Chess
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Chess is a board game for two players. It is played on a square board, made of 64 smaller squares, with eight squares on each side. Each player starts with sixteen pieces (eight pawns, two each of knights, bishops, and rooks, and one king and queen). One player's pieces are a light color and the other player's pieces are a dark color. The player who plays with the light pieces is called "White" and the player who plays with the dark pieces is called "Black" even if the pieces are not really white and black.
Each game starts with the pieces set in a certain way, which you can see in the picture. The pieces start out, from left to right for the white player, from right to left for the black player, in the first row in front of the players in this order: rook, knight, bishop, queen, king, bishop, knight, rook. A pawn is placed in the square right in front of each piece.
The game commences when the white player starts by moving a piece. Each player takes a turn after the opponent has moved.
Each piece can only move in a special way. A piece cannot move onto a square that has a friendly piece (meaning, a piece of the same color) on it. A piece, except for the knight, also cannot move through squares that have other pieces on them. However, a piece can end its move on a square that has an enemy piece on it. If this happens, the enemy piece is captured, meaning it is taken off the board and is not in the game anymore.
A variation of this game is Transfer Chess.
| Chess pieces | ||
|---|---|---|
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King |  |
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Queen |  |
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Rook |  |
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Bishop |  |
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Knight |  |
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Pawn |  |
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[change] Game pieces
[change] Check and checkmate
When a player makes a move that could capture the enemy king on the next move, the enemy king is said to be in check. The player whose king is in danger must use a turn to save the king. A player might save the king by moving the king out of the way, capturing the threatening piece, or moving another piece between the threatening piece and the king. If the player whose king is in danger cannot do any of these things, it is called checkmate, and the player loses the game.
Many games can end when a player decides to resign before being checkmated, rather than to prolong a hopeless game. A player may declare, "Mate in two," (or "three..four...etc.) if the player believes that the opponent cannot prevent being checkmated in two moves.
A game may end in a draw if both players agree that neither can win.
- If a player cannot make a move, and the player's king is not in check, this is also a draw. This kind of draw is called a stalemate.
- A game will also end in a draw if no piece is captured and no pawn has moved after fifty moves. This is called the Fifty Move Rule, and usually happens at very late in the game.
- If the same position happens three times with the same player on the move, the game is automatically declared a draw. This is called draw by threefold repetition.
[change] Strategy
Chess is a very complex game, and has many different strategies that can be used. Most of them are for the beginning of the game, called opening moves, or simply openings. The most popular opening, the King's Pawn Opening, involves the white player moving his king's pawn (e2) forward two spaces (e4). Black can respond in many different ways, opening up possibilities for a very complex game.
Other chess openings are more risky. For example, The Parham Attack is a very risky move that has the white player moving his queen out in the middle of the board and tries to lure other pieces to capture it. If white loses the queen, white will be at a serious disadvantage, because a queen is the most powerful piece of game. However, if the attack succeeds, white will have many more pieces than black, and black's king will be easier to attack.
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