Portal:Chess

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

Welcome to the Chess Portal

Introduction

Left to right: white king, black rook, black queen, white pawn, black knight, white bishop

Chess is a board game for two players. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to distinguish it from related games such as xiangqi (Chinese chess) and shogi (Japanese chess).

Chess is an abstract strategy game that involves no hidden information and no elements of chance. It is played on a chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an 8×8 grid. The players, generically referred to as "White" and "Black", each control sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns. White moves first, followed by Black; they then alternate moves. Each player’s ultimate goal is to checkmate (threaten with inescapable capture) the opposing king. There are also several ways a game can end in a draw.

The recorded history of chess goes back at least to the emergence of a similar game, chaturanga, in seventh-century India. After its introduction in Persia, it spread to the Arab world and then to Europe. The rules of chess as they are known today emerged in Europe at the end of the 15th century, with standardization and universal acceptance by the end of the 19th century. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games and is played by millions of people worldwide. (Full article...)

Selected article - show another

The rook and pawn versus rook endgame is a fundamentally important, widely studied chess endgame. Precise play is usually required in these positions. With optimal play, some complicated wins require sixty moves to either checkmate, capture the defending rook, or successfully promote the pawn. In some cases, thirty-five moves are required to advance the pawn once.

The play of this type of ending revolves around whether or not the pawn can be promoted, or if the defending rook must be sacrificed to prevent promotion. If the pawn promotes, that side will have an overwhelming material advantage. If the pawn is about to promote, the defending side may give up their rook for the pawn, resulting in an easily won endgame for the superior side (a basic checkmate). In a few cases, the superior side gives up their rook in order to promote the pawn, resulting in a winning queen versus rook position (see Pawnless chess endgame § Queen versus rook). (Full article...)

List of selected articles

General images

The following are images from various chess-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Shams-i Tabrīzī as portrayed in a 1500 painting in a page of a copy of Rumi's poem dedicated to Shams (from History of chess)
Image 2Richard Creifelds, c. 1886, The Veterans, Brooklyn Museum (from Chess in the arts)
Image 3Two Georgian writers, Ilia Chavchavadze and Ivane Machabeli, playing chess in Saint Petersburg, 1873 (from Chess in the arts)
Image 4Paris Bordone, c. 1545, Chess players, oil on canvas, Mailand, Wohnhaus (from Chess in the arts)
Image 5Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from History of chess)
Image 6Persian manuscript from the 14th century describing how an ambassador from India brought chess to the Persian court (from History of chess)
Image 7Antonis Mor, 1549, Von Sachsen vs. a Spaniard (from Chess in the arts)
Image 8Liberale da Verona, The Chess Players, c. 1475 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 9Edward Harrison May, 1867, Lady Howe mating Benjamin Franklin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 10Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official World Chess Champion (from History of chess)
Image 11Bauhaus chess set by Josef Hartwig (from Chess in the arts)
Image 12Honoré Daumier, 1863, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 13A Chess Dispute (1903) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 14Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from Chess in the arts)
Image 15The Chess Players by Henry Fox Talbot, 1847 (from History of chess)
Image 16Lucas van Leyden, c. 1508, The Game of Chess, oil on oak, 27 x 35 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 17Iranian courtiers of the Qajar dynasty playing chess in Mazandaran. (from History of chess)
Image 18Book of the customs of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess (1473) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 19Bobby Fischer vs. Mikhail Tal (from History of chess)
Image 20Iranian shatranj set, glazed fritware, 12th century, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (from History of chess)
Image 21Animation of the Immortal Game, in which Adolf Anderssen, playing white, beat Lionel Kieseritzky in June 1851 (from History of chess)
Image 22Gustaf Lundberg, 1775, Portrait of Gustav Badin, pastel, 74 x 57 cm, Nationalmuseum, Sweden (from Chess in the arts)
Image 23Karel van Mander, 1600 (attributed to), Les joueurs d'échecs (from Chess in the arts)
Image 24Hans Muelich, 1552, Duke Albrecht V. of Bavaria and his wife Anna of Austria playing chess (from Chess in the arts)
Image 25Thomas Eakins, 1876, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 26An illustration from a Persian manuscript "A treatise on chess". The Ambassadors from India present the Chatrang to Khosrow I Anushirwan, "Immortal Soul", King of Persia (from History of chess)
Image 27Chess game between Tha'ālibī and Bākhazarī, 1896 painting by Ludwig Deutsch (from History of chess)
Image 28John Lavery, 1929, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 29Some of the earliest examples of chess-related art are medieval illustrations accompanying books or manuscripts, such as this chess problem from the 1283 Libro de los juegos. (from Chess in the arts)
Image 30World Champions José Raúl Capablanca (left) and Emanuel Lasker in 1925 (from History of chess)
Image 31RZA at a Hip Hop Chess Federation Tournament (from Chess in the arts)
Image 32Niccolò di Pietro, 1413–15, The Conversion of Saint Augustin, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon (from Chess in the arts)
Image 33In 1975, former President of Pakistan Zulfi Bhutto gifted a carved ivory set of chess to the former United States President Gerald Ford. (from Chess in the arts)
Image 34Krishna and Radha playing chaturanga on an 8×8 Ashtāpada (from History of chess)
Image 35Chess Set by Man Ray (from Chess in the arts)
Image 36Sofonisba Anguissola, The Chess Game, 1555, National Museum, Poznań, Poland (from Chess in the arts)
Image 37The 12th-century Lewis chessmen in the collection of the National Museum of Scotland (from History of chess)
Image 38Current World Champion Ding Liren (from History of chess)
Image 39Final match of the 1575 tournament in El Escorial. Painting by Luigi Mussini. (from History of chess)
Image 40Stamp of the USSR devoted to the accomplished Estonian player and analyst Paul Keres, 1991 (from History of chess)

