|
Half-open File
In chess, a half-open file (or semi-open file) is a with pawns of only one color. The half-open file can provide a line of attack for a player's rook or queen. A half-open file is generally exploited by the player with no pawns on it. Many openings, such as the Sicilian Defense, aim to complicate the position. In the main line Sicilian, 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 (or 2...e6, or 2...Nc6) 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4, White obtains a half-open d-file, but Black can pressure White along the half-open c-file. In positions where White has no pawns on a file but Black has one pawn or more on that file, the position is considered to be half-opened for white. During instances where Black has zero pawns on a file but White has one or more pawns on that file, the position is considered to be half-opened for black. In such instances where pawns capture or advance, in a way that it opens or half-opens a file or files, this instance is called a pawn break. The demolition of the pawn structure is a common th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chess
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 (Chinese chess) and shogi (Japanese chess). The recorded history of chess goes back at least to the emergence of a similar game, chaturanga, in seventh-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. Chess is an abstract strategy game that involves no hidden information and no use of dice or cards. It is played on a chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. At the start, each player controls sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pawn (chess)
The pawn (♙, ♟) is the most numerous and weakest piece in the game of chess. It may move one vacant square directly forward, it may move two vacant squares directly forward on its first move, and it may capture one square diagonally forward. Each player begins a game with eight pawns, one on each square of their second . The white pawns start on a2 through h2; the black pawns start on a7 through h7. Individual pawns are referred to by the on which they stand. For example, one speaks of "White's f-pawn" or "Black's b-pawn". Alternatively, they can be referred to by the piece which stood on that file at the beginning of the game, e.g. "White's king bishop's pawn" or "Black's queen knight's pawn". It is also common to refer to a rook's pawn, meaning any pawn on the a- or h-files, a knight's pawn (on the b- or g-files), a bishop's pawn (on the c- or f-files), a queen's pawn (on the d-file), a king's pawn (on the e-file), and a central pawn (on the d- or e-files). The pawn histori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rook (chess)
The rook (; ♖, ♜) is a piece in the game of chess. It may move any number of squares horizontally or vertically without jumping, and it may an enemy piece on its path; additionally, it may participate in castling. Each player starts the game with two rooks, one in each corner on their own side of the board. Formerly, the rook (from Persian رخ ''rokh''/''rukh'', meaning "chariot") was alternatively called the tower, marquess, rector, and comes (count or earl). The term "castle" is considered to be informal, incorrect, or old-fashioned. Placement and movement The white rooks start on squares a1 and h1, while the black rooks start on a8 and h8. The rook moves horizontally or vertically, through any number of unoccupied squares (see diagram). The rook cannot jump over pieces. The rook may capture an enemy piece by moving to the square on which the enemy piece stands, removing it from play. The rook also participates with the king in a special move called castling, wherein i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Queen (chess)
The queen (♕, ♛) is the most powerful chess piece, piece in the game of chess. It can move any number of squares vertically, horizontally or , combining the powers of the Rook (chess), rook and Bishop (chess), bishop. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of the first next to the King (chess), king. Because the queen is the strongest piece, a pawn (chess), pawn is promotion (chess), promoted to a queen in the vast majority of cases. The predecessor to the queen is the ''Ferz (chess), ferz'', a weak piece only able to move or capture one step diagonally, originating from the Persian game of shatranj. The modern queen gained its power and its modern move in Spain in the 15th century during Isabella of Castile, Isabella I's reign, perhaps inspired by her great political power. Placement and movement The white queen starts on d1, while the black queen starts on d8. With the chessboard oriented correctly, the white queen starts on a white square a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opening (chess)
A chess opening or simply an opening is the initial stage of a chess game. It usually consists of established theory; the other phases are the middlegame and the endgame. Many opening sequences have standard names such as the "Sicilian Defense". ''The Oxford Companion to Chess'' lists 1,327 named openings and variants, and there are many others with varying degrees of common usage. Opening moves that are considered standard are referred to as "book moves", or simply "book". When a game begins to deviate from known opening theory, the players are said to be "out of book". In some openings, "book" lines have been worked out for over 30 moves, as in the classical King's Indian Defense and in the Najdorf variation of the Sicilian Defense. Professional chess players spend years studying openings, and continue doing so throughout their careers, as opening theory continues to evolve. Players at the club level also study openings but the importance of the opening phase is smaller t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sicilian Defense
The Sicilian Defence is a chess opening that begins with the following moves: :1. e4 c5 The Sicilian is the most popular and best-scoring response to White's first move 1.e4. Opening 1.d4 is a statistically more successful opening for White because of the high success rate of the Sicilian defence against 1.e4. '' New In Chess'' stated in its 2000 Yearbook that, of the games in its database, White scored 56.1% in 296,200 games beginning 1.d4, but 54.1% in 349,855 games beginning 1.e4, mainly because the Sicilian held White to a 52.3% score in 145,996 games. 17% of all games between grandmasters, and 25% of the games in the Chess Informant database, begin with the Sicilian. Grandmaster John Nunn attributes the Sicilian Defence's popularity to its "combative nature": "in many lines Black is playing not just for equality, but for the advantage. The drawback is that White often obtains an early initiative, so Black has to take care not to fall victim to a quick attack." Gran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pawn Structure
