Chess

Chess is a board game for two players.^[1] It is played on a square board, made up of 64 smaller squares, with eight squares in each row and column. Each player starts with sixteen pieces: eight pawns, two knights, two bishops, two rooks, one queen and one king.^[2]

The goal of the game is for each player to try and checkmate the king of the opponent. Checkmate is a threat ('check') to the opposing king which no move can stop. It ends the game.^[3][4]

During the game, the two opponents take turns to move one of their pieces to a different square of the board. One player ('White') has pieces of a light color; the other player ('Black') has pieces of a dark color. There are rules about how pieces move, and about taking the opponent's pieces off the board. The player with white pieces always makes the first move.^[4] Because of this, White has a small advantage, and wins more often than Black in tournament games.^[5][6]

Chess is popular and is often played in competitions called chess tournaments. It is enjoyed in many countries, and is a national hobby in Russia.^[7]

1. ↑ Abate, Frank R. (ed) 1997. The Oxford desk dictionary and thesaurus. ISBN 0-19-511214-8
2. ↑ Costello, Robert E. et al. (eds) 2001. Macmillan dictionary for children. Simon & Schuster, New York. ISBN 0-689-84323-2
3. ↑ Paton, John et al. (eds)1992. The Kingfisher children's encyclopedia. Kingfisher Books, New York. ISBN 1-85697-800-1
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} Cite error: The named reference Laws was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
5. ↑ Chessgames "Chess Opening Explorer". Chessgames.com. Retrieved 2010-05-25.
6. ↑ Rowson, Jonathan (2005). Chess for Zebras: thinking differently about black and white. Gambit Publications. p. 193. ISBN 1-901983-85-4.
7. ↑ Gifford, Clive and Lisa Clayden (2002). Family flip quiz: Geography. Essex: Miles Kelly. ISBN 1-84236-146-5.