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The Knights have decided to battle, in the Phoenix Chess League multi-club tournament. "Super Bingo". Description 1.1. Participating clubs will play matches against each other, to try to fill a bingo card assigned to them. Knights of the Realm's Super Bingo card: Battles won: .... Updated May 24th, 2025. This forum will keep members informed of progress. Be sure to check the follow box.

Congratulations to all Team members who participated and helped us win these awards!

King and founder @thee_black_knight Counsel @Tacktickle @Sternschnee (Baronet) @KGreenGator -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Duke / Duchess (700+ Daily Matches) @Victas @mtfard @ibspatski @goryh @hordjedef @The_Power_In_Me @Bluebottle432 Marquess / Marchioness (600-700 Daily Matches) - Earl / Countess (500-600 Daily Matches) @deafknightmare @DWZ1700 Viscount / Viscountess (400-500 Daily Matches) @dddpsm @YonaBendelac @twenty1twelve @paw27 @vonkater @euf Baron / Baroness (300-400 Daily Matches) @fierylady14 @sacovalley @DatIsBalen @gengiskamimura @pipoca2007 @othalberg @andy28666 Baronet / Baronetess (200-300 Daily Matches) @ackellum @sembase @ngn11 @knightqueen @othalberg @Jean-MarieLEMIRE @phizzer @bercamal @CaliforniaPatrick @SaravananHopes @KireTrpkovski @erobby @profxl @BearDBS KNIGHTS (<200 Daily Matches) updated 24th Aug 2024

Vote chess rules, please read: 1) NO vote should be made that was not discussed in the comments. If a team member votes for a move not discussed, they might be removed from the match. If somebody likes a different move, let them post and explain why. 2) WAIT for the stronger players to evaluate candidate moves before voting, until 24 hours are left, then vote. If a team member votes early they might be removed from the match. 3) Be respectful to fellow team mates.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * thee_black_knight asked me to assist him in the analysis of games, however, I no longer devote the same amount of time to this site as I once did. With that said, I hope this forum can help some of you looking to improve your chess strategy. ALWAYS analyze your own games after their completion! Let's start with the basics for beginners ... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chess is a game of strategy and tactics. Each player commands an army of 16 chessmen --- pawns and other pieces (the king, queen, bishops, knights, and rooks). A well-played chess game has three stages. In the opening, the players bring out their forces in preparation for combat. The middle-game begins as the players maneuver for position and carry out attacks and counter-attacks. The final stage is the end-game when, with fewer pawns and pieces left on the board, it is safer for the kings to come out and join the final battle. As play proceeds, each player will capture some of the opponent's men; often, the capturing pieces are immediately recaptured. As long as the piece a player gives up is generally equal to the piece he gets in return, we say the players are exchanging. If you unintentionally place a piece where it can be captured without getting a piece of equal value in return, we say that you put that piece en prise. (This is a French term that literally means "in take.") Sometimes a player may place a piece en prise in order to trick an opponent. If the opponent captures the offered man, it may leave him open to attack. Notation The abbreviations of pieces are as follows. Bishop=B, Knight=N, Queen=Q, Rook=R, King=K and pawns have no letter but can be Pawns=P. If you want to say bishop goes to square b4 you would say Bb4. However if you wanted to say that a pawn goes to b4 you would merely say b4 in your notation. However, if the pawn is taking the bishop then you could say PxB. When one piece takes another piece it is marked with an x. When a pawn takes a piece it is marked with the file of the pawn and the square of the piece. If 2 of the same piece can move to the same square you should put the original square of the piece being moved. Check is marked with a +, and checkmate with a #. Special Notation Certain special moves have a special notation attached to them. En Passant is marked with e.p. after the move, a king-side castle is marked 0-0, and queen-side castle 0-0-0, and pawn promotion is = or () with the abbreviation of the piece promoted. Notation is the record keeping of a chess game through each move. It depends on abbreviations and on the grid system of a chess board. Look at the edges of your chess board. You will notice that along one side it reads 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and on