CHESS

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.
Each player begins the game with sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. Each of the six piece types moves differently. Pieces are used to attack and capture the opponent's pieces, with the object of the game being to 'checkmate' the opponent's king by placing it under an inescapable threat of capture. In addition to checkmate, the game can be won by the voluntary resignation of one's opponent, which typically occurs when too much material is lost, or if checkmate appears unavoidable. A game may also result in a draw in several ways, where neither player wins. The course of the game is divided into three phases: opening, middlegame and endgame.
The first official World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886; the current World Champion is Viswanathan Anand. In addition to the World Championship, there are the Women's World Championship, the Junior World Championship, the World Senior Championship, the Correspondence Chess World Championship, the World Computer Chess Championship, and Blitz and Rapid World Championships. The Chess Olympiad is a popular competition among teams from different nations. Online chess has opened amateur and professional competition to a wide and varied group of players. Chess is a recognized sport of the International Olympic Committee, and international chess competition is sanctioned by the World Chess Federation. There are also many chess variants, with different rules, different pieces, and different boards.
Since the second half of the 20th century, computers have been programmed to play chess with increasing success, to the point where home computers can play chess at a very high level. In the past two decades computer analysis has contributed significantly to chess theory as understood by human players, particularly in the endgame. The computer Deep Blue was the first machine player to overcome a reigning World Chess Champion when it defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997.

Chess Board Setup:-

Now that you have a basic concept for the object of the chess game, the next step is to get the the chessboard and chess pieces setup according to the rules of playing chess. Lets start with the chess pieces. The 16 chess pieces are made up of 1 King, 1 queen, 2 bishops, 2 knights, 2 rooks, and 8 pawns. From the following diagram, you can identify the pieces and the general character of their shape and appearance and also the location or square the chess pieces start from according to the chess rules. Now the chessboard. The correct orientation, as per the chess rules, is with a black square on your left side as facing the chess board. One of the more common mistakes in setting up the chess board is reversing the king and queen chess pieces. Remember, as per the chess rules, the queen is always on her own color while the king is always on the opposite color.

History:-

Predecessors

Chess is believed to have originated in northwest India during the Gupta empire, where its early form in the 6th century was known as chaturaṅga (Sanskrit: four divisions [of the military] – infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariotry, represented by the pieces that would evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, respectively). According to both Chess historians Gerhard Josten and Isaak Linder "the early beginnings" of chess can be traced back to the Kushan Empire in Ancient Afghanistan (G. Josten, Chess - a living fossil). The earliest evidence of chess is found in the neighboring Sassanid Persia around 600, where the game came to be known by the name chatrang. Chatrang is evoked in three epic romances written in Pahlavi (Middle Persian). Chatrang was taken up by the Muslim world after the Islamic conquest of Persia (633–644), where it was then named shatranj, with the pieces largely retaining their Persian names. In Spanish "shatranj" was rendered as ajedrez ("al-shatranj"), in Portuguese as xadrez, and in Greek as ζατρίκιον (zatrikion, which comes directly from the Persian chatrang), but in the rest of Europe it was replaced by versions of the Persian shāh ("king"), which was familiar as an exclamation and became the English words "check" and "chess".Murray theorized that Muslim traders came to European seaports with ornamental chess kings as curios before they brought the game of chess.

The game reached Western Europe and Russia by at least three routes, the earliest being in the 9th century. By the year 1000 it had spread throughout Europe.Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 10th century, it was described in a famous 13th-century manuscript covering shatranj, backgammon, and dice named the Libro de los juegos. Another theory contends that chess arose from the game xiangqi (Chinese Chess) or one of its predecessors, although this has been contested.

