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Chess
Chess is a
History
It has been around for a very long time. It’s traditionally played on 64 squares arranged 8 x 8 with 32 white squares and 32 black squares. Originally, the game came from
Rules
For rules of chess, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_chess
Strategies and Tactics
Chess is found on the principle that whoever plans better in the long-term wins. While this is true for strategic maneuvers, tactical attacks – short term explosions, can also win games. These two goals are interrelated since without the proper tactical ideas, strategic maneuvers cannot happen and without the previous strategy of play, effective tactical explosions cannot occur. A game of chess is usually divided into three phases: opening – usually 10-25 moves, middlegame – the fiercest part of the game and endgame – where most of the pieces are gone and kings take part of the game. Pawns, when reached the last rank, can promote to any piece they want, thereby the farther the pawn is up the board, the stronger it is.
Opening
A chess opening is an initial group of moves designed to begin the system of play. There is plenty of opening theory - moves that have been played before that has been accepted into databases for other players to repeat. Also, four fundamental strategic aims are present: Development - To develop the pieces so they will have an impact on the game Control of the Center - To control the center of the board for more freedom and cramp on the opponent King Safety - To protect the king from dangerous situations - castling usually aids this process Pawn Structure - To strive to stop weaknesses from occurring in your base camp while striving to create as many weaknesses in your opponents as possible. Most players agree that white has a small advantage since he starts the game while black is trying to equalize the position first before going for the win.
Middlegame
The middlegame is the moment of the game where players are striving to exchange pieces favorably and try to gain an advantage. Typical ideas begin with an attack on the king. Usually the king is castled on the
An attack on the king usually suits the aggressive and action-type players while the attack on the pawns usually suits a calm and reserved thinker, content with small blows to the position at hand.
Endgame
The endgame is the last part of the game and here an attack on the pawns may give way to a win in the endgame. Since during the endgame, pawns become more important as there are less pieces on the board to harass them, pawns naturally becomes stronger. The king also, the cowardly royal who had to hide behind his pawns to protect him from kingside attacks is a much stronger piece as less pieces are on the board to harass him as well. These two factors can sometimes influence the game dramatically just based on how many pawns you have, where your pawns are placed, how far your pawns are up the board and where your king is.
Cultural Impact
While chess has never gained the immense amount of popularity that [[poker has taken up, chess is still a part of noble culture. Noblemen in the middle ages used to play the game of chess to determine who was more smarter and therefore better than the other person while ego wars were often settled with a game of chess. Benjamin Franklin even played the game and commented on how impressively logical chess is and how it teaches people not to be too hasty and other lessons that can be easily applied in life. Chess has been readily taught in school for some time now with USSR and now Russia popularizing it around the world. The national body of chess is FIDE - International Federation of Chess while the body of chess in Canada is the CFC - Chess Federation of Canada. The most famous person possible to impact chess is Bobby Fischer, the 11th world champion from USA in 1972. When he won the champion away from the USSR, the height of the cold war was at its highest and with his win, the popularity for chess heightened to new levels. Chess boards were sold at quadrupled the price. Everyone played chess, from coffee shops to libraries to even sports arenas. Chess was at its highest. However, when he failed to defend his title in 1975, chess blew up and popularity sunk down.
Titles and Rankings
Chess has an elaborate title and ranking system in play.
Grandmaster - highest level of play besides that of World Champion. An elo rating of 2500+ is needed to get it. There are less than a thousand GM's in the world with millions of people playing the game.
Relation to Computer Science
Chess has not been solved thus yet while checker has. Computers are constantly on the move to try to solve chess using mainly brute force. When the first computer chess program was created, it was very weak in comparison to grandmasters and so programmers constantly tried to improve it. The first program ever to beat a world champion was
See Also
International Federation of Chess
References
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess
2) http://www.princeton.edu/~jedwards/cif/intro.html