Chess for greenhorns

  Castling Castling is the easiest way to get your king to safety in the early stages of the game.  To perform castling: Move your king two squares to the right or left, depending on whether you want to castle queenside or kingside, then take the corresponding rook and move it to the other side of the king. Example: The white king castled kingside, while the black king castled queenside. A few additional rules: -The king can not castle when in check -Neither of the squares it passes through can be controlled by an opponents piece to castle. -The king can not not castle if it has moved, or if either of the rooks have moved. If one of the rooks have moved, then you can castle the other side. -Neither of the squares connecting the rook and king can be occupied by any other pieces Ways in which the game can end: Checkmate: Checkmate occurs when a king is checked, and the king can not legally escape, either by moving out of check, capturing the checking piece, or block the path of ...

  Who is the Pawn? Though the weakest piece on the board, pawns compensate for it in their numbers, and many peculiar abilities they possess.  Their inherent weakness can often be used as a strength, because of their lower value, they favorable trade all other pieces. Hence an attack by a pawn to a piece of larger value is seldom disregarded.  Pawns are also the to support attacked pieces, and protect the king. Pawns are the only pieces that have conditional movement. A pawn that has not moved before may move either one step or two steps forward on the first move, but after it makes a move, it can only move one step forward. The pawn on e2 may move two steps or one, but the pawn on b4 may move only one step up to b5. Pawns do NOT capture forwards, though. Pawns can capture enemy pieces that are one square away diagonally from the pawn, but they move diagonally ONLY to capture, otherwise resetting back to one square up movement. + This makes pawns the only piece that is on...

  Who is the knight? Not this guy, this guy. The knight, weirdly enough is represented by a horse. It is the only piece that moves in a non linear shape. It moves in a L shape. The knight also as a special ability: It jumps over other pieces, enemy and friendly. Knights have a piece value of 3. That covers knights. Up next:  The Pawn

 The Queen, Rook and Bishop all have intertwined movements. Who is the Rook? The third most valuable piece in the game. The rook (aka 'Elephant', 'Fort') mostly remains inactive for most of the early parts of the game, while the Queen, Rook, Knight and Pawns do most of the heavy-lifting. It is used to get the king to safety by castling.  It is usually recommended to not play too many moves with the rook early on.  The Rook can move straight or down the file, or sides ways both ways along the row it is currently on to a maximum of 7 squares in a direction, because it hits the end of the board after that The rook has a piece value of 5 points. Who is the Bishop? The Bishop, with its relatively lower piece value, and terrific agility and range throughout the game, is one of the most fun pieces to play with because it isn't too  bad even if it gets exchanged .  The Queen combined with the Bishop can make for a very deadly combo when used properly. The Bishop moves d...

Who is the King? The most important piece in the game. Period.  Lose it and you lose the game. Ironically, it is also the weakest piece for most of the game. Despised by many chess players at the start of their chess journey (including myself) for being so dependent on other pieces, it turns quite powerful when more pieces are off the board.  The reason for this is because lesser pieces equals lesser pieces to checkmate the king, so it can undertake missions (like capturing a pawn) and actually be useful. On each turn, it can move one square diagonally, vertically or horizontally, IF that square is not occupied by a piece of its own color, or that square is not controlled by an opponents piece. Check When a king is attacked by an opponents piece, the attacked king's player is under ''check'' , in which case the the threat MUST be stopped by either of these methods; -Block the line of sight of the attacking piece -Capture the piece attacking the king -Move the king a...

     A game of chess has 2 players: White and Black. Conventionally, White always starts out first. Other than the obvious 'first move advantage', both sides have equal number of equal kinds of pieces. What are these 'kinds of pieces'? Chess has 6 types of pieces, each with a unique ability: The King (K): Easily the most important piece on the chessboard. The objective of each player is to avoid losing his king (checkmate) , while trying to checkmate his opponent. The Queen (Q): The most powerful piece in the game, with a variety of abilities. The Bishop (B): The only piece in the game that can move in only one color of square, that is, light or dark squares, per instance of the piece. The Knight (N): The trickiest piece in the game and the only piece which is able to jump over other pieces. The Rook (R): The other piece needed to perform castling. The Pawn (P): The weakest piece on the board by itself, but there are 8 per side on the board. Th is is the standard pie...

  What is a chessboard? The chessboard is a 8x8 grid, making a total of 64 squares with an alternating pattern of light and dark colors. It is similar to the board used to play checkers.   The chessboard has a coordinate system too. It's pretty simple.   Ranks The horizontal rows of squares are called ranks, so the rows on the chess board are the 1st row, 2nd row and so on, corresponding to the numbers written on the left. For example,     The highlighted squares form what is known a s the 1st rank.   Files The vertical columns are called files, so each column will be the a-file, b-file and so on, corresponding to the letters written on the bottom. For example,          The highlighted squares form the a-file. Coordinates Using the corresponding row and file coordinates, we can get a unique name for each of the 64 squares on the board!                            ...

What is this blog about? This blog is about chess!  Who is this for? Anyone and everyone of all ages interested in chess is welcome, though it is mainly for those starting out in chess, to players under 2000 FIDE rating strength.  How can this blog help you? For those starting out, it can give you a strong foundation on the basics of chess and beyond. For others, I hope it takes your chess to the next level. For beginners: How can you use this blog? A few pointers to help you get started: -There are no requirements for learning chess, but I strongly suggest using a real life chess set to help visualizing how the pieces move. Even  if you don't have one, don't worry. It is not that important. -Take it easy- You don't need to learn it all in a day. Take it at your own pace, and keep revisiting old lessons if you feel you don't understand something properly. - Most importantly, have fun! Who am I? I am a chess player with over 8 years of experience, with a FIDE peak of 203...