World Of Chess

Chess is a game, played by two players (known to you and me simply as White and Black player). The reason to such "nicknames" is that one player plays with the white pieces, and the other player plays with the black pieces. At the start of the game each player has sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns. The game is played on a chessboard, consisting of 64 squares: eight rows and eight columns. Each square can be empty or occupied by a piece. The squares are alternately light (white) and dark colored. The board must be laid down such that there is a black square in the lower-left corner. To facilitate notation of moves, all squares are given a name. From the view of the white player, the rows are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8; the lowest row has number 1, and the upper row has number 8. The columns are named, from left to right, a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h. A square gets a name, consisting of the combination of its column-letter and row-number, e.g., the square in the lower left corner (for white) is a1.

Players make their moves by turns. White moves first. In a typical move, White selects a white piece and moves it to another square. The destination square is either empty or occupied by an enemy piece. In the latter case the enemy piece is said to be captured. The captured piece is removed from the board, and plays no further role in the game.

If looking across the bottom row of white pieces you can see a rook (also known as castle), a knight, a bishop, a queen, a king, another bishop, another knight, and another rook. The next (upper) row of white pieces consists of eight pawns. Each different type of piece moves in a specific way(s), and if you still haven't got this information it is very important to learn this significant basic. I will explain: for instance, the rook moves in a straight line, horizontally or vertically. The rook may not jump over other pieces, that is: all squares between the square where the rook starts its move and where the rook ends its move must be empty. (As for all pieces, when the square where the rook ends his move contains a piece of the opponent, then this piece is taken. The square where the rook ends his move may not contain a piece of the player owning this rook).

The king moves one square in any direction, horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. There is one special type of move, made by a king and rook simultaneously, called castling. When castling, the king moves two squares towards the rook, and the rook moves over the king to the next square, i.e., black's king on e8 and rook on a8 move to: king c8, rook d8 (long castling), white's king on e1 and rook on h1 move to: king g1, rook f1 (short castling). The king is the most important piece of the game, and moves must be made in such a way that the king is never in check.

The queen has the joint moves of the rook and the bishop, that is to say the queen may move in any straight line, horizontal, vertical, or diagonal. When the Queen is in the center of the board, it can move to 27 different squares and when the Queen is positioned on the side it can only move to 21 different squares. The Queen, like all other pieces in chess (except the Knight) cannot jump over its own pieces, or opponent's pieces, so it is restricted in its movements.

The bishop moves in a straight diagonal line. The Bishop is restricted in its movements by its own pieces, and also it may not jump over other pieces. When the Bishop is in the center of the board, it can move to 13 different squares.

The knight makes a move that comprises first one step in a horizontal or vertical direction, and then one step diagonally in an outward direction. The Knight is the only chess piece that can "jump" over other pieces, the pawns do not restrict his movements: it is allowed that the first square that the knight passes over is occupied by an arbitrary piece. For example, white can start the game by moving his knight from b1 to c3. The piece that is jumped over is further not affected by the knight: as usual, a knight takes a piece of the opponent by moving to the square that contains that piece.

The pawn moves differently regarding whether it moves to an empty square or whether it takes a piece of the opponent. When a pawn does not take, it moves one square straight forward. When the Pawn is on its initial square at the second row, (when it has not moved at all), player can choose to move either one square or a double step straight forward. When a pawn advances two squares, if there is an opponent's pawn on an adjacent file next to its destination square, then the opponent's pawn can capture it and move to the square the pawn passed over, but only on the next move. For example, if the black pawn has just advanced two squares from f7 to f5, then either of the white pawns on e5 and g5 can take it via en passant on f6. Moreover, When a pawn advances to its eighth rank, it is exchanged for the player's choice of a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same color. Usually, the pawn is chosen to be promoted to a queen, but in some cases another piece is chosen, called underpromotion. In the diagram on the right, the pawn on c7 can choose to advance to the eighth rank to promote to a better piece.

The main objective of the game is to capture the opponent's king. However to actually capture the king would be offensive. So this is not allowed. This leads to the notion of check. Black's king is said to be in check if (assuming it were White's turn to move) White could capture Black's king. To avoid this capture, Black must make a move that takes Black's king out of check, so White cannot capture Black's king on the next move. In one phrase, the goal of the chess is to checkmate the opponent, this occurs when the opponent's king is in check, and there is no way to rescue it from the attack.

If it's impossible for Black to get out of check, then Black's king is said to be checkmated, and White wins the game. Another way to describe checkmate is to say that Black is in check and Black has no legal moves. An alternative outcome is if Black is NOT in check but has no legal moves. This is called a stalemate. When this occurs the game ends in a draw.

Point out for yourself that besides casual games without exact timing, chess is also played with a time control, mostly by club and professional players. If a player's time runs out before the game is completed, the game is automatically lost (provided his opponent has enough pieces left to deliver checkmate). The timing ranges from long games played up to seven hours to shorter rapid chess games lasting usually 30 minutes or one hour per game. Even shorter is blitz chess with a time control of three to fifteen minutes for each player and bullet chess (under three minutes).

What's more, a player can quit the game, which means that he has lost and his opponent has won. After making a move, a player can offer a draw: his opponent can accept his offer, then the game ends and it is a draw or refuse the proposal - in that case the game goes on.

With this topic I have tried to explain how all the pieces move, the essential aspects, what's restricted and what's not and the main important rules that would help amateurs (or even Pro's) learn to play as well as famous Garry Kasparov!

Chess is a spare time and competitive game played between two players. From time to time it is called Western chess or international chess to set apart it from its predecessors and other chess variants, the present-day form of the game appeared in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from similar, much older games of Indian and Persian origin. At present, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played globally by millions of people of all professions and lifestyles, in clubs, online, by correspondence, in tournaments and informally.

Talking more closely about the gameplay, the game is played on a square chequered chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight square. At the start, each player (one controlling the white pieces, the other controlling the black pieces) controls sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king, whereby the king is under immediate attack (in "check") and there is no way to remove it from attack on the next move.

Going further, the tradition of organized competitive chess started in the sixteenth century and has developed extensively. Chess today is a recognized sport of the International Olympic Committee. The first official World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886; Viswanathan Anand is the current World Champion. Theoreticians have developed extensive chess strategies and tactics since the game's inception. Aspects of art are found in chess composition.

Focal goal of the initial computer scientists was to invent a chess-playing machine, and nowadays chess is deeply influenced by the abilities of current chess programs and by the possibility to play it online. And what's interesting, in 1997, a match between Garry Kasparov, then World Champion, and a computer proved for the first time that machines are able to beat even the strongest human players.