The Theory Of Chess _ Chess Basics Part 1

Hello everyone! Welcome back to My Chess Blog once again!

The craze of Chess is increasing day by day, we have seen various players who have devoted their entire life to Chess. But when was Chess introduced and where? The game originated in northern India in the 6th century AD and spread to Persia. When the Arabs conquered Persia, chess was taken up by the Muslim world and subsequently, through the Moorish conquest of Spain, spread to Southern Europe. This is how the legendary game was started. Chess not only helps us to boost our brain, but it also increases our patience level.

The Theory Of Chess :

Chess is a board game. The original Chess can be played between two players. The chess pieces are what you move on a chessboard when playing a game of chess. It contains 32 pieces. Each side starts with 16 pieces. There are 6 different types of Chess pieces(pawn, knight, bishop, rook, queen, and a king). Each player is provided with 16 pieces (8 pawns, 2 knights, 2 rooks, 2 bishops, 1 queen, and 1 King). The chessboard contains 64 equal squares. The board is placed so that a white square is in each player’s near-right corner. Horizontal rows are called ranks and vertical rows are called files. At the beginning of the game, the pieces are arranged as shown in the diagram: for each side one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns.

Movement Of Chess Pieces :

Every piece on a chessboard has a different movement. The first move is always made by the white side.

How does a Pawn move?

The Pawn moves directly forward, never backward. Pawns capture a piece that is one square diagonally forward. Though Pawns normally cannot move diagonally, this is the only way they capture. The pawn has two options in its first move it can move two squares or one square at a time.

How can a Pawn become the main piece?

A pawn can be converted to the main piece (bishop, knight, rook, queen). Whenever a pawn reaches the 8th rank, so it can be converted to the main piece.

Pawn Promotion

How does a knight move?

The knight moves multiple squares each move. It either moves up or down one square vertically and over two squares horizontally OR up or down two squares vertically and over one square horizontally. This movement can be remembered as an “L-shape” because it looks like a capital “L”.

How does a bishop move?

The bishop moves diagonally. There are two colored bishops (white and black). The white bishop moves in white diagonals and the black bishop moves in black diagonal. A bishop can move in both directions (forward and backward).

Movement Of Black Bishop

Movement Of White Bishop

How does a Rook moves?

Rook can only move in a straight line. The rook can move forward, backward or sideways, but cannot move diagonally.

How does a Queen move?

Queen can move in any direction (diagonally and in straight lines).

How does a King move?

The movement of the King is the same as the queen but it is limited to only one square on each side.

Difference between CHECK and CHECKMATE :

Check occurs when you or your opponent’s king is under attack and threatened to be captured by another piece. When this happens, the king must move, or the piece attacking the king must be captured. If the player cannot move out of danger and away from check, this is considered checkmate, and the game is over. A check is a condition when the king has a square to move or can be saved by any other piece, whereas in checkmate the king has no squares and the check can not be prevented by any other piece.

What is the Draw?

A draw is a situation where neither player wins or loses. The draw can occur in various conditions. There are 5 types of a draw in chess.

Types Of Draw

1. Stalemate

2. Dead Position

3. Mutual Agreement

4. Threefold Repetition

5. 50-Move Rule

What is Stalemate?

Stalemate can be considered as a draw when the opponent is not in check but it does not have any legal move to play. As shown in the figure the king is not in check but it does not have any legal move so this is considered a stalemate (draw).

The Dead Position :

It is the position when both of the opponents can not legally checkmate each other.

In this position, both kings are cut off from the other side of the board and all the pawns are blocked. It is impossible to make any progress

Mutual Agreement :

It is a condition where one player request a draw and the other player agrees to the draw.

Threefold Repetition :

A player can ask for a draw when a position is reached (or is about to be reached) at least three times in the same game. This repetition is only possible when all the pieces of the same size and color are occupying identical squares as they were before, and all the possible moves are also the same. Most commonly, threefold repetitions happen when a player is losing and finds a perpetual check to save his game.

Repetition results to draw

50-Move Rule

If both players make 50 consecutive moves without capturing any pieces or moving any pawns, any player can ask for a draw if it is their turn to play. This rule exists to prevent games from prolonging too much when neither player is making any progress.

"Chess holds its master in its own bonds, shackling the mind and brain so that the inner freedom of the very strongest must suffer." — Albert Einstein

Thank you for reading!