CHESS

Chess achieved its present form during the fifteenth century and has discouraged modification ever since. It needs no tinkering. It is an apparently inexhaustible resource in which the inquiring mind can always find fresh challenges.
Which is not to say that only geniuses enjoy this game. Like Bridge or, for that matter, Tennis, Chess rewards persons who may lack talent for the game but enjoy concentrating and have taken the trouble to learn the basic moves.
Our function here is to offer the most elementary introduction of the rules and procedures of this marvelous game.

PIECES AND EQUIPMENT

Two players face each other across a board of sixty-four squares— eight squares in each of eight columns (files) and eight in each of eight rows (ranks). Squares are of alternate and contrasting color, customarily referred to as White (the lighter) and Black (the darker). Pieces for each player are also of contrasting colors and are called White and Black.
The board is positioned with a white space at the lower-right-hand corner on each player’s side.

Because White always makes the first move, it is customary in non- tournament play for one player to conceal a White pawn in one hand and extend both closed fists to his opponent. If the opponent guesses the location of the pawn, he gets the White pieces for the first game. If he guesses wrong, he plays the Black.
Each player has sixteen pieces:
King (K)
Queen (Q)
Two rooks (R)
Two bishops (B)
Two knights (Kt)
Eight pawns (F)

THE MOVES

Each piece has distinct abilities.
King: Moves one square at a time in any direction, but not to a square that can be reached on the next move by an opposing piece.

Queen: Moves any distance along any rank, file or diagonal, but may not turn a corner or jump over a piece in its path.
Rook: Moves any distance along any rank or file, but may not move diagonally or jump an obstructing piece.
Bishop: Moves any distance along any diagonal, but may not jump.

Knight: Turns a corner on each move. Thus, may move one square along its rank or file and then complete the move by turning at right angles and going two more squares. In process, the knight can jump over other pieces. Note that the knight may also move two squares along its rank or file, turning at right angles and completing the maneuver by proceeding one square.

Pawn: Its first move may be one or two squares forward along its own file, at the option of the player. Subsequently, it advances one square at a time, still on its own file, except when capturing, as explained below.
Note that in Chess discussions it is customary to differentiate between pawns and pieces—with the humble pawn the only nonpiece on the board.

CASTLING

If neither the king nor one of its rooks has moved during the game, nothing stands between them on their rank, and the king is not in check (defined below), the player is allowed to castle. This consists of moving the king two squares toward the rook and then jumping the rook to the square on the other side of the king.

CAnUBE5
All pieces and pawns capture by landing on a square occupied by an enemy piece or pawn. However, the pawn may not capture by making its normal forward move. It captures in special ways:
1. By advancing diagonally one square, onto a square occupied by an opposing piece or pawn.
2. En passant, when positioned on the fifth rank and the opposing pawn on an adjacent file moves two squares (in its first move of the game). The capture is made by moving behind the enemy pawn and removing it from the board.

Black pawn, which is in its starting position, has opted to move two squares, bypassing the white pawn on QB5. White may now capture the black pawn on Black’s Q3 square, as though Black had moved the pawn only one square instead of two. However, this capture must be made immediately by White or else White loses the option to capture en passant.

QUEENING

When a pawn reaches the eighth rank—as far as it can proceed along a file—it can be promoted to whatever status the player chooses (except that of a king). He usually chooses that it become a queen, although he can make it a rook, bishop or knight.

WINNING

The game is won by placing the opposing king in such straits that it cannot avoid capture on the next move. When a move attacks the square occupied by the king, the attacking player announces “Check.� The opponent then avoids defeat by moving the king, interposing a piece between the king and the attacking piece or capturing the attacking piece. If none of these alternatives exist, the game is lost, which is signified by the victor saying “Checkmate� or “Mate.� Many games do not proceed that far, but end with the resignation of the player who finds defeat unavoidable.

DRAWS

A draw may be declared and play terminated if any of the following situations arise.
Stalemate: Although not in check, a player is unable to make a legal move of any kind.
Perpetual Check: A player may claim a draw if able to check the opponent’s king on every subsequent move, regardless of inability to produce mate.
Repeated Position: If a player finds himself about to move with the position of all pieces exactly the same as they have been on two previous occasions at his turn, he may claim a draw.

Fifty-Move Rule: If the players have contrived to move fifty times without moving a pawn or committing some other irreversible act such as castling or capturing, either of them can demand a draw.

The opponent must accede unless able to prove that his victory is evita1
Mutual Consent: At any stage after Black has made his thirteenth move, the players can agree to a draw.
insufficient Force: A player with nothing left but his king can claim a draw if his opponent has only king and bishop or king and knight or king and both knights. Mate is impossible in these circumstances.

