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Introduction
Chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by
millions of people worldwide. It is a board game played between two players at home, clubs, tournaments and now in online.
The Game of Chess is not only an game but several valuable qualities of the mind, are to be acquired and strengthened
by it. Chess develops concentration of mind and boost intelligence. By playing at Chess then, we may learn: Foresight, Circumspection
and Caution. Chess is the most popular, most intelligent game and can be played without any cost.
Chess History
Chess is a very ancient game originated in India during the Gupta
empire. In Sassanid Persia around 600 the name became shatranj and the rules were developed further. Shatranj was taken up by the Muslim world after the Islamic conquest of Persia (633–644), with the pieces largely retaining their Persian names.
Later it become popular in Europe and was familiar as "check" and "chess".
Around 1200, rules of shatranj started to be modified in southern Europe, and around 1475, several major changes made the game essentially as it is known
as western chess or international chess.
Writings about the theory of how to play chess began to appear in the 15th century.The first modern chess tournament was held in London in 1851 and won, by German Adolf
Anderssen.
A tournament of elite players ruled by FIDE was started in
1948. Russian Mikhail Botvinnik was the winner of the 1948 tournament who started an era of Soviet dominance in the chess
world. There was only one non-Soviet champion, American Bobby Fischer (champion
1972–1975). The World Chess Championship 2006 reunified the titles, when Kramnik beat the FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov and became the undisputed World Chess
Champion. In September 2007, he lost the title to Viswanathan Anand, who won the championship tournament in Mexico City. Anand defended his title in the revenge match
2008. |
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Chess board and pieces
Chess is a game played between two opponents on opposite sides of a board
containing 64 squares of alternating colors. Each player has 16 pieces:
1 king, 1 queen, 2 rooks, 2 bishops, 2 knights, and 8 pawns.
From left: Pawn, Rock, Knight, Bishop, Queen and King |
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Chess board containing 64 squares of alternating colors |
Setup Chess
At the beginning of the game the chessboard is laid out so that each player has
the white (or light) color square in the bottom right-hand side. The chess pieces are then arranged the same way each time. The second row (or rank) is
filled with pawns. The rooks go in the corners, then the knights next to them, followed by the bishops, and finally the queen, who always goes on her own
matching color (white queen on white, black queen on black), and the king on the remaining square. ( as shown in the above figure) |
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Chess pieces move
The player with the white pieces always moves first. White then makes a move, followed by black, then white again,
then black and so on until the end of the game.
Each of the 6 different kinds of pieces moves differently. Pieces cannot move
through other pieces (though the knight can jump over other pieces), and can never move onto a square with one of their own pieces. However, they can be
moved to take the place of an opponent's piece which is then captured. Pieces
are generally moved into positions where they can capture other pieces (by
landing on their square and then replacing them), defend their own pieces in
case of capture, or control important squares in the game.
The King :
The king is the most important piece, but is one of the weakest. The king can
only move one square in any direction - up, down, to the sides, and diagonally.
The Queen: The queen is the most powerful piece. If moved she can move in any one straight
direction - forward, backward, sideways, or diagonally - as far as possible as
long as she does not move through any of her own pieces. And, like with all
pieces, if the queen captures an opponent's piece her move is over.
The Rook:
The rook may move as far as it wants, but only forward, backward, and to the
sides. The rooks are particularly powerful pieces when they are protecting each other and working together.
The Bishop: The bishop may move as far as it wants, but only diagonally. Each bishop starts
on one color (light or dark) and must always stay on that color. Bishops work
well together because they cover up each other’s weaknesses.
The Knight:
Knights move in a very different way from the other pieces – going two squares
in one direction, and then one more move at a 90 degree angle, just like the
shape of an “L”. Knights are also the only pieces that can move over other pieces.
The Pawn: Pawns are unusual because they move and capture in different ways: they move
forward, but capture diagonally. Pawns can only move forward one square at a
time, except for their very first move where they can move forward two squares.
Pawns can only capture one square diagonally in front of them. They can never
move or capture backwards. If there is another piece directly in front of a pawn
he cannot move past or capture that piece. |
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Chess special moves
Promotion
Pawns have another special ability and that is that if a pawn reaches the other side of the board it can become any other chess piece , called
promotion.. A pawn may be promoted to any piece. A pawn is usually promoted to a queen. Only pawns may be promoted.
En Passant:
If a pawn moves out two squares on its first move, and by
doing so lands to the side of an opponent’s pawn (effectively jumping past the
other pawn’s ability to capture it), that other pawn has the option of capturing
the first pawn as it passes by. This special move must be done immediately after
the first pawn has moved past, otherwise the option to capture it is no longer available.
Castling
One other special rule is called castling. This move allows you to do two
important things all in one move: get your king to safety, and get your rook out of the corner and into the game. On a player’s turn he may move
his king two squares over to one side and then move the rook from that side’s
corner to right next to the king on the opposite side.
In order to castle, however, it must meet the following conditions:
it must be that king’s very first move
it must be that rook’s very first move
there cannot be any pieces between the king and rook to move
the king may not be in check or pass through check
When you castle one direction the king is closer to the side of the
board. That is called kingside. Castling to the other side, through where the
queen sat, is called castling queenside. Regardless of which side, the king
always moves only two squares when castling.
Check and Checkmate
The purpose of the game is to checkmate the opponent’s king.