the other side a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h with this system squares or entire rows can be specified such as the 1st rank, 2nd rank, 3rd rank, 4th rank, 5th rank, 6th rank, 7th rank, and 8th rank. Files can also be specified; a file, b file, c file, d file, e file, f file, g file, and h file. Squares are referred to by their place in the grid. So if a square is in the e file and on the 4th rank, it is the square e4. Piece Value Pieces are usually valued as follows: Pawn=1 point, Bishop=3 points, Knights=3 points, Rooks=5 points, Queens=9 points, and Kings cannot be valued. Note: * A Bishop can be worth 3.5 points, because it can move further than a knight. A knight can be worth 3.25 points due to its ability to "jump" and attack from behind other pieces. And white can be said to have a .5 point advantage for going first. Use the piece values to your advantage. For example, if an enemy pawn could either take your rook or a knight, move your rook instead of the knight. * Point values are only guidelines! In some positions, like in the opening, a bishop or knight is more valuable than a rook. You must assess the positional value of every move, and just because a move loses material doesn't mean you shouldn't consider it. En Passant It is common knowledge that on the first move pawns can move 2 spaces forward. En Passant is when your pawn is on the fourth space away from its original square. An opponent's pawn moves 2 spaces forward, next to your pawn. Oh No! Your entire strategy has been upset. That is what you might think, but En Passant allows you to take the opposing pawn next to yours as though it had moved only one square. Your pawn moves to where the opposing pawn would have been if it had moved only one space forward. Be aware that this move is not always useful and may lead to problems, so don't just do it because you know how. As with all moves, you must carefully assess the situation before moving. Pawn Storms A pawn storm is useful when you and your opponent have castled to opposite sides of the board. Unless the center is locked or static, a pawn storm will merely weaken your king. Use the pawns parallel to you opponent's king to charge in and weaken the king. Again, as with all moves, don't just charge in. There is no reason to lose 3 or 4 pawns when you could avoid losing even one. Support the storm with your other pieces, make your opponent pay dearly for each piece. Used correctly, a pawn storm is a deadly weapon, however, make sure that you are ahead of your opponent's pawn storm! Castling Castling is a defensive move where a King may move two spaces to the side and a Rook may hop over the King. To do this, there must be no pieces in between the Rook and the King. The Rook may not move more than one space past the King. Also, this can only be done if both pieces have yet to move. * The King cannot be in check & neither can any spaces between your King & Rook be under attack while attempting to castle. Lifting A Rook Lifting a rook is not so much a strategy as a fancy name for a move. Lifting a rook simply means that you bring your rook off of the back rank by first going up, and then to either side. Pin A pin is an incredibly powerful tactic, that ,when used correctly, can end a game. Pinning a piece is when your piece attacks 2 pieces of equal or greater value. The term pinning the bishop to the king, means that the bishop cannot move, or the king will be under attack. This is called an absolute pin, where moving the bishop is an illegal move, as it places the king in check. Another kind of pin is the familial pin. Instead of the king being behind the bishop, there may be a queen or a rook. In this case, the bishop can move, but it is only in rare cases a good idea, as it lays the more valuable piece behind it under attack. Skewer A skewer is similar to a pin, but instead of the bishop being in front of the king, the king is in front of the bishop. A skewer is when you put the king in check, forcing it to move, and forcing it to expose the bishop. Fork A fork is when one of your pieces attacks 2 of your opponents pieces. (Note, a pawn is not considered a piece in this scenario). An example of a fork is if a knight attacks both the opposing king and queen at the same time. Unless the knight can be taken, the king is forced to move, as it is in check, and the queen can be taken, at little to no expense. Discovered Checks and Double Checks A discovered check (or check uncovered) is when a pawn or a piece moves somewhere else so that a piece behind it can attack the enemy king. Sometimes these attacks won't be very useful, but if a knight is in front of the major