Origins of the modern game (1000–1850)

Around 1200, the rules of shatranj started to be modified in southern Europe, and around 1475, several major changes made the game essentially as it is known today. These modern rules for the basic moves had been adopted in Italy and Spain.Pawns gained the option of advancing two squares on their first move, while bishops and queens acquired their modern abilities. The queen replaced the earlier vizier chess piece towards the end of the 10th century and by the 15th century had become the most powerful piece; consequently modern chess was referred to as "Queen's Chess" or "Mad Queen Chess". These new rules quickly spread throughout western Europe. The rules about stalemate were finalized in the early 19th century. To distinguish it from its predecessors, this version of the rules is sometimes referred to as western chess or international chess.

In the 18th century, the center of European chess life moved from the Southern European countries to France. The two most important French masters were François-André Danican Philidor, a musician by profession, who discovered the importance of pawns for chess strategy, and later Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais, who won a famous series of matches with the Irish master Alexander McDonnell in 1834. Centers of chess activity in this period were coffee houses in big European cities like Café de la Régence in Paris and Simpson's Divan in London.

As the 19th century progressed, chess organization developed quickly. Many chess clubs, chess books, and chess journals appeared. There were correspondence matches between cities; for example, the London Chess Club played against the Edinburgh Chess Club in 1824. Chess problems became a regular part of 19th-century newspapers; Bernhard Horwitz, Josef Kling, and Samuel Loyd composed some of the most influential problems. In 1843, von der Lasa published his and Bilguer's Handbuch des Schachspiels (Handbook of Chess), the first comprehensive manual of chess theory.

Birth of a sport (1850–1945)

The "Immortal Game", Anderssen–Kieseritzky, 1851

The first modern chess tournament was organized by Howard Staunton, a leading English chess player, and was held in London in 1851. It was won by the relatively unknown German Adolf Anderssen, who was hailed as the leading chess master, and his brilliant, energetic attacking style became typical for the time, although it was later regarded as strategically shallow.Sparkling games like Anderssen's Immortal game and Evergreen game or Morphy's Opera game were regarded as the highest possible summit of the chess art.

Deeper insight into the nature of chess came with two younger players. American Paul Morphy, an extraordinary chess prodigy, won against all important competitors (except Howard Staunton, who refused to play), including Anderssen, during his short chess career between 1857 and 1863. Morphy's success stemmed from a combination of brilliant attacks and sound strategy; he intuitively knew how to prepare attacks.Prague-born Wilhelm Steinitz later described how to avoid weaknesses in one's own position and how to create and exploit such weaknesses in the opponent's position. The scientific approach and positional understanding of Steinitz revolutionized the game. Steinitz was the first to break a position down into its components. Before Steinitz, players brought their queen out early, did not completely develop their other pieces, and mounted a quick attack on the opposing king, which either succeeded or failed. The level of defense was poor and players did not form any deep plan. In addition to his theoretical achievements, Steinitz founded an important tradition: his triumph over the leading German master Johannes Zukertort in 1886 is regarded as the first official World Chess Championship. Steinitz lost his crown in 1894 to a much younger player, the German mathematician Emanuel Lasker, who maintained this title for 27 years, the longest tenure of all World Champions.

Chess Players in late 19th Century Istanbul, by Stanisław Chlebowski

After the end of the 19th century, the number of master tournaments and matches held annually quickly grew. Some sources state that in 1914 the title of chess grandmaster was first formally conferred by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia to Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch, and Marshall, but this is a disputed claim.The tradition of awarding such titles was continued by the World Chess Federation (FIDE), founded in 1924 in Paris. In 1927, the Women's World Chess Championship was established; the first to hold the title was Czech-English master Vera Menchik. It took a prodigy from Cuba, José Raúl Capablanca (World Champion 1921–27), who loved simple positions and endgames, to end the German-speaking dominance in chess; he was undefeated in tournament play for eight years, until 1924. His successor was Russian-French Alexander Alekhine, a strong attacking player who died as the World champion in 1946. He briefly lost the title to Dutch player Max Euwe in 1935 and regained it two years later.

