Introduction
A mental sport wherein players struggle to weave chains of consequences. A seemingly simple game to a novice but extremely difficult to master, sometimes impossible. A game where the objective is to violently throw your pieces to the floor upon losing. The number of possible unique chess games is much greater than the number of electrons in the universe. The number of electrons is estimated to be about 10^79, while the number of unique chess games is 10^120.
Rules Of Chess
Chess is played on a chessboard, a square board divided into 64 squares (eight-by-eight) of alternating color, which is similar to that used in draughts (checkers). No matter what the actual colors of the board, the lighter-colored squares are called "light" or "white", and the darker-colored squares are called "dark" or "black". 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 player's near-right corner.
Basic Moves:
Each chess piece has its own method of movement. Moves are made to vacant squares except when capturing an opponent's piece.
With the exception of any movement of the knight and the occasional castling maneuver, pieces cannot jump over each other. When a piece is captured (or taken), the attacking piece replaces the enemy piece on its square. The captured piece is thus removed from the game and may not be returned to play for the remainder of the game. The king can be put in check but cannot be captured.
The king can move exactly one square horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Only once per player, per game, is a king allowed to make a special move known as castling.
The rook moves any number of vacant squares vertically or horizontally. It also is moved while castling.
The bishop moves any number of vacant squares in any diagonal direction.
The queen can move any number of vacant squares diagonally, horizontally, or vertically.
The knight moves to the nearest square not on the same rank, file, or diagonal. In other words, the knight moves two squares horizontally then one square vertically, or one square horizontally then two squares vertically. Its move is not blocked by other pieces: it jumps to the new location.
A pawn can move forward one square, if that square is unoccupied. If it has not yet moved, each pawn has the option of moving two squares forward provided both squares in front of the pawn are unoccupied. A pawn cannot move backwards.
Castling
Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook, then placing the rook on the other side of the king, adjacent to it. Castling is only permissible if all of the following conditions hold:
The king and rook involved in castling must not have previously moved; There must be no pieces between the king and the rook; The king may not currently be in check, nor may the king pass through or end up in a square that is under attack by an enemy piece (though the rook is permitted to be under attack and to pass over an attacked square); The king and the rook must be on the same rank
Checkmate
If a player's king is placed in check and there is no legal move that player can make to escape check, then the king is said to be checkmated, the game ends, and that player loses. Unlike other pieces, the king is never actually captured or removed from the board because checkmate ends the game.
Chess Tactic
A discovered attack is a move which allows an attack by another piece. A piece is moved away so as to allow the attack of a friendly bishop, rook or queen on an enemy piece. If the attacked piece is the king, the situation is referred to as a discovered check. Discovered attacks are powerful as the moving piece may be able to pose a second threat.
A special case of a discovered check is a double check, where the piece being unmasked and the piece being moved attack the enemy king. A double check requires that the opponent moves his/her king as the king is under attack from two directions and it is impossible to counter both at the same time in any other way.
Game of the Century
This is a game analysis from a tournament held in New York City on October 17th, 1956. Bobby Fischer (13-years-old) played the Grunfeld (Gruenfeld) Defense opening against a strong master at the time, Donald Byrne. The game is now given the label, Game of the Century. The white king ends up getting trapped in the center of the board. Fischer spent the latter part of his life in Reykjavik, Iceland. This defense has been played by the world's best.
Links/References:
- Chess Network
- A National Master in chess who provides an education to aspiring players.
- Chess Network - How to Play Chess
- Learn the rules of chess. Which piece moves where.
- Chess Network - Game Analysis (Grandmaster vs. Master)
- Analysis of an online chess game between a Grandmaster vs National Master with time controls set at 15 minutes each.
- Chess Network - 1972 World Chess Championship: Fischer vs. Spassky
- This video analyzes the Round 10 game of the World Chess Championship match of 1972 between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky.
- Chess Network - Game of the Century
- Bobby Fischer (13-years-old) vs Donald Byrne.
- Chess Network - Magnus Carlsen vs. The World
- This video analyzes the Magnus Carlsen vs. The World game. It was played in New York City on September 10th, 2010.
- Magnus Carlsen on CBS
- Mozart of Chess: Magnus Carlsen is on 60 minutes.
- Green Castle Block
- M. Pullin is an American player who also has some sort of youtube-cooking-show... But his chess-videos are brilliant. Covers opening theory, traps, analysis and live-blitz games.
- Krakkaskak
- Icelandic/Danish GM Henrik Danielsen is a very funny guy indeed! His videos are very entertaining and instructive. Among other things he has pioneered the "Polar Bear" opening and explains how to play it in a series of videos.
- Chess Queen
- Former womens world champion GM Alexandra Kosteniuk combines good looks with a sharp mind for chess. Her videos are well produced and instructive. The channel feature analysis of her important victories and gives insight into the life of a world champion.
- Majnu
- Majnu is a very friendly guy and does his videos in a friendly tone. He is a friend of KingsCrusher and does videos in a similar style.
- Fat And Mad
- FatAndMad is another friend of KingsCrusher and even though he has only uploaded 14 videos, his soothing, calm voice makes his channel worth a visit.
- Jrobi
- Jrobi's channel chronicles his journey from being completely new to the game to participating in tournaments. The channel is by far the best place to begin if you are new to chess because Jrobi is very good at explaining the basic concepts and putting everything into an easy-to-understand context.
- Bruce Wallace
- Bruce narrates puzzles and annotations in a refreshingly hardcore Scottish accent. He has done series like "why did they resign here?" and also done some great commentary on classic games.
- Sean Godley
- This channel features in-depth analysis of great games between grandmasters, opening traps and extended discussion about different strategies, openings, and modern chess theory in general.
- YM Chess Master
- Did you know that the chess-video superstar IM Andrew Martin has his own youtube-channel? No? Well, it is this one. Enjoy!
- The Chess Website
- Kevin has done about 100 videos covering games from Capablanca to Fischer. Very lucid and instructive commentary.
- Spectre Still Roaming
- The strong GM Roman Dzindzichashvili has done a bunch of instructive videos with the aim of teaching you the secrets of chess-thinking.
- Genius Prophecy
- The Australian guy behind this extremely modest username is a pretty strong player with a selection of videos covering openings and blitz games.
- Online Chess Lessons
- Will Stewart is a National Master at chess. He brings you the latest tournament analysis, fresh chess articles, and great original strategy videos. He also features guest video-annotators on his channel like FM Kazim Gulamali and IM Daniel Nardoditsky
- Kasparov VS Karpov 1990 Lyon Match
- Karpov and Kasparov analyses their games from their classic 1990 world championship match, with original footage mixed in and beautifully narrated so that no part of the epic struggle is missed! Video runs for almost 3 hours!
- Chess Videos
- This site has a large community of people making chess-videos (including several IMs and GMs) - some of the videos are sold but most of them are free. Also you will need to sign-up - but it is worth it!