piece, be on the lookout for a serious attack on the queen. A double is a more dangerous form of discovered check in where not only the piece behind it attacks the enemy king; the moving piece attacks as well. Double checks force the king to move because capturing or blocking one piece doesn't work because the other piece also attacks the king. Masters love to set up double checks because of their awesome attacking power and can lead to dangerous tactics on the rooks, queen, and king. Stages of the Game Chess is broken into 3 major stages. The Opening, The Middle-Game, and The End-Game The Opening The goal in the opening is to develop, or take out, pieces. Here are 2 openings: the King's Gambit for white, and the Sicilian Dragon Defense for black. The King's Gambit The King's Gambit Generally proceeds as follows. 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4, Note that your opponent does not have to take, but there is no advantage to not taking the piece. 3. Nf3. After this point the opening can go in any direction, but white will eventually seek to play d4, resulting in the complete control of the center of the board. Note that this is a very brief explanation of the King's Gambit. The Sicilian Dragon The Sicilian Dragon generally begins as follows: 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6. From here there are many different paths that white could take, but black will likely play Nc6 and 0-0, waiting to see how white develops. The Middle-Game The main strategy in the middle game is "Coordination of pieces" (Jose Raul Capablanca). By Following certain guidelines it may be easier to gain the upper hand. Always retain control of the center, preferably using pawns as the core pieces. Seek ways to undermine your opponents defense, whether with a sacrifice or a pin. Do not develop your queen too early. Do not open your king to attack when you have a choice. Always keep your king guarded behind pawns, bishops will sometimes work as well. Look for tactics to attack opposing king, and learn how to attack the king if it is castled either queenside or kingside. When ahead in material, simplify by exchanging pieces and go for an all pawn end-game. The End-Game The end-game is a delicate part of a chess game where every pawn matters. Checkmate can be achieved with these pieces, which are commonly available in the end-game: 2 Bishops and a King, 1 Knight, 1 Bishop and a King, A Rook and A King, and A Queen and A King. Note that these checkmates are only possible while the opponent has no other pieces. The Knight, Bishop and King vs King checkmate is complicated, and some Masters don't even know it, but the other mentioned checkmates are simple. Rook and King The key to all checkmates is to keep the opponents king confined. Do not be over-anxious to check the king, as it will not work. First move the rook to the rank ahead of the enemy king. This will confine the king to a certain amount of squares. Advance the king to obtain opposition, when your king is in front of the opponent's. When he moves away, you will need to make a waiting move, just move the rook one square over. He will move the king away from your king. When The kings are opposite each other, check him with the rook, and then repeat the process until he is on the back rank, where check becomes checkmate. The Queen checkmate is identical, but you must be careful not to stalemate. Nimzovitch said that passed pawns must be pushed. A passed pawn is one that is not opposed by an opponent's pawn and can become a queen easier than a pawn that is opposed. The rule is not to advance too early or the pawn will be subject to attack. You must learn to advance pawns together so that they support one another, making them free from attack by your opponent's pieces. Try to avoid moving a piece twice in the opening, unless necessary. Every pawn counts. Do not throw away pawns, as they are very valuable in the end-game. Look at the whole board before you make your move. Make sure a piece cannot be taken before you move it. This is a very short summarization of Advanced Chess, if you wish to become serious about chess you should study a chess book; there are some very good ones out there. Never, ever move a pawn on the sides in the opening unless necessary. For example, the Grob Attack or the Orangutan will enable you to move the B and G pawns. They can lead to counter attacks, but can be stopped easily by black. Take your time! This cannot be stressed enough, grandmasters have lost games because they moved too quickly. Even in blitz games, the few extra seconds taken to calculate moves further can be the difference between winning, and losing.

