Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to distinguish it from related games, such as xiangqi and shogi. The recorded history of chess goes back at least to the emergence of a similar game, chaturanga, in fourth through sixth century India. The rules of chess as we know them today emerged in Europe at the end of the 15th century, with standardization and universal acceptance by the end of the 19th century. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide.
A chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by the composer using chess pieces on a chess board, which presents the solver with a particular task. For instance, a position may be given with the instruction that White is to move first, and checkmate Black in two moves against any possible defence. A chess problem fundamentally differs from over-the-board play in that the latter involves a struggle between Black and White, whereas the former involves a competition between the composer and the solver. Most positions which occur in a chess problem are 'unrealistic' in the sense that they are very unlikely to occur in over-the-board play. There is a good deal of specialized jargon used in connection with chess problems.
Milan R. Vukcevich was a Yugoslav-American chemist, a grandmaster of chess problem composition and writer.
John Denis Martin Nunn is an English chess grandmaster, a three-time world champion in chess problem solving, a chess writer and publisher, and a mathematician. He is one of England's strongest chess players and was formerly in the world's top ten.
Genrikh Kasparyan was a Soviet chess player. He is considered to have been one of the greatest composers of chess endgame studies. Outside Armenia, he is better known by the Russian version of his name Genrikh Moiseyevich Kasparyan or Kasparian.
Colin Anderson McNab is a Scottish chess player. He is Scotland's second player to be awarded the title of Grandmaster (GM), fulfilling its requirements in 1992 just after Paul Motwani. After achieving his three norms, he strained to get his rating up to the required 2500 level, and is possibly unique among Grandmasters in only achieving a published rating of 2500 some six years after being awarded the title. The FIDE regulations in force at the time stated that an 'intermediate' rating at any stage during an event would suffice, and that ratings between 2498.5 and 2500 would be rounded up, which is indeed what happened in 1992. He is also an International Master of correspondence chess since 1993 and International Master of chess problem solving since 2007.
Yuri Lvovich Averbakh was a Russian chess grandmaster and author. He was chairman of the USSR Chess Federation from 1973 to 1978. He was the first centenarian FIDE Grandmaster. Despite his eyesight and hearing having worsened, by his 100th birthday he continued to devote time to chess-related activities.
The FIDE Albums are publications of the world chess governing body, FIDE, via the Permanent Commission of the FIDE for Chess Compositions (PCCC), containing the best chess problems and studies of a certain period.
Hrvoje (Vojko) Bartolović, was a Croatian chess problemist.
Gia Nadareishvili was a Soviet chess composer of Georgian nationality, and author of many books on chess studies.
In chess composition, a motif is basic element of a move in the consideration why the piece moves and how it supports the fulfillment of a stipulation. Any move may and often does contain multiple motifs. Some composition schools put specific emphasis on motivation in chess problems, especially strategical school and Slovak school.
Vitaly Alexandrovich Chekhover was a Soviet chess player and chess composer. He was also a pianist.
Franz Pachl is a German chess grandmaster of the FIDE. He was also German champion of minigolf.
Solving chess consists of finding an optimal strategy for the game of chess; that is, one by which one of the players can always force a victory, or either can force a draw. It is also related to more generally solving chess-like games, such as Capablanca chess and infinite chess.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to chess:
Marian Wróbel was a prominent Polish chess problemist of the mid-twentieth century. Between 1947 and 1950 he was considered the leading chess composer in the world. During his lifetime he published more than 1,000 problems and was a FIDE International Master of Chess Composition.
Peter Gvozdják is a Slovak chess composer.
Andrzej Piotr Ruszczyński is a Polish-American applied mathematician, noted for his contributions to mathematical optimization, in particular, stochastic programming and risk-averse optimization.
Kari Valtonen is a Finnish chess problemist.
