Chess Openings: A Beginner's Guide to Chess Openings

Introduction

Chess is a recreational and competitive board game of strategic skill for two players. It is played on a square chequered board of 64 squares (arranged in an eight-by-eight grid), on which each playing piece is moved according to specific rules. There are 32 pieces in total. Each player has one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns which makes 16 pieces in total per player. The objective in playing is to put the opponent's king under a direct attack from which escape is impossible (checkmate). Chess is called western or international chess to tell it apart from similar games like xiangqi.

The History of Chess

The history of chess can be traced back to nearly 1500 years ago. Although its origins are uncertain, perhaps the earliest predecessor of the game originated in India by the 7th century AD. At the time, chess was known as chaturaṅga, representing the four divisions (of the military): infantry, cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry. These forms are represented by the pieces that would become the modern-day pawn, knight, bishop, and rook.

Then, from India, the game spread to Persia. It became a part of the princely or courtly education of Persian nobility in Sassanid Persia around 600. The name became chatrang, which subsequently evolved to shatranj, due to Arab Muslims' lack of ch and ng native sounds, and the rules were further improved. Players started calling Shāh! (Persian for King!) when attacking the opponent's king, and Shāh Māt! (Persian for the king is helpless – the original version of checkmate, when the king was attacked and could not escape from the attack). These exclamations persisted in chess as it traveled to other lands.

When the Arabs conquered Persia, the Muslim world took chess up after the Islamic conquest, with the pieces largely keeping their Persian names. Later, it spread to Southern Europe. In Europe, chess evolved into roughly its current form in the 15th century.

Early Changes to the Rules of Chess

The attempts to make the start of the game run faster to get the opposing pieces in contact quickly included:

●  Pawn moving two squares in its first move. This led to the en passant rule: a pawn placed to capture the enemy pawn if it had moved one square forward but was allowed to capture it on the passed square. In Italy, the contrary rule (passar battaglia = to pass battle) applied: a pawn that moved two squares forward had passed the danger of an attack on the intermediate square. It was sometimes not allowed to do this to cover a check.

●  King jumping once to make it quicker to put the king safe in a corner. (This eventually led to castling.)

●  Queen on its first move moving two squares straight or diagonally to a same-colored square, with a jump. (This rule is sometimes also applied to a queen made by promoting a pawn.)

●  The short assize (assize = sitting). Here the pawns started on the third rank, and the queens started on d3 and d6 along with the queens' pawns. The players arranged their other pieces as they wished behind their pawns at the start of the game. This idea did not endure.

Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.

Chess pieces are divided into white and black sets. While the sets may not be literally white and black (e.g., the light set may be a yellowish or off-white color, and the dark set red), they are always referred to as white and black. The pieces are set out as shown in the picture above with the columns (files) marked 1 to 8, and the rows (ranks) marked a to h¸ left to right from white's perspective.

The two players of the sets are also called white and black, respectively. The 64 squares alternate in color and are referred to as light and dark squares. The chessboard is placed with a light square at the right-hand corner nearest to each player. Thus, each queen starts on a square of its own color (the white queen on a light square; the black queen on a dark square).

The Movement of Chess Pieces

In competitive games, the colors are allocated by the organizers; in casual games, the colors are usually given randomly either by a coin toss or by one player concealing a white pawn in one hand and a black