A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a monarch or other political leader for service to the monarch or country, especially in a military capacity. Historically, in Europe, knighthood has been conferred upon mounted warriors. During the High Middle Ages, knighthood was considered a class of lower nobility. By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior. Since the Early Modern period, the title of knight is purely honorific, usually bestowed by a monarch, as in the British honours system, often for non-military service to the country. Historically, the ideals of chivalry were popularized in medieval literature, especially the Matter of Britain and Matter of France, the former based on Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae ("History of the Kings of Britain"), written in the 1130s. Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur ("The Death of Arthur"), written in 1485, was important in defining the ideal of chivalry which is essential to the modern concept of the knight as an elite warrior sworn to uphold the values of faith, loyalty, courage, and honour. During the Renaissance, the genre of chivalric romance became popular in literature, growing ever more idealistic and eventually giving rise to a new form of realism in literature popularised by Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote. This novel explored the ideals of knighthood and their incongruity with the reality of Cervantes' world. In the late medieval period, new methods of warfare began to render classical knights in armour obsolete, but the titles remained in many nations. Some orders of knighthood, such as the Knights Templar, have become the subject of legend; others have disappeared into obscurity. Today, a number of orders of knighthood continue to exist in several countries, such as the English Order of the Garter, the Swedish Royal Order of the Seraphim, and the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav. Each of these orders has its own criteria for eligibility, but knighthood is generally granted by a head of state to selected persons to recognise some meritorious achievement. Knighthood in the Middle Ages was closely linked with horsemanship (and especially the joust) from its origins in the 12th century until its final flowering as a fashion among the high nobility in the Duchy of Burgundy in the 15th century. This linkage is reflected in the etymology of chivalry, cavalier and related terms (see Etymology section below). The special prestige given to mounted warriors finds a parallel in the furusiyya in the Muslim world, and the Greek hippeus and the Roman eques of Classical Antiquity. The word knight, from Old English cniht ("boy" or "servant"), is a cognate of the German word Knecht ("servant, bondsman"). This meaning, of unknown origin, is common among West Germanic languages (cf: Old Frisian kniucht, Dutch knecht, Danish knægt, Swedish knekt, Norwegian knekt, Middle High German kneht, all meaning "boy, youth, lad", as well as German Knecht "servant, bondsman, vassal"). Anglo-Saxon cniht had no particular connection to horsemanship, referring to any servant. A rādcniht (meaning "riding-servant") was a servant delivering messages or patrolling coastlines on horseback. Old English cnihthād ("knighthood") had the meaning of adolescence (i.e. the period between childhood and manhood) by 1300. A narrowing of the generic meaning "servant" to "military follower of a king or other superior" is visible by 1100. The specific military sense of a knight being a mounted warrior in the heavy cavalry emerges only in the Hundred Years' War. The verb "to knight" (i.e. to make someone a knight) appears around 1300, and from the same time, the word "knighthood" shifted from "adolescence" to "rank or dignity of a knight". In this respect English differs from most other European languages, where the equivalent word emphasizes the status and prosperity of war horse ownership. Linguistically, the association of horse ownership with social status extends back at least as far as ancient Greece, where many aristocratic names incorporated the Greek word for horse, like Hipparchus and Xanthippe; the character Pheidippides in Aristophanes' Clouds has his grandfather's name with hipp- inserted to sound more aristocratic.[citation needed] Similarly, the Greek ἱππεύς (hippeus) is commonly translated "knight"; at least in its sense of the highest of the four Athenian social classes, those who could afford to maintain a warhorse in the state service. An Equestrian (Latin, from eques "horseman", from equus "horse") was a member of the second highest social class in the Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. This class is often translated as "knight"; the medieval knight, however, was called miles in Latin, (which in classical Latin meant "soldier", normally infantry). Both Greek hippos and Latin equus are derived from the Proto-Indo-European word root ekwo- meaning "horse". In the later Roman Empire the classical Latin word for horse, equus, was replaced in common parlance by vulgar Latin caballus, sometimes thought to derive from Gaulish caballos. From caballus arose terms in the various Romance languages cognate to the (French-derived) English cavalier: Old Italian cavaliere, Italian cavallo, Spanish caballero, French chevalier, Portuguese cavaleiro, Romanian cavaler. The Germanic languages feature terms cognate to the English rider: German Ritter, and Dutch and Scandinavian ridder. These words are cognates derived from Germanic rīdan "to