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up until a couple of months ago i thought i knew how to play chess. i never did a great deal with that knowledge as i find the game a little drawn out and tedious, but i was satisfied i knew the rules. then the guys i was travelling with bought a mini chess set and started talking about a bunch of techniques that sounded completely alien. the most complex move that i was aware of was that if you get the pawn to the other end of the table it turns into a queen. turns out even that's not quite complete, at least it can choose to turn into a queen or a castle, bishop or knight. however there's also a rule called en passant which allows (in a specific scenario) a pawn to capture an opposition pawn without moving to the opposing pawns square. even more confusing is something called castling which is a strange dance between the king and castle where, again under special conditions, they can move towards each other and swap sides. since i constantly forget which squares the bishop and knight are supposed to start from i doubt i'll be throwing out any of those advanced moves any time soon.

here's the original