Between the world wars, chess was revolutionized by the new theoretical school of so-called hypermodernists like Aron Nimzowitsch and Richard Réti. They advocated controlling the center of the board with distant pieces rather than with pawns, which invited opponents to occupy the center with pawns, which become objects of attack.

Movement:-

White always moves first. After the initial move, the players alternately move one piece at a time (with the exception of castling, when two pieces are moved). Pieces are moved to either an unoccupied square or one occupied by an opponent's piece, which is captured and removed from play. With the sole exception of en passant, all pieces capture opponent's pieces by moving to the square that the opponent's piece occupies. A player may not make any move that would put or leave his king under attack. If the player to move has no legal moves, the game is over; it is either a checkmate—if the king is under attack—or a stalemate—if the king is not.

Each chess piece has its own style of moving. In the diagrams, the dots mark the squares where the piece can move if no other pieces (including one's own piece) are on the squares between the piece's initial position and its destination.

The king moves one square in any direction. The king has also a special move which is called castling and involves also moving a rook.
The rook can move any number of squares along any rank or file, but may not leap over other pieces. Along with the king, the rook is involved during the king's castling move.
The bishop can move any number of squares diagonally, but may not leap over other pieces.
The queen combines the power of the rook and bishop and can move any number of squares along rank, file, or diagonal, but it may not leap over other pieces.
The knight moves to any of the closest squares that are not on the same rank, file, or diagonal, thus the move forms an "L"-shape: two squares vertically and one square horizontally, or two squares horizontally and one square vertically. The knight is the only piece that can leap over other pieces.
The pawn may move forward to the unoccupied square immediately in front of it on the same file; or on its first move it may advance two squares along the same file provided both squares are unoccupied; or it may move to a square occupied by an opponent's piece which is diagonally in front of it on an adjacent file, capturing that piece. The pawn has two special moves: the en passant capture and pawn promotion.

king moves

queen moves

bishop moves

knight moves

pawn moves

rook moves

Chess Board Notation:-

Those that take chess pretty seriously, actually keep track of all their moves and record entire games. In order to record moves, someone came up with the smart idea of labeling the columns with letters and the rows with numbers, thus each square is uniquely identified. As you can see, white has a tremendous advantage because he or she doesn't have to look at upside-down numbers and read the alphabet backwards. One of the more important reasons to be the white or light chess players side.

Castling:-

Castling can be a very effective strategy in the defense of your king and providing a safe-haven for him. The act of "castling" involves two chess pieces, the rook and king and there are two different ways to castle. Rather than trying to describe the two methods (which might get confusing), we'll rely on the diagrams below to guide you through the correct moves. Now, there are special rules of chess and conditions that must exist in order to castle. The special conditions are:

Neither of the chess pieces involved, your king or rook that is being castled, have been moved during the chess game.

There are no other chess pieces between the king and the rook involved in the castling.

Your king is not in check and neither your king or rook can be taken by your opponent's next move after castling.

You can castle with either of the rooks as long as these special conditions are met. The moves involved in castling with the Queen side rook are different than castling with king side rook. This is quite natural given that there 2 spaces between the king and rook on the king side and respectively 3 spaces on the queen side. Below are diagrams showing both methods of castling:

For animation click this bellow link :-

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/ChessCastlingMovie_en.svg

En Passant (disambiguation):-

There is a unique chess rule which involves a special move in chess that many casual players are not aware of, the rule is called "en passant". This move involves only pawns and the situation for en passant may or may not occur during a game. But if it does, it's good to know the rule and how to execute the move properly. En passant is limited to a pawn moving from it's original position 2 squares landing adjacent to an opponents pawn. On the very next move and only the next move, this pawn can be captured as illustrated below:

white's move black's move after capture

All pawns of both sides are subject to the en passant rule of chess.

