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Stalemate (The Mac Band Song)
Stalemate is a situation in chess where the player whose turn it is to move is not in check and has no legal move. Stalemate results in a draw. During the endgame, stalemate is a resource that can enable the player with the inferior position to draw the game rather than lose. In more complex positions, stalemate is much rarer, usually taking the form of a swindle that succeeds only if the superior side is inattentive. Stalemate is also a common theme in endgame studies and other chess problems. The outcome of a stalemate was standardized as a draw in the 19th century . Before this standardization, its treatment varied widely, including being deemed a win for the stalemating player, a half-win for that player, or a loss for that player; not being permitted; and resulting in the stalemated player missing a turn. Stalemate rules vary in variants and other games of the chess family. Etymology and usage The first recorded use of stalemate is from 1765. It is a compounding of Mid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Check (chess)
In chess and similar games, check is a condition that occurs when a player's king is under threat of on the opponent's next turn. A king so threatened is said to be in check. A player must get out of check if possible by moving the king to a safe square, interposing a piece between the threatening piece and the king, or capturing the threatening piece. If the player cannot get out of check by any of these options, the game ends in checkmate, and the player loses. Players cannot make any move that puts their own king in check. Many chess variants feature check, such as shogi, xiangqi, and janggi. Overview A check is the result of a move that places the opposing king under an immediate threat of capture by one (or occasionally two) of the player's pieces. Making a move that checks is sometimes called "giving check". Even if a piece is pinned against the player's own king, it may still give check. For example, in the diagrammed position, White has just played Be4+, simultane ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mexican Standoff
A Mexican standoff is a confrontation in which no strategy exists that allows any party to achieve victory. Any party initiating aggression might trigger its own demise. At the same time, the parties are unable to extricate themselves from the situation without suffering a loss. As a result, all participants need to maintain the strategic tension, which remains unresolved until some outside event or interparty dialogue makes it possible to resolve it. The term ''Mexican standoff'' was originally used in the context of using firearms and it still commonly implies a situation in which the parties face some form of threat from the other parties. The Mexican standoff is a recurring trope in cinema, in which several armed characters hold each other at gunpoint. Etymology Sources claim the reference is to the Mexican–American War or post-war Mexican bandits in the 19th century. The earliest use of the phrase in print was on 19 March 1876, in a short story about Mexico. An American ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Réti
Richard Selig Réti (28 May 1889 – 6 June 1929) was an Austro-Hungarian, later Czechoslovakian, chess player, chess author, and composer of endgame studies. He was one of the principal proponents of hypermodernism in chess. With the exception of Nimzowitsch's book ''My System'', he is considered to be the movement's foremost literary contributor. Early life Réti was born to a Jewish family in Bazin, Austria-Hungary (now Pezinok, Slovakia), where his father worked as a physician in the service of the Austrian military. His older brother Rudolph Reti (who did not use the acute accent) was a noted pianist, musical theorist, and composer. He is the great-grandfather of the German painter Elias Maria Reti. Réti came to Vienna to study mathematics at Vienna University."Memoir of Reti", in ''Reti's Best Games of Chess'', annotated by H. Golombek (Dover 1974). Chess career One of the top players in the world during the 1910s and 1920s, he began his career as a combinative ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Savielly Tartakower
Savielly Tartakower (also known as ''Xavier'' or ''Ksawery'' ''Tartakower'', less often ''Tartacover'' or ''Tartakover''; 21 February 1887 – 4 February 1956) was a Polish and French chess player. He was awarded the title of International Grandmaster in its inaugural year, 1950. Tartakower was also a leading chess journalist and author of the 1920s and 1930s. Early career Tartakower was born on 21 February 1887 in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, to Austrian citizens of Jewish origin. His father, a first-generation Christian, had him christened with the Latin form of his name, Sabelius.David Lovejoy (2008). ''Moral victories: the story of Savielly Tartakover'' (a historical novel), Echo Publications. ASIN: B0027P89DG. His parents were killed in a robbery in Rostov-on-Don in 1911. Tartakower stayed mainly in Austria. He graduated from the law faculties of universities in Geneva and Vienna. He spoke German and French. During his studies he became interested in chess and started attending ... [...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] |
Harry Pillsbury
Harry Nelson Pillsbury (December 5, 1872 – June 17, 1906) was an American chess player. At the age of 22, he won one of the strongest tournaments of the time (winning the Hastings 1895 chess tournament), but his illness and early death prevented him from challenging for the World Chess Championship. Biography Early life Pillsbury was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, in 1872 and moved to New York City in 1894, then to Philadelphia in 1898. By 1890, having only played chess for two years, he beat noted expert H. N. Stone. In April 1892, Pillsbury won a match two games to one against World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz, who gave him odds of a pawn. Pillsbury's rise was meteoric, and there was soon no one to challenge him in the New York chess scene. Hastings 1895 The Brooklyn chess club sponsored his journey to Europe to play in the Hastings 1895 chess tournament, in which all the greatest players of the time participated. The 22-year-old Pillsbury became a celebrity in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amos Burn
