1.
Rules of chess
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The rules of chess are rules governing the play of the game of chess. While the exact origins of chess are unclear, modern rules first took form during the Middle Ages, the rules continued to be slightly modified until the early 19th century, when they reached essentially their current form. The rules also varied somewhat from place to place, today chesss international governing body FIDE sets the standard rules, with slight modifications made by some national organizations for their own purposes. There are variations of the rules for fast chess, correspondence chess, online chess, Chess is a game played by two people on a chessboard, with sixteen pieces of six types for each player. Each type of moves in a distinct way. The goal of the game is to checkmate – that is, games do not necessarily end with checkmate – players often resign if they believe they will lose. In addition, there are ways that a game can end in a draw. Chess is played on a chessboard, a board divided into 64 squares of alternating color. No matter what the colors of the board, the lighter-colored squares are called light or white. Sixteen white and sixteen black pieces are placed on the board at the beginning of the game, the board is placed so that a white square is in each players near-right corner. Horizontal rows are called ranks and vertical rows are called files, the pieces are placed, one on a square, as follows, The rooks are placed on the outside corners, right and left edge. The knights are placed immediately inside of the rooks, the bishops are placed immediately inside of the knights. The queen is placed on the square of the same color of that of the player, white queen on the white square. The king takes the vacant spot next to the queen, the pawns are placed one square in front of all of the other pieces. Popular mnemonics used to remember the setup are queen on her own color, the latter refers to setting up the board so that the square closest to each players right is white. The player controlling the white pieces is named White, the controlling the black pieces is named Black. White moves first, then players alternate moves, making a move is required, it is not legal to skip a move, even when having to move is detrimental. Play continues until a king is checkmated, a player resigns, or a draw is declared, in addition, if the game is being played under a time control players who exceed their time limit lose the game
2.
Three-dimensional chess
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Three-dimensional chess refers to any of various chess variants that use multiple boards at different levels, allowing the chess pieces to move in three physical dimensions. Three-dimensional variants have existed since the late 19th century, one of the oldest being Raumschach, invented in 1907 by Dr. Ferdinand Maack, Maack founded a Raumschach club in Hamburg in 1919, which remained active until World War II. Chapter 25 of Pritchards The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants discusses games using boards with three or more dimensions and contains some 50 such variations, chapter 11 covers variants using multiple boards normally set side by side which can also be considered to add an extra dimension to chess. The inventor contended that for chess to be more like modern warfare, attack should be not only from a two-dimensional plane but also from above. Maacks original formulation was for an 8×8×8 board, but after experimenting with smaller boards eventually settled on 5×5×5 as best, other obvious differences from standard chess include two additional pawns per player, and a special piece named unicorn. The Raumschach 3D board can be thought of as a cube sliced into five equal spaces across each of its three major coordinal planes and this sectioning yields a 5×5×5 gamespace. The cubes alternate in color in all three dimensions, the horizontal levels are denoted by capital letters A through E. Ranks and files of a level are denoted using algebraic notation, White starts on the A and B levels and Black starts on E and D. White moves first. The game objective, as in chess, is checkmate. Rooks, bishops, and knights move as they do in chess in any given plane, Rules for the game were never invented within the series – in fact, the boards are sometimes not even aligned consistently from one scene to the next within a single episode. The Tri-D chessboard was further realized by its inclusion in the Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph, the complete Standard Rules for the game were originally developed in 1976 by Andrew Bartmess and were subsequently expanded by him into a commercially available booklet. A free summary in English of the Standard Rules is contained on Charles Roths website, including omissions, a complete set of tournament rules for Tri-Dimensional Chess written by Jens Meder is available on his website. Meders rules are based on FIDEs rules more than Andrew Bartmess Standard Rules, a repository of Tournament Rules games can be found on the website of Michael Klein. Plans for constructing a Tri-D chessboard can be found on The Chess Variant Pages, details for building a travel-size board are included on Meders website. There is software for playing Tri-D Chess, parmen is a Windows application written by Doug Keenan and available free on his website. A free Android version of Tri D Chess is offered by AwfSoft, Millennium 3D Chess, created by William L. DAgostino in 2001, employs three stacked 8×8 boards. The inventor describes his objective as extending the traditional chess game into an environment without distorting the basic game. The 1966 Batman episode The Purr-fect Crime has Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson playing a chess variant
3.