This happens when the king is put into check and cannot get out of check. There
are only three ways a king can get out of check: move out of the way (though he
cannot castle!), block the check with another piece, or capture the piece
threatening the king. If a king cannot escape checkmate then the game is over.
Customarily the king is not captured or removed from the board, the game is simply declared over.
Draws
When the chess games do not end with a winner, then it is a draw. There are 5 reasons why a chess game may end in a draw:
1. The position reaches a stalemate where it is one player’s turn to move, but his king is NOT in
check and yet he does not have another legal move
2. The players may simply agree to a draw and stop playing
3. There are not enough pieces on the board to force a checkmate.
4. A player declares a draw if the same exact position is repeated three times
5 Fifty consecutive moves have been played where neither player has moved a pawn or captured a piece. |
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Chess notations
Chess games and positions are recorded most often
in algebraic chess notation. The bottom side squares where the
white pieces are placed are marked as a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h (as shown in the figure). The vertical columns are marked as 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 6. 7, 8 (as shown in the figure).
| 8 |
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| 7 |
| 6 |
| 5 |
| 4 |
| 3 |
| 2 |
| 1 |
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a |
b |
c |
d |
e |
f |
g |
h |
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The white and black pieces are :
The notations of Pieces: both for black and white:
King - K
Queen - Q
Rock - R
Bishop - B
Knight - N
Pawn - P |
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Thus by this algebraic notation the initial position of white pieces
are:
First Rock ( a1), first Knight (b1), first Bishop (c1),
Queen (d1), King (e1), second Bishop (f1), second Knight (g1) and second Rock (h1).
The white pans are placed initially on the squares a2, b2, c2, d2, e2, f2, g2, h2
Similarly the original position of black pieces are:
First Rock ( a8), first Knight (b8), first Bishop (c8), Queen
(d8), King (e8), second Bishop (f8), second Knight (g8) and second Rock (h8)
The black pawns are placed initially on the squares a7,b7,c7,d7,e7, f7, g7, h7
Abbreviated algebraic notation generally records moves in the format abbreviation of the piece moved - file where it moved - rank where it moved, e.g.
Qe2 means "queen moves to the e-file and 2nd rank (that is, to the square
e2). If there are two pieces of the same type that can move to the same square, one more letter or number is added to indicate the file or rank from which the piece moved, e.g. Ngf3 means "knight from the g-file moves to the square f3". The letter P indicating a pawn is not used, so that e4 means "pawn moves to the square e4". |
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Chess Programs
An example of a chess program
given here is a famous chess program known as Scholar's mate. The moves are recorded as:
Moves White Black
1 e4
e5
2 Qh5? Nc6
3 Bc4
Nf6??
4 Qxf7# 1-0 (Black Regines)
In 1st move white moves its pawn from e2 square to e4 square.
In 2nd move white moves its Queen (Q) from d1 square to h4 square.and black moves its Knight (N) from b8 square to c6
square,
In 3rd move white moves its Bishop (B) from f1 square to c4
square and black moves its Knight (N) from g8 square to f6 square.
In 4th move white Queen (Q) captures Pawn at f7 place and checkmate Black King. Black regines |
The famous chess program known as
Scholar's mate explains the brilliant skills. |
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Using some special Symbols:
1. Captures are usually designated with a
"x": If the White Knight was to capture the Black Bishop, you'd record
the move as Nxe4 ("Knight takes on e4"). If there was a f3-pawn doing the capturing instead: the move would be written as fxe4
2. When a pawn reaches the eighth rank and promotes to another piece, you'd first record the pawn move, add an "equals" sign, and then the capital letter
abbreviation for the piece the pawn becomes. For example, the move b8=Q means that White's b-pawn advanced and promoted to become a Queen.
3. Whenever a pawn makes an en passant capture, it's customary to add
"e.p." after the move (for example: ...dxe3 e.p.). It's not strictly necessary to add this abbreviation. .
4. If a plus sign ("+") follows a move, it means that the move put the opponent in check (...Re8+ means that Black moved his Rook to e8, putting White in check at the same time).
5. If the "pound" sign ("#") follows a move, it means that the move checkmated the opponent and won the game (for example, a move presented as Qd8# means that White moved his Queen to d8 and checkmated Black).
6, At the end of games which don't end in mate, you'll often see some odd-looking numerical combination. Here's what these mean:
1-0 = White wins , 0-1 = Black wins . 1/2-1/2 = drawn game
Chess basic Strategy
There are four basic things that every chess player should know:
1 Protect your king: Get your king to the corner of the board where he is usually safer. Don’t put
off castling. You should usually castle as quickly as possible. Remember, it doesn’t matter how close you are to checkmating your opponent if your own king is checkmated first!
2 Don’t lose pieces careleesly: Don’t carelessly lose your pieces! Each piece is valuable and you can’t win a
game without pieces to checkmate. There is an easy system that most players use
to keep track of the relative value of each chess piece: A pawn is worth 1, A knight is worth 3, A bishop is worth 3. A rook is worth 5, A queen is worth 9 and the king is infinitely valuable
3 Control the center quickly: You should try and control the center of the board with your pieces and pawns.
If you control the center, you will have more room to move your pieces and will make it harder for your opponent to find good squares for his pieces. In the
example below white makes good moves to control the center while black plays bad moves.
4 Use all of your pieces: Try and develop all of your pieces so that you have more to use when you attack the king. Using one or
two pieces to attack will not work against any decent opponent. |
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