column, and White’s are in the ‘second to move’ right column.