ride", derived from the Proto-Indo-European root reidh-. In Ancient Rome there was a knightly class Ordo Equestris (order of mounted nobles) from which European knighthood may have been derived. Knighthood as known in Europe was characterized by the combination of two elements, feudalism and service as a mounted warrior. Both arose under the reign of the Frankish emperor Charlemagne, from which the knighthood of the Middle Ages can be seen to have had its genesis. Some portions of the armies of Germanic peoples who occupied Europe from the 3rd century CE, had always been mounted, and some armies, such as those of the Ostrogoths, comprised mainly cavalry. However it was the Franks who came to dominate Western and Central Europe after the fall of Rome, and they generally fielded armies composed of large masses of infantry, with an infantry elite, the comitatus, which often rode to battle on horseback rather than marching on foot. Riding to battle had two key advantages: it reduced fatigue, particularly when the elite soldiers wore armour (as was increasingly the case in the centuries after the fall of the Western Roman empire); and it gave the soldiers more mobility to react to the raids of the enemy, particularly the Muslim invasions which reached Europe in 711. So it was that the armies of the Frankish ruler and warlord Charles Martel, which defeated the Umayyad Arab invasion at the Battle of Tours in 732, were still largely infantry armies, the elites riding to battle but dismounting to fight, providing a hard core for the levy of the infantry warbands. As the 8th century progressed into the Carolingian Age, the Franks were generally on the attack, and larger numbers of warriors took to their horses to ride with the Emperor in his wide-ranging campaigns of conquest. At about this time the Franks increasingly remained on horseback to fight on the battlefield as true cavalry rather than as mounted infantry, and would continue to do so for centuries thereafter. Although in some nations the knight returned to foot combat in the 14th century, the association of the knight with mounted combat with a spear, and later a lance, remained a strong one. These mobile mounted warriors made Charlemagne’s far-flung conquests possible, and to secure their service he rewarded them with grants of land called benefices. These were given to the captains directly by the Emperor to reward their efforts in the conquests, and they in turn were to grant benefices to their warrior contingents, who were a mix of free and unfree men. In the century or so following Charlemagne’s death, his newly empowered warrior class grew stronger still, and Charles the Bald declared their fiefs to be hereditary. The period of chaos in the 9th and 10th centuries, between the fall of the Carolingian central authority and the rise of separate Western and Eastern Frankish kingdoms (later to become France and Germany respectively), only entrenched this newly landed warrior class. This was because governing power, and defence against Viking, Magyar and Saracen attack, became an essentially local affair which revolved around these new hereditary local lords and their demesnes. In the Early Medieval period any well-equipped horseman could be described as a 'knight,' or miles in Latin. In the course of the 12th century knighthood became a social rank with a distinction being made between 'milites gregarii' (non-noble cavalrymen) and milites nobiles (true knights). As the term 'knight' became increasingly confined to denoting a social rank, the military role of fully armoured cavalryman gained a separate term, 'man-at-arms'. Although any Medieval knight going to war would automatically serve as a man-at-arms, not all men-at-arms were knights. The first military orders of knighthood were the Knights Hospitaller founded at the First Crusade of 1099, followed by the Knights Templar (1119) and the Order of Saint Lazarus (1098). At the time of their foundation, these were intended as monastic orders, whose members would act as simple soldiers protecting pilgrims. It was only over the following century, with the successful conquest of the Holy Land and the rise of the crusader states, that these orders became powerful and prestigious. The ideal of chivalry as the ethos of the Christian warrior, and the transmutation of the term knight from the meaning "servant, soldier", and of chevalier "mounted soldier", to refer to a member of this ideal class, is significantly influenced by the Crusades, on one hand inspired by the military orders of monastic warriors, as seen retrospectively from the point of view of the beginning Late Middle Ages, and on the other hand influenced by Islamic (Saracen) ideals of furusiyya. Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (1459–1519) is often referred to as the last true knight. He was the last emperor to lead his troops onto the battlefield. Knights were expected, above all, to fight bravely and to display military professionalism and courtesy. When knights were taken as prisoners of war, they were customarily held for ransom in somewhat comfortable surroundings. This same standard of conduct did not apply to non-knights (archers, peasants, foot-soldiers, etc.) who were often slaughtered after capture, and who were viewed during battle as mere impediments to knights' getting to other knights to fight them. Chivalry developed as an early standard of professional ethics for knights, who were relatively affluent horse owners and were expected to provide military services in exchange for landed