Laws of Chess

FIDE Laws of Chess cover over-the-board play.
The English text is the authentic version of the Laws of Chess, which was adopted at the 79th FIDE Congress at Dresden (Germany), November 2008, coming into force on 1 July 2009.
In these Laws the words ‘he’, ‘him’ and ‘his’ include ‘she’ and ‘her’.

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.
FIDE appeals to all chess players and federations to accept this view.
A member federation is free to introduce more detailed rules provided they:

1. do not conflict in any way with the official FIDE Laws of Chess, and
2. are limited to the territory of the federation concerned, and
3. 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 their 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 6.7)
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.

Full Article: Here