How To Play Chess: A Beginner's Guide to Learning the Chess Game, Pieces, Board, Rules, & Strategies

What is chess?

CHESS IS A TWO-PLAYER BOARD GAME, played on a board of 64 squares. The chessboard is an eight-by-eight grid of alternating black and white squares (sometimes the colors can differ, but black and white are the most common colors). Each player has sixteen pieces which can move in a variety of ways (this will be explained later). The pieces are also either black or white; a white set for one player and a black set for the other player (again colors can vary). You can capture opponent pieces by landing on the same square as that piece and the object of the game is to put the opponent’s king in such a position that they cannot make a move without their king being captured. When this happens, it is deemed ‘checkmate’ and the game is over. A simple game which takes minutes to learn and a lifetime to master.

1. Introduction

History

CHESS REALLY IS THE GAME OF KINGS! A game of intellectuals and commoners, the rich and the poor, the revered and the forgotten, the human race. Who you are outside of the board does not matter, for on the board you can be king.

The Shahnameh is an epic poem by the Persian poet Ferdowsi in which he offers an apocryphal account of the origins of the game of chess. Talhand and Gav are two half-brothers who are in competition for the throne of India. After meeting in battle, Talhand dies on his elephant without a wound. Their mother is distraught, she believes that Gav has killed his half-brother and when Gav tries to explain what happens, she does not believe him. The wise men of the day invent the game of chess to depict the events of the battle, through this they able to show the mother of the princes that Talhad, surrounded by all of his enemies, died of fatigue. The poem uses the term