Chess
Chess is a turn-based board game for two players, and is generally considered the most popular game in the world.[1] Chess has its roots in India, where locals played a game called Shaturanga. The earliest extant description of the game is contained in the Bhavishya Purana, which dates from A.D. 300 to A.D. 600. European travelers visited India in the 15th century, and brought back knowledge of the game, and modern chess was developed in southern Europe. The goal of the game is to place the opposing king into checkmate, that is, a position in which the king is attacked and cannot escape from this situation.
Shaturanga used dice, but Hinduism bans gambling. As a result, the game of chess developed free from any dice or chance.
Modern international chess has a powerful, sweeping queen who was not in the original game. The long reach of bishops today was also lacking at first. Maneuvers such as castling or capturing en passant have been developed within the past few hundred years.
Today, chess is one of the most popular board games in the world. International competition, including world championship events, is organized by an organization called FIDE and American competition organized by the USCF (United States Chess Federation). The only American world champion was Robert J. Fischer. The current world champion is Russian Vladimir Kramnik.
Pieces
Each player has a total of 16 pieces; 8 pawns, 2 bishops, 2 knights, 2 rooks, 1 queen, 1 king.
- The pawn moves one square forward, except on its first move, when it can optionally move two. It captures opposing pieces by capturing one square diagonally. It cannot capture in a backward diagonal motion. All other pieces capture opposing pieces by moving to the square on which the opposing piece is. A player cannot capture one of his own pieces.
- The bishop can move as many squares as desired diagonally.
- The knight, which is the only piece that can jump over other pieces, moves one square in one straight direction and two in the other.
- The rook can move as many squares as desired in a straight direction.
- The queen is the most powerful piece in the board. It can move as many squares as desired (without jumping over another piece), either straight or diagonally.
- The king, which is the most important piece on the board, moves one square, either straight or diagonally.
Players may occassionally assign point values to pieces, which are roughly indicative of the piece's strategic importance. The common point values are noted above.
The most popular style of pieces are known as Staunton style pieces, the tournament standard for chess pieces, although other types exist. Often, popular themed chess sets will appear with characters from popular culture or fiction taking the places of the more common Staunton style pieces. These novelty pieces are not tournament sanctioned however, and can sometimes cause confusion during gameplay as to which piece is which.
Although chess pieces can come in a variety of materials, marble and glass tend to be very popular, but for most chess tournaments, simple plastic pieces are usually favored. Also, while many home chess sets use heavy boards made out of wood or stone or some polymer material, tournament boards are actually roll-able mats with the board printed on it.
Gameplay
All pieces attack each other along their lines of motion - if a piece could move to occupy the location of another piece, it can therefore be taken. The only piece that does not attack along lines of motion is the pawn, which can only attack diagonally by one square. A piece is said to be undefended if it has no piece "supporting" its position - i.e., preventing an opponent from taking it by threat of losing his attacking piece.
The goal of the game is to protect your own King while attacking your opponent's. Every time the King is under direct threat from another piece - queen, bishop, et al, the King is said to be under check. When a player is in check, the King must be protected - no move that fails to remedy the check is acceptable.
When check is not correctable - as in, when the King is under check, and no move can be made to extract him, the King is under checkmate, and the opposing player wins. Alternately, if the King is NOT under check, but the player cannot move with any other piece, and the King cannot be moved without placing himself in check, stalemate occurs, which means that the game is a draw.
The player with the White pieces always moves first.
When a pawn reaches the far side of the board, it may be promoted to any other piece (except a King).
Special Moves
- Castling- When a player has no pieces between a rook and his king, and he has not moved either piece, he can move the king two squares in the direction of the rook, and then place the rook on the square that the king passed over. The king cannot move through a square under attack or if castling would put the king in check.
- en passant- French for "In passing." In chess, if a player pushes his pawn far down to the end of the board, and his opponent pushes a starting pawn 2 spaces ahead, to put the pawn on the same row to avoid confrontation, the player may choose to invoke the "en passant" move, which treats the enemy pawn as though it had only moved one space. The player may capture diagonally on the square behind the enemy pawn, and remove the enemy pawn. The principle is that the two space rule for a pawn's first move cannot be used to avoid confrontation between two pawns. However, the player may only invoke "en passant" on the first turn after the opponent pushes his pawn. You cannot make it after than turn.
Strategy
There are several classic chess moves that form the basis of any strategy -
- "Double-filing" - placing two Rooks in line with each other creates a very powerful vertical or horizontal force along that line.
- Forking - attacking two undefended pieces simultaneously with one piece of your own. This forces your opponent to, essentially, choose which piece to sacrifice. Forking between rooks is a common strategy, especially with a knight. Forking between a rook and a king is common, too, since the player obviously cannot surrender his King!
- Pinning- this strategy involves maneuvering your piece, so that there is an enemy piece in between your piece and the enemy king. This creates a situation in where the opponent cannot move the piece in question anymore, because to do so would be to place the king in check, effectively "pinning" the piece. This strategy can be used to make taking the piece in question an easy task, or by keeping the piece in question from interfering in a future attack.
- Sacrificing for Position- This involves intentionally allowing your opponent to take a piece, in order to open up for a counter attack. By offering up the piece, the opponent may weaken his defenses by attacking it, allowing for a decisive strike.
- The Pickle-This is a special gambit in chess that may work on inexperienced players. By pushing king's pawn as your opening move. If your opponent pushes kings pawn as well (the most common response to kings pawn is to push kings pawn), then move the queen to h5 on the board. If the player is ambitious, they will most likely advance the knight's pawn to g6 to attack your queen. At that point, move the queen to take the king's pawn on e6. This will place the king in check, forcing him to block the check with a piece. Then, since he moved his knight's pawn, the path will be clear for you to capture the kings rook, effectively removing one pawn and one rook from the game by turn 7 and imbedding your queen behind his front lines.
Relative Value of Pieces
There are several different ideas about the relative value of the pieces. It is important to note that the "points" used to assign a value to each piece are hypothetical and do not constitute a score.
The method most often used is:
- Pawn--1
- Knight--3 (some say 2.5)
- Bishop--3
- Rook--5
- Queen--9
- King--Priceless (although in an endgame, the King has an attacking power of about 3)
