Chess Reading

Start to Play a Chess Game

2009-02-03T06:46:00.000-08:00

After you have learned the basics and rules, it's time to start to play a game! As you know you could randomly make a first move on a chess board, however there are strategies and principals for playing a chess game. Generally, a chess game has three phases - the opening, the middle game, and the end game. Here is a list of important principals for starting a game,

Control the Center

The following diagram illustrates the four center squares (e4, e5, d4, d5) of a chess board, marked by a "x".

The center squares in Chess are very important, whoever has the control of the center would definitely have some sort of advantages. It gives your pieces more mobilities and lots of attacking options. If you have a pawn at the center, your opponent won't be able to cramp your playing styles easily. Most of the games are started with an e4 or d4 move.

Development

The next important step in playing a chess game is development. In chess, development simply means that the pieces (Knights, Bishops and Queen) have left their original squares at the bank rank and move into squares on which they are well placed and ready to join the attack and defense. The following diagram shows the possible well developed position for white in a chess game,

During development phase, time is very important, whichever side has quickly developed the pieces has the initiative on attacking. In general, during development phase, it is undesirable to move the same piece twice as it slows down the development. Normally, it is considered that the development is complete if you have castled and the two Rooks are connecting to each other at the back rank.

King's Safety

Nothing is more important in Chess than the safety of your King. You loss the game if your king is checkmated. So it is absolutely vital to move your king to one the corners via castling. If the King is left in the center, it is subject to attacks by your opponents and in fact, lots of openings traps and tricks are are played based on the King is left in the center. On the other hand, if your opponent's King looks vulnerable in the center, you should quickly attack him before it can find a safe place.

How to Record Chess Moves?

2009-01-19T17:28:00.000-08:00

Algebraic chess notation is used to record and describe the moves in a game of chess. It is now standard among all chess organizations and most books, magazines, and newspapers. The following diagram shows the layout of a chess board,

Each square on the chess board is marked by a Algebraic notation.

There are several advantages for recording chess moves,

Replay or review your games to learn from your mistakes, you can do this with your teacher, a better player or a computer software.
Re-set positions after illegal move sequences,
Prove who is to move and what the position is,
In the case the game is interrupted by an unforeseen events, like fire alarm, or the board was knocked down by accident, you can recover to the exact position and continue with the game later.

File and Rank

Each line of squares going up and down the board is called a file. Files are lettered with small letters: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h. The Kings are on the e-file while the Queens are on the d-file.

Each line of squares going from left to right across the board is called a rank. Ranks are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. The first rank is always where White sets up his major pieces; the eighth rank is where Black sets up his major pieces. At the start of the game, all your pawns are on the same rank.

Each square is identified by its file and rank. So at the start of a game White sets up his Queen on d1 square and Black sets up his Queen on d8 square.

Notation

Each piece in Chess has an abbreviation,

King = K
Queen = Q
Rook = R
Bishop = B
Knight = N

There are so many pawns that no letter is used for a pawn.

There are some important symbols:

x = takes or captures
0-0 = castling on the kingside or short castling
0-0-0 = castling on the queenside or long castling
+ = check
# = checkmate, sometimes, it uses ++

Record The Move

Every time you move, you write the letter for the piece that moved followed by the name of the square it moved to. For example,

Kd2 - K moves to d2 square
Qg5 - Queen moves to g5 square
Rd1 - Rook moves to d1 square
Bg2 - Bishop moves to g2 square
Nf3 - Knight moves to f3 square

When you capture with a piece, put an “x” between the name of the piece and capture square, regardless which the piece is on that square, for example,

Qxd6 - Queen captures on d6 square
Kxe2 - King captures on e2 square
dxe5 - the d pawn captures on e5 square

In the case where two of the same pieces could move to the same square, then you need to use file or rank to differentiate the move.

In the diagram on the left, if you want to move the Knights e4 square, you need to write N3e4 which moves the Knight on c3 square to e4 square while N5e4 means moving the Knight on c5 to e4 square.

If you want to move the Rooks to d1 square, then write Rad1 to move the Rook on a1 square to d1 square or write Rfd1 to move the Rook on f1 square to d1 square.

When a pawn reaches the last rank (for White it's the 8th rank, for Black it's the 1st rank), the pawn can be promoted to a piece, you could record the move like this assuming a White pawn on e file is promoted,

e8=Q - promote the pawn to a Queen
e8=R - promote the pawn to a Rook
e8=B - promote the pawn to a Bishop
e8=N - promote the pawn to a Knight

Evaluation and Annotations

In Chess books and magazines, games are printed with some evaluations and annotations for teh readers. Here are a list of the special symbols used for this purpose,

? = weak move, mistake
?? = a major mistake or blunder
! = strong move
!! = an excellent move
!? - interesting move
?! - dubious move

An Example

The following shows an example of a game,

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Qe7 5.O-O d6 6.d4 Bb6
7.Bg5 f6 8.Bh4 g5 9.Nxg5 fxg5 10.Qh5+ Kd7 11.Bxg5 Qg7
12.Be6+ Kxe6 13.Qe8+ Nge7 14.d5#

Chess Basics and Rules

2009-01-14T09:03:00.000-08:00

Chess Board Setup

Chess is played by two players, one with the White piece and one with the Black piece. The initial chess board is set up as shown below,

The following hints will help you remember the correct board setup,

The opposing Kings and Queens directly opposite each other on the board,
The Queen always sits on its own colored square, i.e. white Queen sits on white square and black Queen sits on black square

