The Probert Encyclopaedia of Recreation

CHESS

Chess is a well-known game of great antiquity and of eastern origin, having probably arisen in India, and thence spread through Persia and Arabia to Europe. The name itself as well as many of the terms used in the game are clearly of eastern origin, the word chess being formed from the old French eschecs, from Persian shah, a king; rook is from the Sanskrit roka, meaning a ship or chariot; checkmate from Persian shah mat, the king is dead.

The game is played by two persons on a board which consists of sixty-four squares arranged in eight rows of eight squares each, alternately black and white. Each player has sixteen men, eight of which, known as pawns, are of the lowest grade; the other eight, called pieces, are of various grades. They are, on each side, king and queen; two bishops, two knights, and two rooks or castles. The board must be placed so that each player shall have a white square to his right hand. The men are then set upon the two rows of squares next to the players; the pieces on the first, the pawns on the second row, leaving between each side four unoccupied rows. The king and queen occupy the central squares facing the corresponding pieces on the opposite side. The queen always occupies her own colour, white queen on white square, black on black. The two bishops occupy the squares next the king and queen; the two knights the squares next the bishops; the rooks the last or corner squares. The pawns fill indiscriminately the squares of the second or front row.

The men standing on the king's or queen's side of the board. are named respectively king's and queen's men. Thus king's bishop or knight is the bishop or knight on the side of the king. The pawns are named from the pieces in front of which they stand; king's pawn, king's knight's pawn, queen's rook's pawn, etc. The names of the men are contracted as follows:-King, K.; King's Bishop, K.B.; King's Knight, K.Kt.; King's Rook, K.R.; Queen, Q.; Queen's Bishop, Q.B.; Queen's Knight, Q. Kt.; Queen's Rook, Q.R. The pawns are contracted: K.P., Q.P., K.B.P., Q.Kt.P., etc.

The board is divided, inversely from the position of each player, into eight rows and eight files. Counting from White's right hand to his left, or from Black's left to his right, each file is named from the piece which occupies its first square, and counting inversely from the position of each player to that of the other, the rows are numbered from 1 to 8. At White's right-hand corner we have thus K.R. square;
immediately above this K.R. 2; and so on to K.R. 8, which completes the file; the second file begins with K.Kt. square on the first row, and ends with K.Kt. 8 on the eighth. White's K.R. 8 and K.Kt. 8 are thus black's K.R. square and K.Kt. square, and the moves of each player are described throughout from his own position, in inverse order to the moves of his opponent.

In chess all the men capture by occupying the position of the captured man, which is removed from the board. The ordinary move of the Pawn is straight forward in the same file; a pawn never moves backward. The first time a Pawn is moved it may be played forward one square or two; afterwards only one square at a time. But in capturing an adverse piece the Pawn moves diagonally to occupy the position of thy captured man. Thus if White open a game by playing P. to K. 4 and Black answers P. to K. 4, the pawns are immovable; but if White now plays P. to K.B. 4 or P. to Q. 4, Black may capture the Pawn last advanced. Pawns have another mode of capture peculiar to themselves, and only available against pawns. If Black's Pawn, instead of occupying K. 4, stood on K. 5, and White played P. to Q. 4, Black could not capture it by placing his Pawn on the square it occupies, which would be a false move; but he is at liberty to make the capture by placing his own Pawn on the square passed over by White's (Q. 6). This is called taking en passant.

When a Pawn, by moving or capturing, reaches the eighth square of any file it can no longer remain a Pawn, but must at once be exchanged for a piece. The player may choose any piece except the king, but the queen, the most valuable piece, is generally the piece chosen. This is called queening a pawn, and a player may thus have several queens on the board.

The moves of the Rook are not, like those of the pawns, limited to a single direction. The Rook moves in any direction and for any distance that is open along either the particular row or the file on which it happens to stand. It can, of course, capture any obstructing man and occupy its place.

The Bishops, like the Rooks, are unlimited in range, and move either backward or forward, but their direction is diagonal, and they can never change the colour of their square.

The Queen combines the moves of the Rook and Bishop. She is the most powerful piece on the board, and can move to, or capture at, any distance or direction in a straight line.

The King is at once the weakest and the most valuable piece on the board. In point of direction he is as free as the queen, but for distance he is limited to the adjacent squares. Standing on any central square he commands the eight squares around him and no more. Besides his ordinary move the King. has another by special privilege, in which the Rook participates. Once in the game, if the squares between King and Rook are clear, if neither King nor Rook has moved, if the King is not attacked by any hostile man, and if no hostile man commands the square over which King has to pass, the King may move two squares towards either K.R. or Q.R., and the Rook in the same move must occupy the square over which the King has passed. This is called castling.

The Knight, unlike the other pieces, never moves in a straight line. His move is limited to two squares at a time, one forwards or backwards, and one diagonally, and he can leap over any man occupying a square intermediate to that to which he intends to go. The Knight, like the King, when on a central square commands eight squares, but they are at two squares' distance, and all in an oblique direction. All captures in chess are optional.

The definite aim in chess is the reduction to surrender of the opposing king. The King in chess is supposed to be inviolable, that is, he cannot be taken, he can only be in such a position that if it were any other piece it would be taken. Notice of every direct attack upon him must be given by the adversary saying check and when the King is attached all other plans must be abandoned, and all other men sacrificed, if necessary, to remove him from danger, cover the attack, or capture the assailant. It is also a fundamental rule of the game that the King cannot be moved into check. When the King can no longer be defended on being checked by the adversary, either by moving him out of danger, or by interposing, or by capture, the game is lost, and the adversary announces this by saying checkmate. When, by inadvertence or want of skill, the player having the superior force blocks up his opponent's King so that he cannot move without going into check, and no other man can be moved without exposing him, the player, reduced to this extremity, cannot, without violating the fundamental rule referred to, play at all. In such a case, the one player being unable to play and the other out of turn, the game is considered drawn, that is, concluded without advantage to either player.
Research Chess