Glossary of chess
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This page explains commonly used terms in chess in alphabetical order. Some of these have their own pages, like fork and pin, absolute pin A pin against the king is called absolute since the pinned piece cannot legally move out of the line of attack. Describes a piece that controls a number of squares, or a piece that has a number of available for its next move. An active defense is a defense employing threat or counterattack, adjournment Suspension of a chess game with the intention to finish it later. It was once common in high-level competition, often occurring soon after the first time control. Adjudication Decision by a chess player on the outcome of an unfinished game. This practice is now uncommon in over-the-board events, but does happen in online chess when one refuses to continue after an adjournment. Adjust To adjust the position of a piece on its square without being required to move it, a player may only do this on his or her turn to move, and he or she must first say I adjust, or the French equivalent Jadoube. Advanced pawn A pawn that is on the side of the board. An advanced pawn may be if it is overextended, lacking support and difficult to defend. An advanced passed pawn that threatens to promote can be especially strong, advantage A better position with the chance of winning the game. Evaluation factors can include space, time, material, and threats, alekhines gun A formation in which a queen backs up two rooks on the same file. Algebraic notation The standard way to record the moves of a chess game, Amateur The distinction between professional and amateur is not very important in chess as amateurs may win prizes, accept appearance fees, and earn any title, including World Champion. In the 19th century, Amateur was sometimes used in published game scores to conceal the name of the player in a Master vs. Amateur contest. It was thought to be impolite to use a name without permission. See also NN or N. N. analysis The study of a position to determine best play for both sides, annotation Written commentary on a game using a combination of comments, chess symbols or notation. Antipositional A move or a plan that is not in accordance with the principles of positional play, antipositional is used to describe moves that are part of an incorrect plan rather than a mistake made when trying to follow a correct plan. Antipositional moves are often pawn moves, since pawns cannot move backwards to return to squares they have left, anti-Sicilian An opening variation that White uses against the Sicilian Defense other than the most common plan of 2. Nf3 followed by 3. d4 cxd44. Nxd4
4.
Free Internet Chess Server
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The Free Internet Chess Server is a volunteer-run Internet chess server. It was organised as an alternative to the Internet Chess Club. The first Internet chess server, named the Internet Chess Server, the software was coded, supported, and operated entirely by volunteers until 1995, when administrators began charging players for membership and changed the name to ICC. Many of the ICS programmers saw the commercialisation of ICS as an exploitation of their work and this group, led by Chris Petroff, developed FICS as an alternative to the paid model, giving users free, unrestricted access. The server debuted on 3 March 1995, in 1998, the Free Internet Chess Organization was organized as a nonprofit organization. In 2007, the legal entity underwent involuntary dissolution, the server, however, administered entirely by volunteers, is still actively operating and growing its user base. In 2013, over 80,000 players were active, playing a total of over 29 million games, as of August 2014, FICS had over 650,000 registered accounts. Users can log in either as an anonymous guest or else by registering for a free account, in theory, each user is permitted only one account. The server maintains game statistics and ratings for registered users, FICS uses the Glicko rating system. Users can watch for seeks, game requests other users broadcast, or put out their own seeks, seeks can include the proposed time controls as well as an optional ratings limit. Seeks can be set to manual, so that the requestor can screen potential opponents before starting a game, users can also challenge a specific player to a game by using the match command. Moves are made with the mouse on an image of the chess board, however, the user also has the option of typing in moves in algebraic notation, ideal for laptop users with only the built in touchpad as their mouse. All games are recorded by a bot and made available for viewing and download at the FICS Games Database. Since the mechanics of play are simplified, chess games played online tend to use faster time controls than is usual in over-the-board play, longer games are called standard and are also common on the server. Separate ratings are maintained for lightning, blitz, and standard, irregular variants, such as Fischer Random, are grouped together into a handful of formats like Wild, and these are not further classified by time controls. Fischer delay is popular, the control is specified by two numbers, the minutes each player is allotted at the start of the game. For example, in the popular 2–12 time controls, each player receives 2 minutes at the beginning of the game, since all games are assumed to last 40 moves for format classification purposes, 2–12 is grouped with 10-minutes-per-player. Timeseal is a utility which allows the server to account for the effects of lag, each move entered by the user is timestamped locally, and the time spent for the move information to travel to the server is not deducted from the clock
5.