EIu’40R5 AND PENALTIES

The International Federation of Chess is the official arbiter of tournament play. Its rules are admirably lucid. Those most likely to concern the present reader are:
1. It is not proper to touch a piece without actually moving it. If the player wants simply to adjust its position on its square, be should announce “I adjust.� In serious play, if he fails to make this announcement, he must move the piece he touches.
2. If a player feels the need to touch an opposing piece but does not wish to capture it, he must ask permission. Failing to do so, he must capture the piece if possible.
3. When a legal move is made, it may not be withdrawn.
4. When an illegal move is made, the pieces are returned to their original position and a legal move is made.
5. A player may not make distracting comments or accept advice from onlookers.
6. In tournament play, it is customary to require the players to complete at least thirty moves in two hours and forty-five in three hours. In some circumstances, twenty moves an hour may be required. And rapid transit means a move every ten seconds.

NOTATION

In the Englishspeakiflg world, most Chess literature describes and analyzes games by means of a notation system that identifies each square on the board by two different abbreviations. One set of abbreviations refers to the position of the square as seen from White’s side. The other set identifies the squares as seen by Black.
Thus, the white square at the lower-right-hand corner of White’s side of the board is KR1—king’s rook’s square on the first rank. From Black’s vantage, the same square is KR8—the square on the eighth rank of his king’s rook’s file. And White’s Q1—first rank, queen’s file— is Black’s Q8.
The opening moves in a game might be reported as follows:

White Black
1 P-K4 - P-K4
2 Kt-KB3 - Kt-QB3
3 B-Kt5 - P-Q3

In each column of notations, the letter before the hyphen identifies the piece moved and the abbreviation after the hyphen indicates the square to which the piece moved. In the foregoing sequence, White opened by moving his king’s pawn two ranks to his K4 square. And Black responded by moving his king’s pawn two ranks to his own K4 square. The reader should observe that it was not necessary to designate these pawns as king’s pawns. The only pawns capable of moving to K4 at this stage of the action are the king’s pawns, which makes the abbreviation “P� entirely satisfactory for notation purposes.

When reporting a capture the notes replace the hyphen with an “x.� BxKt means that the only bishop in position to capture a knight has done so. If more than one bishop was situated to make such a capture the note would be QBxKt or KBxKt, or B(3)XKt, indicating that the bishop on the third rank captured the knight.

An algebraic style of notation is more popular elsewhere in the world and is used by many British and American experts in their own coiflmunjcatbons. It assigns one designation to each square: aS means the square at White’s farthest left, on the farthest rank. The same designation is used for Black, who simply regards a8 as the square on the nearest rank in the farthest right-hand file.
The game described above in the so-called English notation would be reported by algebraic notation in this way.

STRATEGY

Chess games are customarily analyzed in three stages—the opening, the middle game and the end game. Most opening moves attempt to distribute each side’s forces in ways that have been established by Chess literature as best calculated to carry out one or another conventional strategy. Inasmuch as countering tactics have also been established during centuries of play, weaknesses_real or potential soon appear in either or both formations, and the middle game may be regarded as the effort to exploit and/or repair such weaknesses. The end game is the attempt to deliver the coup de grace after developing dominance in the middle game.

During each stage, the strategic elements of time, space and force are paramount, with time and space of greater urgency in the opening, and force being unleashed afterward.
Time (or tempo) refers to the number of moves needed to mount
or counter an attack. It is an especially crucial factor in the early stages, when economy of time in developing an effective attack is often the difference between victory and defeat.
To avoid siow development, a single piece should seldom move
more than once during the opening stages. Good players have sufficient grasp of the established opening patterns to concentrate on the effort to achieve a useful formation in minimum time. They move a piece twice during this phase only when (a) surprised by an opponent’s own moves and (b) hoping to enforce a comparable ioss
of time on the opponent.
The important task of quick development is regarded as complete when the rooks are connected—no longer separated by intervening pieces on their rank. Castling is a useful means of connecting the rooks.
Control of space is almost as important as time during the opening. Of all space, the center squares are most essential. Good players do not necessarily try to occupy Q4, Q5, K4 and K5, but place their pieces in such patterns as to threaten capture of any opposing piece that moves onto one of those vital center squares. To control the center is to prepare for divisive thrusts with pieces from either the king or queen side of one’s own formation.

The P-K4 and P-Q4 openings are referred to as regular, while those beginning with other moves are considered irregular. Many so-called irregular openings are diversionary attempts to attain positions reached more directly by regular means.
When opening positions are established and development is well under way, consideration of force assumes importance equal to that of space and time. Force refers to the power of the pieces. For convenience in appraising force, the pieces are assigned approximate values:
p = 1 Kt = 3 B = R = 5 Q = 9

Force is more than simply arithmetical. Moreover, it cannot be isolated from other tactical considerations. Good players often sacrifice valuable pieces to gain time and space. That, of course, is the primary purpose of the gambits noted in some of the openings, where a player exposes a pawn to capture and hopes to penalize the opponent who captures it.
Among other elementary tactics, more of which are used during
middle play than in the openings, these should be mentioned.
Attack: A threat to capture an opposing piece on the next move.
Counterattack: With one of his own pieces under attack, the
player mounts an attack of his own against an opposing piece of equal or greater value.
Guard: An attacked piece is defended by another one that threatens to respond by taking the capturing piece. Note that guarding does not work if the attacking piece (such as a bishop) is of less value than the piece under attack. To bring up a knight to guard the attacked queen is useless, inasmuch as the opponent will happily trade his bishop for the queen.
Withdrawal: If unable to guard an attacked piece effectively, as in the above example, the player may decide to move it out of harm’s Way.

