Chess strategy is the aspect of chess playing concerned with evaluation of chess positions and setting of goals and long-term plans for future play. While evaluating a position strategically, a player must take into account such factors as the relative value of the pieces on the board, pawn structure, king safety, position of pieces, and control of key squares and groups of squares. Chess strategy is distinguished from chess tactics, which is the aspect of play concerned with the move-by-move setting up of threats and defenses. Some authors distinguish static strategic imbalances, which tend to persist for many moves, from dynamic imbalances, which are temporary. This distinction affects the immediacy with which a sought-after plan should take effect. Until players reach the skill level of "master", chess tactics tend to ultimately decide the outcomes of games more often than strategy does. Many chess coaches thus emphasize the study of tactics as the most efficient way to improve one's results in serious chess play.
The pawn (♙,♟) is the most numerous piece in the game of chess, and in most circumstances, also the weakest. It historically represents infantry, or more particularly, armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins a game with eight pawns, one on each square of the rank immediately in front of the other pieces.
In chess, a fork is a tactic whereby a single piece makes two or more direct attacks simultaneously. Most commonly two pieces are threatened, which is also sometimes called a double attack. The attacker usually aims to gain material by capturing one of the opponent's pieces. The defender often finds it difficult to counter two or more threats in a single move. The attacking piece is called the forking piece; the pieces attacked are said to be forked. A piece that is defended can still be said to be forked if the forking piece has a lower value.
In chess, a pin is a situation brought on by an attacking piece in which a defending piece cannot move without exposing a more valuable defending piece on its other side to capture by the attacking piece. Moving the attacking piece to bring on the pin is called pinning; the defending piece so restricted is described as pinned.
The rules of chess are rules governing the play of the game of chess. While the exact origins of chess are unclear, modern rules first took form during the Middle Ages. The rules continued to be slightly modified until the early 19th century, when they reached essentially their current form. The rules also varied somewhat from place to place. Today, the standard rules are set by FIDE, the international governing body for chess. Slight modifications are made by some national organizations for their own purposes. There are variations of the rules for fast chess, correspondence chess, online chess, and Chess960.
This page explains commonly used terms in chess in alphabetical order. Some of these 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 chess-related games, see List of chess variants.
Madrasi chess is a chess variant invented in 1979 by Abdul Jabbar Karwatkar. The game uses the conventional rules of chess with the addition that when a piece is attacked by a piece of the same type but opposite colour it is paralysed and becomes unable to move, capture or give check.
In chess, a back-rank checkmate is a checkmate delivered by a rook or queen along a back rank in which the mated king is unable to move up the board because the king is blocked by friendly pieces on the second rank. A typical position is shown to the right.
A check is a condition in chess, shogi, xiangqi, and janggi that occurs when a player's king is under threat of capture on their opponent's next turn. A king so threatened is said to be in check. A player must get out of check, if possible, by interposing a piece between the threatening piece and the king, capturing the threatening piece, or moving the king to a square where it is no longer in check. If the player cannot move out of check, the game ends in checkmate and the player loses. Players cannot make any move that puts their own king in check.
The two knights endgame is a chess endgame with a king and two knights versus a king. In contrast to a king plus two bishops, or a bishop and a knight, a king and two knights cannot force checkmate against a lone king. Although there are checkmate positions, the superior side cannot force them against proper defense.
A pure mate is a checkmating position in chess in which the mated king and all vacant squares in its field are attacked only once, and squares in the king's field occupied by friendly units are not also attacked by the mating side.
In chess, a sacrifice is a move giving up a piece with the objective of gaining tactical or positional compensation in other forms. A sacrifice could also be a deliberate exchange of a chess piece of higher value for an opponent's piece of lower value.
Tsume shogi or tsume (詰め) is the Japanese term for a shogi miniature problem in which the goal is to checkmate the opponent's king. Tsume problems present a situation that might occur in a shogi game, and the solver must find out how to achieve checkmate. It is similar to a chess problem.
A pawnless chess endgame is a chess endgame in which only a few pieces remain and none of them is a pawn. The basic checkmates are types of pawnless endgames. Endgames without pawns do not occur very often in practice except for the basic checkmates of king and queen versus king, king and rook versus king, and queen versus rook. Other cases that occur occasionally are (1) a rook and minor piece versus a rook and (2) a rook versus a minor piece, especially if the minor piece is a bishop.
In the tactics and strategy in the board game of chess, an exchange (exchanging) or trade (trading) of chess pieces is series of closely related moves, typically sequential, in which the two players capture each other's pieces. Any types of pieces except the kings may possibly be exchanged, i.e. captured in an exchange, although a king can capture an opponent's piece. Either the player of the white or the black pieces may make the first capture of the other player's piece in an exchange, followed by the other player capturing a piece of the first player, often referred to as a recapture. Commonly, the word "exchange" is used when the pieces exchanged are of the same type or of about equal value, which is an even exchange. According to chess tactics, a bishop and a knight are usually of about equal value. If the values of the pieces exchanged are not equal, then the player who captures the higher value of piece(s) can be said to be up the exchange or wins the exchange, while the opponent who captures the lower value of piece(s) is down the exchange or loses the exchange. Exchanges occur very frequently in chess, in almost every game and usually multiple times per game. Exchanges are often related to the tactics or strategy in a chess game, but often simply occur over the course of a game.
Omega Chess is a commercial chess variant designed by Daniel MacDonald. The game is played on a 10×10 board with four extra squares, one added diagonally adjacent to the corner squares. The game is laid out like standard chess with the addition of a champion in each corner of the 10×10 board and a wizard in each new added square.
In chess, several checkmate patterns occur frequently, or are otherwise of such interest to scholars, so as to have acquired specific names in chess commentary. The diagrams that follow show these checkmates with White checkmating Black.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to chess:
The camel is a fairy chess piece that moves like an elongated knight. When it moves, it can jump to a square that is three squares horizontally and one square vertically, or three squares vertically and one square horizontally, regardless of intervening pieces; thus, it is a (1,3)-leaper.
