A chess club is a club formed for the purpose of playing the board game of chess. Chess clubs often provide for both informal and tournament games and sometimes offer league play. Traditionally clubs play over the board and face to face chess as opposed to playing on internet chess servers or computer chess.
Clubs are mainly attached to a national federation, either directly or through membership of a regional chess association. The national federation in turn is a member of FIDE, the international governing body of chess. The global aegis helps to establish uniformity of rules and playing conditions internationally, though some countries such as the United States use their own official set of rules with minor differences from FIDE rules. The United States has many chess clubs affiliated with the United States Chess Federation (USCF). A club's affiliation with its national chess federation helps to standardize chess tournament rules.
Chess clubs typically provide at least some of the following:
Chess is a board game for two players. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to distinguish it from related games such as xiangqi and shogi.
The rules of chess govern the play of the game of chess. Chess is a two-player abstract strategy board game. Each player controls sixteen pieces of six types on a chessboard. Each type of piece moves in a distinct way. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king; checkmate occurs when a king is threatened with capture and has no escape. A game can end in various ways besides checkmate: a player can resign, and there are several ways a game can end in a draw.
The Internet Chess Club (ICC) is a commercial Internet chess server devoted to the play and discussion of chess and chess variants. ICC had over 30,000 subscribing members in 2005. It was the first Internet chess server and was the largest pay to play chess server in 2005.
This glossary of chess explains commonly used terms in chess, in alphabetical order. Some of these terms have their own pages, like fork and pin. For a list of unorthodox chess pieces, see Fairy chess piece; for a list of terms specific to chess problems, see Glossary of chess problems; for a list of named opening lines, see List of chess openings; for a list of chess-related games, see List of chess variants; for a list of terms general to board games, see Glossary of board games.
Correspondence chess is chess played by various forms of long-distance correspondence, traditionally through the postal system. Today it is usually played through a correspondence chess server, a public internet chess forum, or email. Less common methods that have been employed include fax, homing pigeon and phone. It is in contrast to over-the-board (OTB) chess, where the players sit at a physical chessboard at the same time; and most online chess, where the players play each other in real time over the internet. However, correspondence chess can also be played online.
The United States Chess Federation is the governing body for chess competition in the United States and represents the U.S. in The World Chess Federation (FIDE). USCF administers the official national rating system, awards national titles, sanctions over twenty national championships annually, and publishes two magazines: Chess Life and Chess Life Kids. The USCF was founded and incorporated in Illinois in 1939, from the merger of two older chess organizations. It is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Its membership as of 2020 as COVID hit was 97,000; as of 2024 the membership was 112,000.
The Free Internet Chess Server (FICS) is a volunteer-run Internet chess server. It was organised as a free alternative to the Internet Chess Club (ICC), after that site began charging for membership.
Timur Gareyev is an Uzbekistani and American chess grandmaster.
The Australian Chess Federation (ACF) is dedicated to promoting the game of chess in Australia, and is a member of FIDE, the World Chess Federation.
Ray Robson is an American chess player. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 2010. Robson fulfilled the requirements for the title in 2009 at the age of 14 years, 11 months and 16 days, making him the youngest ever United States Grandmaster at the time.
Cheating in chess is a deliberate violation of the rules of chess or other behaviour that is intended to give an unfair advantage to a player or team. Cheating can occur in many forms and can take place before, during, or after a game. Commonly cited instances of cheating include: collusion with spectators or other players, use of chess engines during play, rating manipulation, and violations of the touch-move rule. Many suspiciously motivated practices are not comprehensively covered by the rules of chess.
Fabiano Luigi Caruana is an Italian and American chess grandmaster who is the reigning three-time United States Chess Champion. With a peak rating of 2844, Caruana is the third-highest-rated player in history.
A chess title is a title regulated by a chess governing body and bestowed upon players based on their performance and rank. Such titles are usually granted for life. The international chess governing body FIDE grants several titles, the most prestigious of which is Grandmaster; many national chess federations also grant titles such as "National Master". More broadly, the term "master" can refer to any highly skilled chess player.
A chess tournament is a series of chess games played competitively to determine a winning individual or team. Since the first international chess tournament in London, 1851, chess tournaments have become the standard form of chess competition among multiple serious players.
A chess rating system is a system used in chess to estimate the strength of a player, based on their performance versus other players. They are used by organizations such as FIDE, the US Chess Federation, International Correspondence Chess Federation, and the English Chess Federation. Most of the systems are used to recalculate ratings after a tournament or match but some are used to recalculate ratings after individual games. Popular online chess sites such as Chess.com, Lichess, and Internet Chess Club also implement rating systems. In almost all systems, a higher number indicates a stronger player. In general, players' ratings go up if they perform better than expected and down if they perform worse than expected. The magnitude of the change depends on the rating of their opponents. The Elo rating system is currently the most widely used. The Elo-like ratings systems have been adopted in many other contexts, such as other games like Go, in online competitive gaming, and in dating apps.
The 40th Chess Olympiad, organised by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, was an international team chess event that took place in Istanbul, Turkey, from 27 August to 10 September 2012. The city also hosted the event in 2000.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to chess:
The 42nd Chess Olympiad, organised by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) and comprising an open and women's tournaments, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, was an international team chess event held in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 1 to 14 September 2016. It was the first time that the Chess Olympiad had been hosted in Azerbaijan, the birthplace of former world champion Garry Kasparov; however, Azerbaijan had previously hosted strong tournaments, including the annual Shamkir Chess super-tournament in memory of Vugar Gashimov (1986–2014) and the Chess World Cup 2015.
The 43rd Chess Olympiad, organised by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) and comprising open and women's tournaments, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, was an international team chess event held in Batumi, Georgia, from 23 September to 6 October 2018. This was the first Chess Olympiad to take place in Georgia with the Georgian Chess Federation also hosting the Chess World Cup 2017 in Tbilisi.
The 45th Chess Olympiad is an international team chess event organised by the International Chess Federation (FIDE) in Budapest, Hungary from 10 to 23 September 2024. It is the first Chess Olympiad that takes place in Hungary since Budapest hosted the 2nd unofficial Chess Olympiad in 1926.
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