Selected image

Image 1Click to enlarge and view description
Image 2Click to enlarge and view description
Image 3Click to enlarge and view description

FIDE world ranking

Rank	Player	Rating
1	Magnus Carlsen	2831
2	Fabiano Caruana	2805
3	Hikaru Nakamura	2802
4	Arjun Erigaisi	2799
5	Gukesh Dommaraju	2783
6	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	2777
7	Alireza Firouzja	2763
8	Ian Nepomniachtchi	2755
9	Wei Yi	2753
10	Viswanathan Anand	2750
11	Wesley So	2747
12	Leinier Dominguez	2741
13	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	2740
14	Levon Aronian	2739
15	Vidit Santosh Gujrathi	2739
16	Quang Liem Le	2739
17	Shakhriyar Mamedyarov	2738
18	R Praggnanandhaa	2737
19	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	2737
20	Hans Niemann	2734

Did you know...

... that Magnus Carlsen, the current World Chess Champion, resigned a recent tournament game after only one move?

Reviewed articles

Featured articles	Good articles
First-move advantage in chess	42nd Chess Olympiad	Goryachkina, Aleksandra
Gossip, George H. D.	43rd Chess Olympiad	Guramishvili, Sopiko
List of female chess grandmasters	Abdumalik, Zhansaya	Kazarian, Anna-Maja
Mechanical Turk	Alekhine, Alexander	Kristjánsson, Stefán
44th Chess Olympiad	Anderssen, Adolf	Lasker, Emanuel
	Belenkaya, Dina	Mammadzada, Gunay
	Bindrich, Falko	Milner-Barry, Stuart
	Blübaum, Matthias	Modern Benoni
	Budapest Gambit	Muzychuk, Anna
	Bughouse chess	Nadanian, Ashot
	Carlsen, Magnus	Rudolf, Anna
	Chess in Armenia	Rules of chess
	Cramling, Anna	Staunton, Howard
	Deep Blue (Chess computer)	Steinitz, Wilhelm
	En passant	Turochamp
	Endgame tablebase	World Chess Championship 1972
	Fischer, Bobby	Zhou, Qiyu