(169) AN INTRODUCTION TO CHESS

CHESS HAS become one of the most challenging sports in the world and learning it may take only a few minutes but the tactics and strategies of the game will take some time.

Practice and natural talent will help you to improve your game rapidly. For those who don't know the game yet, here are the rules of the game:

CHESS BOARD AND MEN (Starting position of the game with letters abcdefgh at the bottom of each square and numbers 12345678 at the left side).

The board is always placed so that the players have a light-colored square on their lower right. Each player has 16 men: one King, one Queen, two Bishops, two Knights, two Rooks and 8 pawns.

The player with the white pieces always begins the game. The players alternate in moving a man from one square to another. The algebraic notation is best suited to describe these moves in a simple, concise manner and it is being used internationally. Only the first letter of he pieces is given -- K for King, Q for Queen, R for Rook, B for Bishop and N for Knight.

HOW THE MEN MOVE AND CAPTURE:

Each chessmen has his own individual way of moving, and with the exception of the pawn, the pieces capture the same way as they move. The Bishop moves diagonally, the Rook, horizontally and vertically and the Knight moves like the letter L. When a knight is in light color, he always move to the opposite color. And it is the only piece that can "jump over" the other men.

The queen combines the power of Rook and Bishop. She has the choice of moving diagonally, vertically and horizontally. She is the most powerful piece of all.

The pawn can go only straight forward. He can move only one square at a time, except on his first move, when he can advance either one or two squares. The pawn is the only man who does not capture the same way as he moves. His capture that is called "en passant" (ep) or in passing, needs specific example.

Let say there is a black pawn on a4 square and white moves his b pawn 2 squares. The black "a" pawn can capture the "b" pawn on b3 square.

It was adopted by the European chess players when they introduced the double step of the pawn some 486 years ago.

After reaching the opposite edge of the board, a Pawn would be unable to move. To avoid this, a rule provides that a player who advances a Pawn to the opposite side must exchange him for a Queen or Rook or Bishop or Knight. This is called promoting a Pawn, or queening him, as in most cases a player would choose a Queen. However, there are some cases in which promotion to a Queen would be inadvisable, or could even lose a game!

If a player still has a Queen, he can still promote his Pawn to a Queen and can have as many as 9 queens. There are only 2 serious games on record in which 5 queens were in action, one played in 1896 and the other in 1915.

The King, the most important of them all, can move in any direction like the Queen, but only one step at a time. When the King is checked and there is no other way to get him out of check, he is said to be checkmated. This ends the game, the King is never actually captured.

HOW GAMES ARE RECORDED:

It is advisable to use the Algebraic instead of English or descriptive notation. Pawn moves are letters abcdefgh. So if white starts 1. e4 it means that the pawn on e square moved to the 4th square. Instead of writing in 1. P-K4, e4 is easier and space saving. 0-0 is castling on kingside and 0-0-0 is castling on queenside.

The symbol x denotes captures. Check is abbreviated +, double check is ++.

So let's try if you can play this game on the chessboard by following these notations: (It was played in London, 1913) 1. f4 e5 2. fxe5 d6 3. exd6 Bxd6 4. g3 Qg5 5. Nf3? Qxg3! 6. hxg3 Bxg3#.

MORE SYMBOLS: ? is mistake; ! is good move; # is mate.

ANOTHER SHORT GAME: (Rudolp vs. Kelin, 1912) 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. d4 Qh4 5. Kf1 Bb6 6. Nf3 Qd8 7. Bf4 Ne7 8. Ng5 0-0 9. Qh5 h6 10. Bxf7+ Kh8 11. Qxh6+! gxh6 12. Be5#

Next issue, more games, International Chess Federation (FIDE) rules, more basic tactics and strategies, chess puzzles and more.

Keep practicing and remember, in chess, THE SLOWER YOU MOVE, THE FASTER YOU'LL LEARN!

Smile! And say "CHESS".

Source: An Introduction to chess by Roberto Hernandez
Island Times
March 15-21, 2007