Portal:Chess

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, played on a square board consisting of 64 squares arranged in an 8×8 grid. The players, referred to as "White" and "Black", each control sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns, with each piece type having a different pattern of movement. An enemy piece may be captured (removed from the board) by moving one's own piece onto the square it occupies. The objective of the game is to checkmate (threaten with inescapable capture) the enemy king. There are also several ways a game can end in a draw.

The recorded history of chess dates back to the emergence of chaturanga in 7th-century India. Chaturanga is also thought to be an ancestor of similar games like janggi, xiangqi, and shogi. After its introduction to Persia, it spread to the Arab world and then to Europe. The modern rules of chess emerged in Europe at the end of the 15th century, becoming standardized and gaining universal acceptance by the end of the 19th century. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, with millions of players worldwide.

Organized chess arose in the 19th century. International chess competitions today are governed by FIDE (French: Fédération Internationale des Échecs, 'International Chess Federation'). The first universally recognized World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886; Gukesh Dommaraju is the current World Champion, having won the title in 2024. (Full article...)

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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...)

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General images

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

Image 1A Chess Dispute (1903) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 2Richard Creifelds, c. 1886, The Veterans, Brooklyn Museum (from Chess in the arts)
Image 3Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from History of chess)
Image 4Chess game between Tha'ālibī and Bākhazarī, 1896 painting by Ludwig Deutsch (from History of chess)
Image 5These seven ivory chess pieces are the oldest known, dating to about 700 CE. The ivory came from India. They were excavated in 1977 by archaeologist Yuriy Buryakov, at Afrasiyab in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. They are housed today at the Samarkand State Museum. Photographed during a loan of the pieces to the Silk Roads Exhibition at the British Museum. (from History of chess)
Image 6Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official World Chess Champion (from History of chess)
Image 7Book of the customs of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess (1473) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 8Edward Harrison May, 1867, Lady Howe mating Benjamin Franklin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 9Antonis Mor, 1549, Von Sachsen vs. a Spaniard (from Chess in the arts)
Image 10Lucas van Leyden, c. 1508, The Game of Chess, oil on oak, 27 x 35 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 11Final match of the 1575 tournament in El Escorial. Painting by Luigi Mussini. (from History of chess)
Image 12Stamp of the USSR devoted to the accomplished Estonian player and analyst Paul Keres, 1991 (from History of chess)
Image 13Bobby Fischer vs. Mikhail Tal (from History of chess)
Image 14Iranian shatranj set, glazed fritware, 12th century, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (from History of chess)
Image 15Bauhaus chess set by Josef Hartwig (from Chess in the arts)
Image 16Two Georgian writers, Ilia Chavchavadze and Ivane Machabeli, playing chess in Saint Petersburg, 1873 (from Chess in the arts)
Image 17Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from Chess in the arts)
Image 18Liberale da Verona, The Chess Players, c. 1475 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 19Krishna and Radha playing chaturanga on an 8×8 ashtāpada (from History of chess)
Image 20Zulfi Bhutto gifted this carved ivory set to Gerald Ford in 1975. (from Chess in the arts)
Image 21Some 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 22Shams-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 23Karel van Mander, 1600 (attributed to), Les joueurs d'échecs (from Chess in the arts)
Image 24RZA at a Hip Hop Chess Federation Tournament (from Chess in the arts)
Image 25Honoré Daumier, 1863, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 26Hans Muelich, 1552, Duke Albrecht V. of Bavaria and his wife Anna of Austria playing chess (from Chess in the arts)
Image 27World Champions José Raúl Capablanca (left) and Emanuel Lasker in 1925 (from History of chess)
Image 28John Lavery, 1929, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 29Pieces designed by Man Ray (from Chess in the arts)
Image 30Sofonisba Anguissola, The Chess Game, 1555, National Museum, Poznań, Poland (from Chess in the arts)
Image 31Paris Bordone, c. 1545, Chess players, oil on canvas, Mailand, Wohnhaus (from Chess in the arts)
Image 32Iranian courtiers of the Qajar dynasty playing chess in Mazandaran (from History of chess)
Image 33Niccolò di Pietro, 1413–15, The Conversion of Saint Augustin, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon (from Chess in the arts)
Image 34Cocowood chess set (Philippine craft) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 35An 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 36Animation of the Immortal Game, in which Adolf Anderssen, playing White, beat Lionel Kieseritzky in June 1851 (from History of chess)
Image 37The 12th-century Lewis chessmen in the collection of the National Museum of Scotland (from History of chess)
Image 38Persian manuscript from the 14th century describing how an ambassador from India brought chess to the Persian court (from History of chess)
Image 39Thomas Eakins, 1876, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)

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FIDE world ranking

Rank	Player	Rating
1	Magnus Carlsen	2823
2	Hikaru Nakamura	2792
3	Fabiano Caruana	2784
4	Javokhir Sindarov	2782
5	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	2780
6	Wesley So	2770
7	R Praggnanandhaa	2763
8	Vincent Keymer	2761
9	Wei Yi	2758
10	Alireza Firouzja	2757
11	Anish Giri	2752
12	Arjun Erigaisi	2746
13	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	2741
14	Viswanathan Anand	2739
15	Leinier Domínguez	2732
16	Lê Quang Liêm	2732
17	Yağız Kaan Erdoğmuş	2731
18	Amin Tabatabaei	2728
19	Levon Aronian	2725
20	Ding Liren	2723

Did you know...

... that there have been attempts to make chess an Olympic sport since at least 1924?
... that the Chess World Cup 1988–1989 featured a game of human chess between Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman?

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