Promotion:-

We have already mentioned promotion of the pawn, but lets review exactly how this happens and what your options are. Promotion occurs when you get a pawn clear across to the other side. In the same move of the pawn reaches a far square, you remove the pawn and replace it with any chess piece you want, that is, except a second king. Even if you already have all of your chess pieces. For example, most people naturally choose a queen. So you can have two queens, and that's quite an advantage. But you can choose some other chess piece if you prefer, it's entirely up to you. Here are a couple of diagrams to illustrate just how promotion works:

before promotion after promotion

For animation click this bellow link :-(En Passant and promotion)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/ChessPawnSpecialMoves.gif

Don't Let Go (until you're sure)!

This is a very important chess rule, when you move your chess piece and let go, you're beyond the point of no return. The move is final. Now, if you move it to a square and keep your finger on top while pondering the genius or folly of the move, it's okay to backtrack and decide on a different move. So be certain about your move before you let go!

Check

You know what checkmate or mate is, but we haven't yet explained the baby brother of checkmate called check. When a king has been attacked and can be taken on the next move but can escape, it is called check. Just like when you announced you were going to castle, it's also considered good manners to tell your opponent he's in check "CHECK". Standing up for the announcement is optional.

The Ending

You know about checkmate, which ends the game, but there are three other possible endings to a game. One possibility is a stalemate or draw, meaning that with the given pieces left on the board, neither player can win. For example, a king against a king. There are no winning possibilities for either side in this situation. Another possible outcome is for one player to resign. A game can become so one-sided (both remaining pieces and position) that the advantage is too great for the other player to overcome. When this happens, the disadvantaged player can simply call "uncle" and give it up. But don't give up too easy, mistakes can always be made. The third possibility is a draw, even though a checkmate is possible.

Competitive play:-

Organization of competitions

Contemporary chess is an organized sport with structured international and national leagues, tournaments, and congresses. Chess's international governing body is FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs). Most countries have a national chess organization as well (such as the US Chess Federation and English Chess Federation) which in turn is a member of FIDE. FIDE is a member of the International Olympic Committee, but the game of chess has never been part of the Olympic Games; chess does have its own Olympiad, held every two years as a team event.

The current World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand (left) playing chess against his predecessor Vladimir Kramnik
The current World Chess Champion is Viswanathan Anand of India. The reigning Women's World Champion is Hou Yifan from China. The world's highest rated female player, Judit Polgár, has never participated in the Women's World Chess Championship, instead preferring to compete with the leading men and maintaining a ranking among the top male players.
Other competitions for individuals include the World Junior Chess Championship, the European Individual Chess Championship, and the National Chess Championships. Invitation-only tournaments regularly attract the world's strongest players. Examples include Spain's Linares event, Monte Carlo's Melody Amber tournament, the Dortmund Sparkassen meeting, Sofia's M-tel Masters, and Wijk aan Zee's Tata Steel tournament.
Regular team chess events include the Chess Olympiad and the European Team Chess Championship. The 38th Chess Olympiad was held 2008 in Dresden, Germany; Armenia won the gold in the unrestricted event for the second time in a row after Turin 2006, and Georgia took the top medal for the women. The World Chess Solving Championship and World Correspondence Chess Championships include both team and individual events.
Besides these prestigious competitions, there are thousands of other chess tournaments, matches, and festivals held around the world every year catering to players of all levels. Chess is promoted as a "mind sport" by the Mind Sports Organisation, alongside other mental-skill games such as Contract Bridge, Go, and Scrabble.