Chess960
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Chess960 is a variant of chess invented and advocated by former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer, publicly announced on June 19,1996, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It employs the same board and pieces as standard chess, however, the random setup renders the prospect of obtaining an advantage through the memorization of opening lines impracticable, compelling players to rely on their talent and creativity. The result is 960 unique possible starting positions, in 2008 FIDE added Chess960 to an appendix of the rules of chess. Before the game, a position is randomly determined and set up. After setup, the game is played the same as standard chess in all respects, with the exception of castling from the different possible starting positions for king. White pawns are placed on the rank as in standard chess. All remaining white pieces are placed randomly on the first rank, the king must be placed on a square between the rooks. Blacks pieces are placed equal-and-opposite to Whites pieces, for example, if the white king is randomly determined to start on f1, then the black king is placed on f8. This leaves three open squares which the king and rooks must occupy per setup stipulations, without choice and this means there are 4×4×6×5×4 =1920 possible starting positions if the two knights were different in some way. The two knights are indistinguishable during play, however, so the number of possible positions is half of 1920. After castling, the king and rook final positions are exactly the same as they are in standard chess, thus, After a-side castling, the king finishes on the c-file and the a-side rook finishes on the d-file. The move is notated 0-0-0 as in standard chess, after h-side castling, the king finishes on the g-file and the h-side rook finishes on the f-file. The move is notated 0-0 as in standard chess, Castling has the same prerequisites as castling under standard chess rules, namely, The king and the castling rook must not have previously moved, including having castled. No square from the initial square to the kings final square may be under attack by an enemy piece. All the squares between the initial and final squares, and all the squares between the rooks initial and final squares, must be vacant except for the king and rook. A recommended way to castle is to move the king outside the area next to its final square, then the rook to its final square. This simple technique is always unambiguous and it is also useful for the player to state I am about to castle before castling, to avoid potential misinterpretation. In some starting positions, some squares can remain occupied during castling which would be required to be vacant under standard chess rules
6.
King (chess)
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In chess, the king is the most important piece. The object of the game is to threaten the king in such a way that escape is not possible. If a players king is threatened with capture, it is said to be in check, If this cannot be done, the king is said to be in checkmate, resulting in a loss for that player. Although the king is the most important piece, it is usually the weakest piece in the game until a later phase, players cannot make any move that places their own king in check. White starts with the king on the first rank to the right of the queen, black starts with the king directly across from the white king. The white king starts on e1 and the king on e8. A king can move one square in any direction unless the square is occupied by a friendly piece or the move would place the king in check. As a result, the kings may never occupy adjacent squares. The king is involved in the special move of castling. If a players move places the king under attack, that king is said to be in check. There are three methods to remove the king from check, Moving the king to an adjacent non-threatened square. A king cannot castle to get out of check, interposing a piece between the king in check and the attacking piece in order to break the line of threat. Capturing the attacking piece If none of three options are possible, the players king has been checkmated and the player loses the game. A player who has little or no chance of winning will often try to entice the opponent to inadvertently place the players king in stalemate in order to avoid a loss. In the opening and middlegame, the king will rarely play an role in the development of an offensive or defensive position. Instead, a player will try to castle and seek safety on the edge of the board behind friendly pawns. In the endgame, however, the king emerges to play a role as an offensive piece as well as assisting in the promotion of their remaining pawns. It is not meaningful to assign a value to the relative to the other pieces