Obstruction: To frustrate attack on an important piece by an opposing queen, rook or bishop, a player might interpose a piece of his own on a square guarded by another of his own.
Pin: A pretty maneuver that ties down an opposing piece. If the opposing piece is moved, it exposes its king to check.

Fork: A piece attacks two or more opposing pieces at once.

When Black moves his knight to KKt5, the White king is under check by the Black rook. The knight is immune to capture by the White bishop because White must attend to the check. Note that a move of the knight to QB7 creates another tactical advantage, double check (check by two pieces, in this case the Black rook and Black knight). it also produces a fork on the White rook and White king. Since the king can escape double check only by moving, the White rook is doomed.
Some familiar end-game situations require the player to promote a pawn or two and may involve the tactic of opposition. Favorable opposition is the ability of a king to drive the opponent’s king aside.

If White is to move in this position, Black has the opposition because the ‘White king must step aside. Similarly, if this positior
occurs immediately before Black’s move, the advantageous Opposition is White’s.
Assuming that White has the move and takes his king to KB1,
Black presses the advantage by advancing his king to Q7. This paves the way for promotion of the Black pawn to a queen and the in evitable checkmate.

RECOMMENDED READING

Those with a new taste for Chess should seek information beyond the mere sip possible here. Chess literature is enormous and much of it is excellent. The best include:
John Collins, Modern Chess Openings, rev, by Larry Evans (Pitman).
Larry Evans, New Ideas in Chess (Cornerstone Library).
I. A. Horowitz, Chess Openings, Theory and Practice (Simon and Schuster).
How to Win in the Chess Openings (Cornerstone Library). Modern Ideas in the Chess Openings (Cornerstone Library).

HANDICAP CHESS

If players are unequal, various handicaps help make their game more interesting. Examples:
1. Count any draw as a victory for the weaker player.
2. Pawn and Move. The stronger takes Black and begins by removing his king’s bishop’s pawn.
3. Pawn and Two. As above, but play begins with White taking two moves. White usually is forbidden to move beyond his fourth rank on these moves.
4. Knight. Stronger takes White, without the queen’s knight.
5. Rook. Stronger takes White, without the queen’s rook but usually placing the queen’s rook’s pawn on QR3 to protect it.
6. Rook, Pawn and Move. Stronger takes Black, without the queen’s rook and king’s bishop’s pawn.
7. Rook and Knight. Stronger takes White, without queen’s rook and king’s knight.
8. Queen. Stronger takes White, without a queen.
9. Capped Pawn, Stronger takes White and must mate with his unpromoted king’s bishop’s pawn or lose.
io. Unequal Time. Stronger plays rapid transit, allowing weakex to take five minutes a move.

KRIEGSPIEL

Each player has his own board and pieces out of sight of his opponent. A third party serves as referee, keeping track of ths proceedings on a board of his own.
When White moves, the referee says only “White has moved.’ When either player attempts an illegal or impossible move, thc referee says “No� and the player tries another. When a player deliberately attempts a series of illegal moves for purposes of deception the referee announces “Impossible,� alerting the opponent to whal has been happening.
When capture occurs, the referee names the square on which ii happened. He does not identify the involved pieces, unless the cap. ture was en passant, which the referee simply names as such.

When a player moves a piece into a position that brings th opponent’s king into check, the referee announces the check and it direction, which may be “On the file,�“On the rank,�“On the long diagonal,�“On the short diagonal� or “By the knight.� The long diagonal is simply the longer of the two diagonals (toward the opponent’s side) that extend from each square on the board.

Besides what they glean from the referee’s announcements, playen can piece together pictures of the opposing position by asking Any?� The referee is then required to say “Try� if any of the player’s pawns are in position to capture an opposing man. Th player then moves whatever pawn he pleases. If it captures an opposing piece, that ends his move. If not, he is allowed to withdraw the move and try others until he captures an opponent or, frustrated abandons the process for a move with another piece.

STRATEGO

From a Chinese variant of Chess there arose the Jungle Game. antecedent of this trademarked game of pure strategy that is becom ing quite popular in North America. Each player deploys anc maneuvers an army of forty pieces, all of the same size and shape with identification of individual rank concealed from the opponent Except for Bombs and Flag, which are stationary, all pieces an movable one square at a time forward, sideways or backward. Th object is to capture the enemy Flag, the position of which is deduced by the positions of its protective Bombs. There are many ingenious features, such as the ability of the Marshal to destroy any lesser piece except the Spy, which destroys him. A good game.

FEUDAL

Another relatively new proprietary game. Pieces representing medieval characters are secretly positioned before the opposing formations are revealed and the action starts. As in Chess and Stratego, some pieces have more power than others. Wise use of these forces, plus a “terrain� factor, gives this game considerable appeal.