property. Early notions of chivalry entailed loyalty to one's liege lord and bravery in battle, similar to the values of the Heroic Age. During the Middle Ages, this grew from simple military professionalism into a social code including the values of gentility, nobility and treating others reasonably. In The Song of Roland (c. 1100), Roland is portrayed as the ideal knight, demonstrating unwavering loyalty, military prowess and social fellowship. In Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival (c. 1205), chivalry had become a blend of religious duties, love and military service. Ramon Llull's Book of the Order of Chivalry (1275) demonstrates that by the end of the 13th century, chivalry entailed a litany of very specific duties, including riding warhorses, jousting, attending tournaments, holding Round Tables and hunting, as well as aspiring to the more æthereal virtues of "faith, hope, charity, justice, strength, moderation and loyalty." Knights of the late medieval era were expected by society to maintain all these skills and many more, as outlined in Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, though the book's protagonist, Count Ludovico, states the "first and true profession" of the ideal courtier "must be that of arms." Chivalry, derived from the French word chevalier ('cavalier'), simultaneously denoted skilled horsemanship and military service, and these remained the primary occupations of knighthood throughout the Middle Ages. Chivalry and religion were mutually influenced during the period of the Crusades. The early Crusades helped to clarify the moral code of chivalry as it related to religion. As a result, Christian armies began to devote their efforts to sacred purposes. As time passed, clergy instituted religious vows which required knights to use their weapons chiefly for the protection of the weak and defenseless, especially women and orphans, and of churches. With the rise of Renaissance humanism and moral relativism, the knight–and chivalry along with him–lost much of his relevance to society, and the idealism of chivalric romance was fundamentally rejected in Niccolò Machiavelli's Il Principe (1532) and more directly derided in Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote (1605–1615). The medieval literary genre of chivalric romance had been the high-water mark of idealism and romanticism in literature, but in the 16th century Machiavelli instructed aspiring political rulers to be ruthlessly pragmatic and to apply the principle that the ends justify the means, directly counter to the high-flown idealism of late medieval chivalry. Later, the high-flown values of chivalric romance were heavily satirized in Cervantes's Don Quixote, which portrayed the charmingly idealistic protagonist as a lovable but hopelessly delusional imbecile. Knights and the ideals of knighthood featured largely in medieval and Renaissance literature, and have secured a permanent place in literary romance. While chivalric romances abound, particularly notable literary portrayals of knighthood include The Song of Roland, Geoffrey Chaucer's The Knight's Tale, Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, and Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, as well as Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur and other Arthurian tales (Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, the Pearl Poet's Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, etc.). The ideal courtier—the chivalrous knight—of Baldassarre Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier became a model of the ideal virtues of nobility. Castiglione's tale took the form of a discussion among the nobility of the court of the Duke of Urbino, in which the characters determine that the ideal knight should be renowned not only for his bravery and prowess in battle, but also as a skilled dancer, athlete, singer and orator, and he should also be well-read in the Humanities and classical Greek and Latin literature. Later Renaissance literature, such as Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote, rejected the code of chivalry as unrealistic idealism. The rise of Christian humanism in Renaissance literature demonstrated a marked departure from the chivalric romance of late medieval literature, and the chivalric ideal ceased to influence literature over successive centuries until it saw some pockets of revival in post-Victorian literature. One of the greatest distinguishing marks of the knightly class was the flying of coloured banners, to display power and to distinguish knights in battle and in tournaments. Knights are generally armigerous (bearing a coat of arms), and indeed they played an essential role in the development of heraldry. As heavier armour, including enlarged shields and enclosed helmets, developed in the Middle Ages, the need for marks of identification arose, and with coloured shields and surcoats, coat armory was born. Armorial rolls were created to record the knights of various regions or those who participated in various tournaments. Additionally, knights adopted certain forms of regalia which became closely associated with the status of knighthood. At the Battle of Crécy (1346), Edward III of England sent his son, Edward, the Black Prince, to lead the charge into battle and when pressed to send reinforcements, the king replied, "say to them that they suffer him this day to win his spurs." Clearly, by this time, spurs had already become emblematic of knighthood. The livery collar is also specifically associated with knighthood.