In a game of chess, the pawn structure (sometimes known as the pawn skeleton) is the configuration of pawns on the chessboard. Because pawns are the least mobile of the chess pieces, the pawn structure is relatively static and thus plays a large role in determining the strategic character of the position. General observations Weaknesses in the pawn structure, such as isolated, doubled, or backward pawns and , once created, are usually permanent. Care must therefore be taken to avoid them (but there are exceptions—for instance see ''Boleslavsky hole'' below). In the absence of these structural weaknesses, it is not possible to assess a pawn formation as good or bad—much depends on the position of the pieces. The pawn formation does determine the overall strategies of the players to a large extent, however, even if arising from unrelated openings. Pawn formations symmetrical about a vertical line (such as the ''e5 Chain'' and the ''d5 Chain'') may appear similar, but they te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doubled Pawns
In chess, doubled pawns are two pawn (chess), pawns of the same color residing on the same Chess terminology#File, file. Pawns can become doubled only when one pawn captures onto a file on which another friendly pawn resides. In the diagram, the white pawns on the b-file and e-file are doubled. The pawns on the are doubled and isolated pawn, isolated. In most cases, doubled pawns are considered a weakness due to their inability to defend each other. This inability, in turn, makes it more difficult to achieve a breakthrough which could create a passed pawn (often a deciding factor in Chess endgame, endgames). In the case of isolated doubled pawns, these problems are only further aggravated. Several chess strategies and Chess opening, openings are based on burdening the opponent with doubled pawns, a strategic weakness. There are, however, cases where accepting doubled pawns can be advantageous because doing so may open up a file for a rook (chess), rook, or because the doubled paw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isolated Pawns
In chess, an isolated pawn is a pawn that has no friendly pawn on an adjacent . Isolated pawns are usually a weakness because they cannot be protected by other pawns. The square in front of the pawn may become a good outpost or otherwise a good square for the opponent to anchor pieces. Isolated pawns most often become weaker in the endgame, as there are fewer pieces available to protect the pawn. Isolated pawns can, however, provide improved development and associated opportunities for that offset or even outweigh their weaknesses. The files adjacent to the isolated pawn are either open or half-open, providing two lanes of attack for the rooks and the queen. The absence of pawns adjacent to the isolated pawn may also mobilize the player's knights and bishops. An isolated pawn on the d-file is called an isolated queen pawn or simply an isolani. In addition to the open or half-open c- and e-files, the isolated queen pawn can provide a good outpost on the c- and e-file squares di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loek Van Wely
Loek van Wely (born 7 October 1972) is a Dutch chess player and politician. He was awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 1993, and was rated among the world's top ten in 2001 with a rating of 2714. In March 2019, he was elected to the Dutch Senate for the party Forum for Democracy; however, on 8 December 2020 he switched his party allegiance to the van Pareren group, which is now affiliated with the JA21 party. Chess career He has won the Dutch Chess Championship on eight occasions: six consecutive times from 2000 through 2005, in 2014 and in 2017. In 2002, in Maastricht, Netherlands, van Wely took on the computer program Rebel in a four-game match, scoring 2/4 (+2–2=0). In 2005, he led the Dutch team to victory at the European Team Championship in Gothenburg, Sweden. Van Wely participated in the elite tournament held in Wijk aan Zee (originally named Hoogovens, then Corus, now Tata Steel) 25 times, consecutively from 1992 to 2010 and again from 2012 to 2017. His best r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judit Polgár
Judit Polgár (born 23 July 1976) is a Hungarian chess grandmaster, generally considered the strongest female chess player of all time. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, at the time the youngest to have done so, breaking the record previously held by former World Champion Bobby Fischer. She was the youngest player ever to break into the FIDE top 100 players rating list, ranking No. 55 in the January 1989 rating list, at the age of 12. Polgár is the only woman to have been a serious candidate for the World Chess Championship, in which she participated in 2005; she had previously participated in large, 100+ player knockout tournaments for the world championship. She is also the only woman to have surpassed 2700 Elo, reaching a peak world ranking of No. 8 in 2004 and peak rating of 2735 in 2005. She is the only woman to be ranked in the top ten of all chess players, first reaching that ranking in 1996. She was the No. 1 rated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chessgames
Chessgames.com is an Internet chess community with over 224,000 members. The site maintains a large database of chess games, where each game has its own discussion page for comments and analysis. Limited primarily to games where at least one player is of master strength, the database begins with the earliest known recorded games and is updated with games from current top-level tournaments. Basic membership is free, and the site is open to players at all levels of ability, with additional features available for Premium members. While the primary purpose of Chessgames.com is to provide an outlet for chess discussion and analysis, consultation games are periodically organized with teams of members playing either other teams of members or very strong masters, including a former US champion and two former world correspondence champions. Members can maintain their own discussion pages, and there are features to assist study of openings, endgames and sacrifices. The front page also feat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