Titles and rankings

Grandmaster Garry Kasparov, former World Chess Champion is considered by many to be the greatest chess player of all time.
The best players can be awarded specific lifetime titles by the world chess organization FIDE:
Grandmaster (shortened as GM; sometimes International Grandmaster or IGM is used) is awarded to world-class chess masters. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain. Before FIDE will confer the title on a player, the player must have an Elo chess rating (see below) of at least 2500 at one time and three favorable results (called norms) in tournaments involving other Grandmasters, including some from countries other than the applicant's. There are other milestones a player can achieve to attain the title, such as winning the World Junior Championship.
International Master (shortened as IM). The conditions are similar to GM, but less demanding. The minimum rating for the IM title is 2400.
FIDE Master (shortened as FM). The usual way for a player to qualify for the FIDE Master title is by achieving a FIDE rating of 2300 or more.
Candidate Master (shortened as CM). Similar to FM, but with a FIDE rating of at least 2200.
All the titles are open to men and women. Separate women-only titles, such as Woman Grandmaster (WGM), are available. Beginning with Nona Gaprindashvili in 1978, a number of women have earned the GM title, and most of the top ten women in 2006 hold the unrestricted GM title.
As of August 2011, there are 1363 active grandmasters and 3153 international masters in the world. Top three countries with the largest numbers of grandmasters are Russia, Ukraine, and Germany, with 208, 78, and 76. The country with most grandmasters per capita is Iceland, with 11 GMs and 13 IMs among the population of 310,000.
International titles are awarded to composers and solvers of chess problems and to correspondence chess players (by the International Correspondence Chess Federation). National chess organizations may also award titles, usually to the advanced players still under the level needed for international titles; an example is the Chess expert title used in the United States.
In order to rank players, FIDE, ICCF, and national chess organizations use the Elo rating system developed by Arpad Elo. Elo is a statistical system based on the assumption that the chess performance of each player in their games is a random variable. Arpad Elo thought of a player's true skill as the average of that player's performance random variable, and showed how to estimate the average from results of player's games. The US Chess Federation implemented Elo's suggestions in 1960, and the system quickly gained recognition as being both fairer and more accurate than older systems; it was adopted by FIDE in 1970. The highest ever FIDE rating was 2851, which Garry Kasparov had on the July 1999 and January 2000 lists.

List of chess grandmasters:-

This is a list of Grandmasters in chess. Grandmaster is a title awarded to world-class chess players by the sport's governing body FIDE. Apart from "World Champion", Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain. Once achieved, the title is held for life. In July 2012 FIDE lists 1367 living Grandmasters.Of these, 1340 are male and 27 are female.

TOP INDIAN GRANDMASTERS:-

Dibyendu Barua

Dibyendu Barua is an Indian Chess Player, and famous for being the Second Grandmaster from India, only to follow the legendry Vishwanathan Anand. Although he showed a lot of promising capabilities in the initial phase of his career, Barua somehow couldn’t impress much with his performance afterwards.

Koneru Humpy

Koneru Humpy is a Female Indian Chess Player, and arguably the best woman at the Chess Board that the nation has ever produced. Considered to be at par with Vishwanathan Anand among the Female Chess Players of India, she holds a World No. 2 ranking among the Female Chess Players, lagged behind only by Judit Polgar, the World No. 1 Female Chess Player.

Krishnan Sasikiran

Krishnan Sasikiran is an Indian Chess Player who holds the prestigious title of a Grand Master, and is famous for being second only to the legendry Vishwanathan Anand according to the FIDE ratings.

Manuel Aaron

Manuel Aaron pioneered the game of chess as a youngster and have played a pivotal role ever since in placing India, as an emerging force in world chess forum. He was the first Indian to earn the title of International Master.

Parimarjan Negi

Parimarjan Negi is the new face in the field of chess in India. Born on February 9, 1993, the chess player has shot into limelight by becoming the youngest Indian to earn the much coveted Grandmaster title in the sport. Negi developed the passion for chess right from his childhood.

P. Harikrishna

Grandmaster P. Harikrishna was born on May 10, 1986 in Andhra Pradesh. At an ELO rating of 2682, Harikrishna is second amongst the top Indian players, ranking next to Viswanathan Anand.

Viswanathan Anand

Viswanathan Anand been the epitome of chess in India and has gained worldwide recognition. In a glorious career spanning 25 years (and still counting), Anand has taken Indian chess to new heights.

