All About Chess

T
he origins of chess are often a subject of debate, and no one knows for sure, but it is widely accepted that the game dates back to around 600 A.D. when the original version of the game was believed to have appeared in literature references from India.

Still others have tried to tie the origins of chess back to China and other cultures without any solid evidence.

What IS known is that the game and its' original pieces underwent a multitude of change and by the 15th and 16th century the modern version of chess had become very popular in England, Italy and France. Literature reference from that period shows the game was especially popular with royality and the first chess tournaments can be traced back to this time.

Today chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide in clubs, online, by correspondence (mail and e-mail), in tournaments (amateur and professional) and informally.

C
hess is a game for two players with the object being to capture your opponents king and place him in 'checkmate'.

The chess board itself is made up of 64 checked squares (often black and white). Each player has 16 pieces comprised of the following:

1 King
1 Queen
2 Bishops
2 Knights
2 Rooks (also called Castles)
8 Pawns

The board is set up with a black square to each players' lower left hand corner and the player who has the white pieces begins the game.

A notation is applied to each square of the chess board relative to the white players' position with columns being labeled a-h left to right, and rows are labeled 1-8 bottom to top.

Each piece is set relative to the king and queen and the queen is always positioned on her own color. For the white player this means the white queen is positioned on square d1, with the king to her right on square e1.

Bishops are positioned to the squares either side of the king and queen (squares c1 and f1) followed by the knights either side of each bishop at squares b1 and g1 and finally the rooks positioned on squares a1 and h1.

The black piece player sets the board up exactly as described above with one exception...his king is positioned to the left of his black queen at square position e8.

E
ach chess piece has a relative point value applied to them with the King being the most valued. The king has the ability to move one space in any direction and it also has the ability to castle.

Next is the Queen, the most powerful piece in chess. Her relative point value is 9 as she can move in any direction, one or many squares.

Next is the Rook with a point value of 5. The rook can move horizontally or vertically any number of squares in any direction. The rook also has the ability to castle (explained later).

The Bishop is valued at 3 and can move diagonally any number of squares in any direction.

The Knight is also valued at 3 and has the ability to jump over pieces. The knight travels in an 'L' shape moving either two spaces horizontally and one space vertically, or two spaces vertically and one space horizontally. 1 up, 2 over or 2 up, 1 over is an easy way to remember the knights movement.

The Pawn is the least valued piece with a point value of 1. However, when used properly in certain situations, the pawn can mean the different between winning or losing a game. The first time a pawn is moved, it can advance forward one or two squares. From there on the pawn only moves forward one square at a time except in the case of en passant. Pawns capture pieces by moving diagonally into the opponents piece, and not straight along its path as with the other chess pieces.

A
s I described earlier, a notation is applied to each square of the chess board relative to the white players' position with columns being labeled a-h left to right, and rows are labeled 1-8 bottom to top.

This simple notation is called rank(rows) and file(column) Algerbraic Notation and has been use for many years as a way to document and publish chess piece movement over the chessboard.

For example, the yellow highlighted square to the right would be noted at c7 because it lies on the c column and the 7th row.

An excellent in-depth description of all the notation characters including piece abbreviations and comment characters can be found by clicking here.

A
good quality chess set is a source of pride for the chess enthusiast and also displays well as an accent piece in the den or living room.

I have found an excellent online source if you are in the market to purchase a high quality chess set for either home, club or tournament use.

These folks have been in business since 1972 (when the chess craze really began in the U.S.) and they offer just about every type of chess set one can imagine. They also have an excellent line of chess books and software for practice on your computer.

For more information please click below.

Quality Chess Sets and Supplies

P
laying chess on the net can be loads of fun. It is a good opportunity to improve your game, learn some new strategies and meet people from all over the world.

Many web-based chess sites offer individual play, tournament and team play and most also have databases full of past games played by grandmasters whereby you can follow their moves and learn how the pro's play the game.

I started playing online chess in March of 2006 and I am thoroughly hooked on two of the many web-based chess sites. Gameknot and Chesshere are my personal favorites but with so many web-based chess sites available now, I decided to include several other sites for you to also check out in case you wish to start playing online.