Amos Burn (1848–1925) was an English chess player, one of the world's leading players at the end of the 19th century, and a chess writer. Burn was born on New Year's Eve, 1848, in Hull.Richard Forster, ''Amos Burn: A Chess Biography'', McFarland & Company, 2004, p. 17. . As a teenager, he moved to Liverpool, becoming apprenticed to a firm of shipowners and merchants. He learned chess only at the relatively late age of 16. He later took chess lessons from future World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz in London, and, like his teacher, became known for his superior defensive ability.Forster 2004, p. 9. Aron Nimzowitsch, in his book ''The Praxis of My System'', named Burn one of the world's six greatest defensive players. Although never a professional chess player, Burn had a long tournament and writing career. In 1913, Leopold Hoffer, the editor for over 30 years of the chess column in '' The Field'', the leading chess column in Great Britain, died. The proprietors of ''The Field'' to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wrong Rook Pawn
In chess chess endgame, endgames with a bishop (chess), bishop, a pawn (chess), pawn that is a may be the wrong rook pawn. With a single bishop, the result of a position may depend on whether or not the bishop controls the square on the chessboard on which the pawn would promotion (chess), promote. Since a side's rook pawns promote on opposite-colored squares, one of them may be the "wrong rook pawn". This situation is also known as having the ''wrong-colored bishop'' or ''wrong bishop'', i.e. the bishop is on the wrong colored squares in relation to the rook pawn. In many cases, the wrong rook pawn will only draw (chess), draw, when any other pawn would win. A fairly common defensive tactic is to get into one of these drawn endgames, often through a sacrifice (chess), sacrifice. In some endgames such as having a bishop and pawn versus a lone king (chess), king (perhaps with pawns), the wrong rook pawn is the one whose promotion square is the opposite color as that on which the bi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wrong Bishop
In a chess endgame, a wrong bishop is a bishop that would have been better placed on the opposite square color; in other words, a bishop is unable to guard squares of the other color. This most commonly occurs with a bishop and one of its , but it also occurs with a rook versus a bishop, a rook and one rook pawn versus a bishop, and possibly with a rook and one versus a bishop. Rook versus bishop White wins in this position. The defender has the wrong bishop if it is on the same color as the corner where his king is confined. Black's bishop is on the wrong color of square for it to form a fortress in the corner (i.e. with the black king on the h8-square and the bishop on the g8- or h7-square). White wins: :1. Kf5! Kg8 :2. Ra4!! The only way to win. If 2.Kg6? Kf8 and the black king is able to get out of the "dangerous corner" or "wrong corner" and head to a "safe corner" or "right corner" where he can set up the fortress. :2... Be1 :3. Kg6 Kf8 :4. Rf4+!, followed by 5. Re4, winn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Queen Versus Pawn Endgame
The chess endgame of a queen versus pawn (with both sides having no other pieces except the kings) is usually an easy win for the side with the queen. However, if the pawn has advanced to its seventh rank it has possibilities of reaching a draw, and there are some drawn positions with the pawn on the sixth rank. This endgame arises most often from a race of pawns to promote. The side with the queen is the ''attacker'' and the side with the pawn the ''defender''. Assume that the attacker has the move. If the pawn is not beyond its sixth rank, the attacker (to move) usually wins easily, but there are a few exceptions. The winning process is to either get the queen on a square in front of the pawn and getting the king over to help win the pawn or to check the defending king until it is forced in front of the pawn and using that tempo to bring the king closer, until it can assist in winning the pawn. After the pawn is won, the attacker has an elementary checkmate. Queen versus a pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pin (chess)
In chess, a pin is a tactic in which a defending piece cannot move out of an attacking piece's line of attack without exposing a more valuable defending piece. Moving the attacking piece to effect the pin is called ''pinning''; the defending piece restricted by the pin is described as ''pinned''. Only a piece that can move any number of squares along a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line (i.e. a bishop, rook, or queen) can pin. Any piece can be pinned except the king, which is the most valuable piece. The inverse of a pin is a skewer, in which a more valuable piece under direct attack may move to expose a less valuable piece to an attack. Types Absolute pin An ''absolute pin'' is one where the piece shielded by the pinned piece is the king. In this case it is illegal to move the pinned piece out of the line of attack, as that would place one's king in check (see diagram). A piece pinned in this way can still give check or defend another piece from capture by the opposing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King And Pawn Versus King Endgame
The chess endgame with a king and a pawn versus a king is one of the most important and fundamental endgames, other than the basic checkmates. It is an important endgame for chess players to master, since most other endgames have the potential of reducing to this type of endgame via exchanges of pieces. Players need to be able to determine quickly whether a given position is a win or a draw, and to know the technique for playing it. The crux of this endgame is whether or not the pawn can be promoted (or queened), so checkmate can be forced. In the first paragraph of one of his books on endgames, Peter Griffiths emphasized the importance of this endgame: There is simply no substitute to a clear understanding of when and how these positions are won or drawn, not only so that one can play them accurately, but in order to recognize in advance what the correct result should be. If you can do that, you can exchange off quite confidently from a more complex position. In the positio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
