Chess for Enthusiasts Johar M. Ashfaque
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The Chess Pieces
The game of chess is played between two players on an 8 Ă— 8 board with alternating black and white squares. Each player has one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two
Figure 1: Notice that the board is positioned such that there is a black square in the left-hand corner of each player. knights and eight pawns at their disposal. Players move in turn, with the object of the game being to trap the opposing king. Each chess piece obeys its rules of movement. The initial setup can be seen the figure below:
1.1
The King
The king can move only one square in any direction and is a weak piece as it takes seven moves to cross the board. Having said that his importance lies in the fact that the game ends the moment the king loses.
1.2
The Queen
The queen moves can move in any direction across any number of squares and is therefore the most powerful in the games of chess. 2
Figure 2: The initial setup.
1.3
The Rook
The rook also known as the castle can either move vertically or horizontally over any number of vacant squares. Thus, generally speaking, the rook has control over fourteen squares.
1.4
The Bishop
The bishop can only move diagonally over any number of vacant squares restricted only by colour of the square and controls fewer squares the closer it is to the edge of the board.
1.5
The Knight
The movement of the knight is strange in some sense. It can be thought of as the being defined from one corner of a 3 Ă— 2 rectangle to the opposite corner. The knight can jump over other pieces. It controls only a limited number of squares the closer it gets to the edge of the board. Also, if the knight occupies a white (respectively black) square then it controls only the black (respectively white) squares.
1.6
The Pawns
The pawns can only move forward one square at a time. Having said that, the pawns have the option of moving forward two squares on its first move.
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2
Concluding a Game
2.1
Castling
This is joint move involving the king and one rook which counts as a single move. It can be played as long as the following conditions are met 1. neither the king nor the rook has moved, 2. the king is not in check. You can castle one the king has been in check also if and only if the king did not move in getting out of check. Castling can take place on either side of the board. There is king-side castling and queen-side castling.
2.2
Checkmate
If a king is in check and can not be moved out of check the king is said to be captured and it is a check mate. The game ends.
2.3
Stalemate
Occasionally, a position will arise when only a few pieces are left on the board but no further move can take place. If the king were in check it is a checkmate. But when the king is not in check the game is declared as a draw by stalemate.
2.4
Other Moves
There are several other ways in which a game of chess could possibly end. 2.4.1
Repetition of Moves
If the same situation occurs three times in a game with the same piece to move in each case either side can claim a draw. 2.4.2
Fifty Move Rule
This rule is designed to keep the aimless play in check.
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Chess Notation
There are two common notations that can be used to record a game of chess • standard or algebraic, 4
• descriptive or English. Here, we will focus on the standard notation due to its simplicity. In the algebraic notation the chess board can be seen to be divided into files (vertical lines labelled a to h) and ranks (horizontal lines labelled 1 to 8). Thus every square of the board can be uniquely defined by a letter and a number. The pieces can be identified in this notation as follows: • K (king) • Q (queen) • R (rook) • B (bishop) • N (knight)
3.1
Chess Moves
Having now in place a system for identifying pieces and squares, all we need now are a few symbols to indicate the different types of moves. A dash (−) is used to indicate a move to a vacant square followed by the description of the square moved to. If a piece is captured in the process a cross (×) is used to indicate this. Other set of symbols include • + or ch for check • # or mate for checkmate • O-O for king-side castle • O-O-O for queen-side castle • ! for good move • !! for excellent move • ? for bad move • ?? for very bad move • !? for interesting move • ?! for dubious or risky move
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