The Pieces and How They Move

The Queen (Q) is the most powerful piece, she can move any number of squares in any direction (horizontal, vertical and diagonal), if the path is not blocked. She can move to any of the squares with dots in the following diagram,

The Rook (R) is the next most powerful piece, it can move either vertically or horizontally if its path is not blocked. It can move to any of the squares with dots in the following diagram,

The Bishop (B) moves diagonally if the path is not blocked. It can move to any of the squares with dots in the following diagram. Each side has a pair of Bishops, one light-square and one dark-square,

The Knight (N) move in a special way. The Knight hops over other pieces to a new square in a way like a "L" shape. It always lands on a square opposite in color from its original square. The Knight can move to any of the squares with dots in the following diagram,

The Pawn moves straight up, never backwards. It moves one square up, but on its first move it can move two squares up. It captures diagonally. The pawn can move to the squares as indicated in the following diagram,

The King (K) can move one square in any direction. However, the King can never move into a check. The King can move to any squares with x in the following diagram,

Special Moves

Castling is a special move that lets a player move two pieces at once - the King and the Rook. A player may "castle" only once during a game. In castling, the player moves his King two squares to its left (Queen-side castling) or to its right (King-side castling) toward one the Rooks, at the mean time, the Rook involved moves to the square besides the King to the center of the board.

The following diagram illustrates the King-side castling,

The following diagram illustrates the Queen-side castling,

In order to castle, neither the King or the Rook involved have moved already. There may not be any pieces of either color between the King and the Rook involved. Importantly, the King may not castle out of check, into check or through check. The following diagram illustrates that White can not castle on the King-side as it would castle into check, but it can castle on the Queen-side; while Black can not castle on Queen-side as it would castle through check, but it can castle on the King-side.

Click to learn How to Record Chess Moves.

En Passant is a French phase used for special pawn capture. It occurs when one player moves a pawn two squares forward to try to avoid capture, the capture is made though exactly as if the player had moved the pawn only one square forward. In the following diagram, the Black pawn moves up two squares to the one marked with a black dot. On its turn, the White pawn may capture the Black pawn on the square marked with the X. However, if the player decides not to take this option immediately and opt to move another piece, then the player loses this option for the rest of the game. Though other similar "en passsant" opportunities may occur during the game.

Check and Checkmate

Check is a direct attack on your opponent's King. If there is no way to get out of a check then the King is checkmated and the side who is checkmated loses the game. The main goal of chess is to checkmate your opponent's King.

When the King is under check, there are three ways to get out of it,

Move away - moving the King to a square so that he is no longer in check,
Block - placing a piece of your own between the attacker and the King to block the check unless the attacker is a Knight, which you can not block,
Capture - capturing the attacking piece.

If you can not do none of the above, then the King is checkmated.

Stalemate

In Chess, there is a special situation where it's your turn to move and your King is not under check and you can not make a legal move, this situation is called Stalemate and the game result is a draw or tie.

The Valuations of Pieces

As mentioned early that the Queen is the most powerful piece on the board, in general there is an acceptable valuation for each piece on the board,

Queen = 9 points
Rook = 5 points
Bishop = 3 points
Knight = 3 points
Pawn = 1 point
King = priceless!

Chess Tactics - 1 move check mate by Knight (white to move)

2009-01-13T15:16:00.000-08:00

Chess Tactics - 1-move check mate by Bishop (white to move)

2009-01-12T18:26:00.000-08:00

How to join in a Chess tournament ?

2009-01-12T09:38:00.000-08:00

It has been said that the more practice you do, the better you will be. This is certainly true for Chess. You need to play lots of games and learn from your mistakes to make improvements. For MA residents, here is how to join in a Chess tournament.

Join The United States Chess Federation (USCF) following the online membership registration. For Scholastic members (Age 12 and Under), the membership is $16/year.
To play a tournament at MA, you need to join The Massachusetts Chess Association (MACA) following the online membership registration. For Junior members (Age 18 and Under), the membership is $6/year.
Find a suitable tournament to play. There are typically several tournaments each month for both adults and scholastics. The upcoming tournament information is regularly published at MACA's Future Events page. For first time scholastic player, it's best to start with the "Burger King" tournament, which offers monthly events at various towns, such as Waltham and Chelmsford, MA. It is highly desirable to record the chess games you played so that you can review them later.

Most of the time, you can also purchase the above memberships at a tournament site. After you have your memberships, and start to play tournament games, your performance is rated based on your results against your opponents. Your rating generally reflects your strength. The rating is maintained by USCF and you can look up a player's rating here. The following shows USCF rating structure,

National Senior Master	-	(SM)
USCF Rating 2400+
National Master	-	(NM)
USCF Rating 2200+
Expert/Candidate Master	-	(Expert/CM)
USCF Rating 2000+
National US Amateur Classes
National Class A	-	USCF (1800-1999)
Top Amateur Class
National Class B	-	USCF (1600-1799)
Strong Tournament Player
National Class C	-	USCF (1400-1599)
Average Tournament Player
National Class D	-	USCF (1200-1399)
Strong Social Player
National Class E	-	USCF (1000-1199)
Social Player
National Class F	-	USCF (800-999)
Novice Player
National Class G	-	USCF (600-799)
Beginner II/Scholastic Player
National Class H	-	USCF (400-599)
Beginner I/Scholastic Player
National Class I	-	USCF (200-399)
Early beginner/Scholastic Player
National Class J	-	USCF (100-199)
Minimum Rating Class

Chess Tactics - 1-move check mate by Rook (white to move)

2009-01-12T05:11:00.000-08:00

Chess Tactics - 1-move check mate by Queen (white to move)

2009-01-06T19:05:00.000-08:00