Chess

Chess, perennially popular game of skill between two players, involving intense intellectual competition, with almost no element of chance. Each player has 16 chess pieces, one set being called White, the other Black. Each set consists of a king, queen, two bishops, two knights, two rooks (or castles), and eight pawns. The game is played on a square chessboard, divided into 64 alternate light (or white) and dark (or black) squares, that is always placed between the players so that the corner square to the right of each player is white. The eight vertical rows of squares running from the front edge of the chessboard nearest one player to that nearest the other are called files; the eight horizontal rows that are at right angles are called ranks; and the rows of squares extending diagonally across the board are called diagonals.
The object of the game, which symbolizes warfare, is to capture—that is, “checkmate”—the opposing king. The defeated king is never removed from the board, however, as are the other pieces and pawns when they are captured. The basic rules and principles of chess are easily mastered, but the subtleties of advanced play require intensive study and concentration. Because of this characteristic, chess is one of the few games that everyone can enjoy; weak or inexperienced players will gain as many thrills and pleasures in games with opponents of their approximate strength as will two master tournament competitors.
Over the centuries chess pieces have been made in many forms, representational and abstract, and in a wide variety of materials. Wood or stone, ivory or bone, silver, gold, and bronze, alabaster, crystal, and china have all been worked by master artisans to produce sets of incomparable beauty and value. Modern chess, however, is primarily played with pieces of wood or plastic in the classic design known as the Staunton pattern, which was devised in the 19th century in Great Britain. So popular is chess that small portable sets are manufactured for convenient play when travelling; by the late 1970s technological advances made it possible for more and more players to pit their skills against sophisticated electronic computer games that simulate master play.
At the start of the game the pieces are placed on the board as shown here with the White queen on the white square and the Black queen on the opposing black square at the other end of the same file. The king is placed next to the queen, and on its immediate right the bishop, knight, and rook. The queen bishop, queen knight, and queen rook are placed on its left, and the eight pawns are lined up on the rank immediately in front of them across the board. White moves first, and then the players alternate, moving one piece or pawn at a time; an exception to this occurs in castling (see below), when two pieces are moved at the same time.
More books have been written on chess than on all other games combined. Extensive analysis of all the phases of chess and the recording of games, problems, and positions, beginning as far back as the 9th century, led to the development of various methods of chess notation. The algebraic system, developed by the early Muslim players, is today the most widely used system. Algebraic notation gives each square on the chessboard a letter and a number: The eight files (starting from White's left) are given letters from a to h, and the eight ranks (starting from the White side) are numbered 1 to 8. The pieces (but not the pawns) are designated by their initial letters, with N indicating the knight. Thus, Qf8 means that the queen moves to the eighth rank on the f file. Capturing a piece is indicated by an x—as in Qxb5: Queen takes piece or pawn on b5.
The rival system, called the descriptive system, has also been used for many centuries and is still the more popular one in the English- and Spanish-speaking worlds. Here, again, the pieces are designated by their initial letters, although the knight may be represented either by Kt or N, and the pawns by P; the squares, however, take their names from the original setting of the pieces. Thus, the first file on the White player's left is queen's rook file, and the fifth file from the left is the king's file, etc. The notation 1. P-K4, P-QB4 indicates that on the first move White placed its king's pawn on the fourth square in front of the king, and Black responded by placing its queen bishop's pawn on the fourth square in front of the queen bishop. Again, captures are shown by an x.
With both notation systems, castling on the king's side is shown as O-O and on the queen's side by O-O-O.