LIST OF FEMALE GRANDMASTERS:-

Name	Country	Birth Date	Date	Age	Earned	World Champion	Peak Rating	Notes
Nona Gaprindashvili	Georgia	1941-05-03	1978	37	WCC	1962–1978	2381	First female grandmaster
Maia Chiburdanidze	Georgia	1961-01-17	1984	23	WCC	1978–1991	2550
Susan Polgar	Hungary United States	1969-04-19	1991	22	norms	1996–1999	2577	First to be awarded the title traditionally
Judit Polgár	Hungary	1976-07-23	1991	15	norms	–	2735	Youngest grandmaster ever at the time
Xie Jun	China	1970-10-30	1991	21	WCC	1991–1996,1999–2001	2574
Pia Cramling	Sweden	1963-04-23	1992	29	norms	–	2550
Zhu Chen	China Qatar	1976-03-16	2001	25	norms	2001–2004	2548
Humpy Koneru	India	1987-03-31	2002	15	norms	–	2622
Antoaneta Stefanova	Bulgaria	1979-04-19	2003	25	norms	2004–2006	2560
Alexandra Kosteniuk	Russia	1984-03-23	2004	20	EWC	2008–2010	2540
Peng Zhaoqin	China Netherlands	1968-05-08	2004	36	EWC	–	2472
Hoang Thanh Trang	Vietnam Hungary	1980-04-25	2007	27	norms	–	2501
Kateryna Lahno	Ukraine	1989-12-27	2007	17	norms	–	2509
Xu Yuhua	China	1976-10-29	2007	30	WCC	2006–2008	2517
Marie Sebag	France	1986-10-15	2008	21	norms	–	2533
Zhao Xue	China	1985-04-06	2008	23	norms	–	2551
Hou Yifan	China	1994-02-27	2008	14	norms	2010–	2639	Youngest ever female grandmaster
Nana Dzagnidze	Georgia	1987-01-01	2008	21	norms	–	2536
Monika Soćko	Poland	1978-03-24	2008	30	norms	–	2505
Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant	Georgia Scotland	1968-07-19	2009	40	norms	–	2506
Tatiana Kosintseva	Russia	1986-04-11	2009	23	norms	–	2539
Natalia Zhukova	Ukraine	1979-06-05	2010	30	norms	–	2499
Elina Danielian	Armenia	1978-08-16	2010	32	norms	-	2521
Viktorija Čmilytė	Lithuania	1983-08-06	2010	26	norms	-	2528
Nadezhda Kosintseva	Russia	1985-01-14	2011	26	norms	–	2576
Dronavalli Harika	India	1991-01-12	2011	20	norms	–	2525
Anna Muzychuk	Ukraine Slovenia	1990-02-28	2012	22	norms	–	2598

Equipment:-

Original Staunton chess pieces, introduced in 1849. Left to right: pawn, rook, knight, bishop, queen, and king
The size of the squares of the chessboard should be approximately 1.25 to 1.3 times the diameter of the base of the king, or 50 to 65 mm. Squares of approximately 57 mm (2 1⁄4 inches) normally are well-suited for pieces with the kings in the preferred size range. The darker squares are usually brown or green and the lighter squares are off-white or buff.
Pieces of the Staunton chess set design are the standard and are usually made of wood or plastic. They are often black and white; other colors may be used (like a dark wood or even red for the dark pieces) but they would still be called the "white" and "black" pieces (see White and Black in chess). The height of the king should be 85 to 105 millimetres (3.35–4.13 inches). A height of approximately 95 to 102 mm (3 3⁄4–4 inches) is preferred by most players. The diameter of the king should be 40 to 50% of its height. The size of the other pieces should be in proportion to the king. The pieces should be well balanced
In games subject to time control, a game clock is used, consisting of two adjacent clocks and buttons to stop one clock while starting the other, such that the two component clocks never run simultaneously. The clock can be analog or digital.