Rules Of Chess
When a game of chess
begins, one player controls the sixteen black pieces while the other uses the
white pieces. The colors are chosen either by a friendly agreement or by a
tournament director. White always moves first and therefore has a slight
advantage over black. The chess pieces should be set up on a standard
chessboard with a white square in the bottom right hand corner. Each chess
piece moves a different way. The rook moves along horizontal and vertical
lines, while the bishop moves in diagonal lines of the same color. The queen
is a combination of the rook and bishop (it can move diagonally, horizontally
and vertically). The knight can jump over occupied squares and moves in an L
shape. Pawns can move forward just one square at a time (they can move two
squares if they have not moved off their starting square). Pawns are unusual
because they attack diagonally and not in the direction of movement. The king
is the most important piece, yet it can only move to an adjacent or diagonally
adjacent square. When a piece is captured (or taken), the attacking piece
moves towards and replaces the enemy piece on its square. The king cannot be
captured in regular chess, only put in check. If a player is unable to get
their king out of check it is called checkmate and the game is over. Chess
games do not have to end in checkmate. Often at the higher level of chess,
games end in a draw (tie). A draw can occur under many situations including:
mutual agreement to draw, stalemate, threefold repetition or the fifty move
rule.
Strategy & Tactics
Chess openings are a sequence of moves, often memorized, which will help
a player build up their position and prepare for the middlegame. Openings are
often designed to take hold of the center of the chess
board, develop pieces, protect the king and create a strong pawn
structure. Hypermodernism advocates the control of the center not by using
pawns but with distant pieces. It is often important for a player to castle (a
special move that moves the king from the center of the board two squares
towards one of the corners) to protect the king. When taking and trading
pieces in chess the chess piece point values becomes important. Valuations
differ slightly from book to book, but generally, queens are worth 9 points,
rooks are worth 5, bishops and knights are worth 3 and pawns are worth 1.
Since the king's loss ends the game it is invaluable. The actual value and
importance of a piece will vary based upon the position. A few positional
elements are common to most chess tactics are forks and traps. A fork is a
situation where a piece is moved such that it is attacking (forking) two other
pieces simultaneously. It usually is difficult for the other player to protect
both of their pieces in one move. Pins are used to prevent the movement of an
enemy piece by threatening any pieces behind it should it move. Skewers are a
kind of reverse pin where the more valuable piece is placed in front of a less
important one. A discovered attack is an attack where a piece moves and
uncovers a line for another piece which does the attacking. During the endgame
pawns and kings become relatively more powerful pieces as both sides often try
to promote their pawns. If one player has a large material advantage checkmate
may happen quickly in the endgame, but if the game is relatively even
tablebases and endgame study are essential. Controlling the tempo (time used
by each move) becomes especially important when fewer pieces are left on the
board. In some cases, a player will have a material advantage, but will not
have enough material to force a checkmate.
Gameplay Variations
Besides the standard version of chess, there are some common variations
in the gameplay. Blitz chess is a version of chess where a chess clock is used
to limit the time control for each player. Generally each side has three to
fifteen minutes (five is common) for all of their moves. An even faster
version of chess is known as bullet chess or lightning chess. Bullet chess's
time controls are less than three minutes. Speed chess requires the player to
spend less time thinking because if the player's time runs out they lose. When
playing at faster time controls computers become relatively more powerful to
humans.
Chess is not a game of chance; it is based soley on tactics and
strategy. Nevertheless, the game is so complex that not even the best players
can consider all contingencies. Although only 64 squares and 32 chess
men are on the board, the number of possible games that can be played far
exceeds the number of atoms in the universe! Now that is a board game, right?!