chess game
Chess is a recreational and competitive board game played between two players. It is sometimes called Western or international chess to distinguish it from related games such as xiangqi.
The current form of the game emerged in Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from similar, much older games of Indian and Persian origin. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.
Chess is an abstract strategy game and involves no hidden information. It is played on a square chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. At the start, each player 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 and there is no way for it to escape. There are also several ways a game can end in a draw.
Organized chess arose in the 19th century. Chess competition today is governed internationally by FIDE. The first universally recognized World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886; Magnus Carlsen is the current World Champion. A huge body of chess theory has developed since the game's inception. Aspects of art are found in chess composition; and chess in its turn influenced Western culture and art and has connections with other fields such as mathematics, computer science, and psychology.
One of the goals of early computer scientists was to create a chess-playing machine. In 1997, Deep Blue became the first computer to beat the reigning World Champion in a match when it defeated Garry Kasparov. Though not flawless, today's chess engines are significantly stronger than even the best human players and have deeply influenced the development of chess theory.
Rules
The rules of chess are published by FIDE, chess's international governing body, in its Handbook. Rules published by national governing bodies, or by unaffiliated chess organizations, commercial publishers, etc., may differ in some details. FIDE's rules were most recently revised in 2018.
Setup
Chess pieces are divided into two different colored sets. While the sets may not be literally white and black, they are always referred to as "white" and "black". The players of the sets are referred to as White and Black, respectively. Each set consists of 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns.
The game is played on a square board of eight rows and eight columns. By convention, the 64 squares alternate in color and are referred to as light and dark squares; common colors for chessboards are white and brown, or white and dark green.
The pieces are set out as shown in the diagram and photo. Thus, on White's first rank, from left to right, the pieces are placed in the following order: rook, knight, bishop, queen, king, bishop, knight, rook. On the second rank is placed a row of eight pawns.
Black's position mirrors White's, with an equivalent piece on the same file. The board is placed with a light square at the right-hand corner nearest to each player. The correct positions of the king and queen may be remembered by the phrase "queen on her own color" ─ i.e. the white queen begins on a light square; the black queen on a dark square.
Movement
In competitive games, the piece colors are allocated to players by the organizers; in informal games, the colors are usually decided randomly, for example by a coin toss, or by one player concealing a white pawn in one hand and a black pawn in the other, and having the opponent choose.
White moves first, after which players alternate turns, moving one piece per turn. A piece is moved to either an unoccupied square or one occupied by an opponent's piece, which is captured and removed from play. With the sole exception of en passant, all pieces capture by moving to the square that the opponent's piece occupies.
Moving is compulsory; a player may not skip a turn, even when having to move is detrimental.
Each piece has its own way of moving. In the diagrams, the dots mark the squares to which the piece can move if there are no intervening pieces of either color.
All pieces except the pawn can capture an enemy piece if it is located on a square to which they would be able to move if the square was unoccupied. The squares on which pawns can capture enemy pieces are marked in the diagram with black crosses.
The king moves one square in any direction. There is also a special move called castling that involves moving the king and a rook. The king is the most valuable piece — attacks on the king must be immediately countered, and if this is impossible, immediate loss of the game ensues.
A rook can move any number of squares along a rank or file, but cannot leap over other pieces. Along with the king, a rook is involved during the king's casting move.
A bishop can move any number of squares diagonally, but cannot leap over other pieces.
A queen combines the power of a rook and bishop and can move any number of squares along a rank, file, or diagonal, but cannot leap over other pieces.
A knight moves to any of the closest squares that are not on the same rank, file, or diagonal. The knight is the only piece that can leap over other pieces.
A pawn can move forward to the unoccupied square immediately in front of it on the same file, or on its first move, it can advance two squares along with the same file, provided both squares are unoccupied.
A pawn can capture an opponent's piece on a square diagonally in front of it by moving to that square. A pawn has two special moves: the en passant capture and promotion.
Check and checkmate
When a king is under immediate attack, it is said to be in check. A move in response to a check is legal only if it results in a position where the king is no longer in check. This can involve capturing the checking piece; interposing a piece between the checking piece and the king; or moving the king to a square where it is not under attack. Castling is not a permissible response to a check.
Castling
Once in every game, each king can make a special move, known as castling. Castling consists of moving the king two squares along with the player's first rank toward a rook on the same rank and then placing the rook on the last square that the king crossed.
- Castling is permissible if the following conditions are met: Most tournament players consider it good etiquette to resign in a hopeless position.
- Win on time: In games with time control, a player wins if the opponent runs out of time, even if the opponent has a superior position, as long as the player has a theoretical possibility to checkmate the opponent were the game to continue.
- Forfeit: A player who cheats, violates the rules, or violates the rules of conduct specified for the particular tournament can be forfeited. Occasionally, both players are forfeited.
- For example, one variation of a simple trap known as the Scholar's mate can be recorded:
Variants of algebraic notation include long-form algebraic, in which both the departure and destination square are indicated; abbreviated algebraic, in which capture signs, check signs, and ranks of pawn captures may be omitted; and Figurine Algebraic Notation, used in chess publications for universal readability regardless of language.
Portable Game Notation is a text-based file format for recording chess games, based on short-form English algebraic notation with a small amount of markup. PGN files can be processed by most chess software, as well as being easily readable by humans.
Until about 1980, the majority of English language chess publications used descriptive notation, in which files are identified by the initial letter of the piece that occupies the first rank at the beginning of the game. In descriptive notation, the common opening move 1.e4 is rendered as "1.P-K4". Another system is ICCF numeric notation, recognized by the International Correspondence Chess Federation though its use is in decline.
In competitive games, players are normally required to keep a score. For this purpose, only algebraic notation is recognized in FIDE-sanctioned events; game scores recorded in a different notation system may not be used as evidence in the event of a dispute.
