Portal:Chess

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Welcome to the Chess Portal

Introduction

Left to right: white king, black rook, black queen, white pawn, black knight, white bishop

Chess is a board game for two players. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to distinguish it from related games such as xiangqi (Chinese chess) and shogi (Japanese chess).

Chess is an abstract strategy game that involves no hidden information and no elements of chance. It is played on a chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an 8×8 grid. The players, referred to as "White" and "Black", each control sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns. White moves first, followed by Black. The game is won by checkmating the opponent's king, i.e. threatening it with inescapable capture. There are several ways a game can end in a draw.

The recorded history of chess goes back at least to the emergence of a similar game, chaturanga, in seventh-century India. After its introduction in Persia, it spread to the Arab world and then to Europe. The rules of chess as they are known 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 and is played by millions of people worldwide. (Full article...)

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The Queen's Gambit is a 2020 American coming-of-age period drama television miniseries based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis. The title refers to the "Queen's Gambit", a chess opening. The series was written and directed by Scott Frank, who created it with Allan Scott, who owns the rights to the book. Beginning in the mid-1950s and proceeding into the 1960s, the story follows the life of Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy), a fictional American chess prodigy on her rise to the top of the chess world while struggling with drug and alcohol dependency.

Netflix released The Queen's Gambit on October 23, 2020. After four weeks it had become Netflix's most-watched scripted miniseries, making it Netflix's top program in 63 countries. The series received critical acclaim, with particular praise for Taylor-Joy's performance, the cinematography, and production values. It also received a positive response from the chess community for its often accurate depictions of high-level chess, and data suggests that it increased public interest in the game. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

General images

The following are images from various chess-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Sofonisba Anguissola, The Chess Game, 1555, National Museum, Poznań, Poland (from Chess in the arts)
Image 2Some of the earliest examples of chess-related art are medieval illustrations accompanying books or manuscripts, such as this chess problem from the 1283 Libro de los juegos. (from Chess in the arts)
Image 3RZA at a Hip Hop Chess Federation Tournament (from Chess in the arts)
Image 4Niccolò di Pietro, 1413–15, The Conversion of Saint Augustin, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon (from Chess in the arts)
Image 5Final match of the 1575 tournament in El Escorial. Painting by Luigi Mussini. (from History of chess)
Image 6Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from History of chess)
Image 7Chess game between Tha'ālibī and Bākhazarī, 1896 painting by Ludwig Deutsch (from History of chess)
Image 8Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official World Chess Champion (from History of chess)
Image 9Animation of the Immortal Game, in which Adolf Anderssen, playing white, beat Lionel Kieseritzky in June 1851 (from History of chess)
Image 10Honoré Daumier, 1863, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 11Iranian courtiers of the Qajar dynasty playing chess in Mazandaran. (from History of chess)
Image 12Shams-i Tabrīzī as portrayed in a 1500 painting in a page of a copy of Rumi's poem dedicated to Shams (from History of chess)
Image 13A Chess Dispute (1903) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 14Book of the customs of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess (1473) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 15Liberale da Verona, The Chess Players, c. 1475 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 16Edward Harrison May, 1867, Lady Howe mating Benjamin Franklin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 17Hans Muelich, 1552, Duke Albrecht V. of Bavaria and his wife Anna of Austria playing chess (from Chess in the arts)
Image 18Richard Creifelds, c. 1886, The Veterans, Brooklyn Museum (from Chess in the arts)
Image 19Georgian writers, Ilia Chavchavadze and Ivane Machabeli playing chess in Saint Petersburg, 1873 (from Chess in the arts)
Image 20Persian manuscript from the 14th century describing how an ambassador from India brought chess to the Persian court (from History of chess)
Image 21The Chess Players by Henry Fox Talbot, 1847 (from History of chess)
Image 22Antonis Mor, 1549, Von Sachsen vs. a Spaniard (from Chess in the arts)
Image 23In 1975, former President of Pakistan Zulfi Bhutto gifted a carved ivory set of chess to the former United States President Gerald Ford. (from Chess in the arts)
Image 24Paris Bordone, c. 1545, Chess players, oil on canvas, Mailand, Wohnhaus (from Chess in the arts)
Image 25Stamp of the USSR devoted to the accomplished Estonian player and analyst Paul Keres, 1991 (from History of chess)
Image 26Current World Champion Ding Liren (from History of chess)
Image 27Iranian shatranj set, glazed fritware, 12th century, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (from History of chess)
Image 28World Champions José Raúl Capablanca (left) and Emanuel Lasker in 1925 (from History of chess)
Image 29Bobby Fischer vs. Mikhail Tal (from History of chess)
Image 30Chess Set by Man Ray (from Chess in the arts)
Image 31Gustaf Lundberg, 1775, Portrait of Gustav Badin, pastel, 74 x 57 cm, Nationalmuseum, Sweden (from Chess in the arts)
Image 32Krishna and Radha playing chaturanga on an 8×8 Ashtāpada (from History of chess)
Image 33Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from Chess in the arts)
Image 34Bauhaus chess set by Josef Hartwig (from Chess in the arts)
Image 35The 12th-century Lewis chessmen in the collection of the National Museum of Scotland (from History of chess)
Image 36John Lavery, 1929, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 37Lucas van Leyden, c. 1508, The Game of Chess, oil on oak, 27 x 35 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 38Karel van Mander, 1600 (attributed to), Les joueurs d'échecs (from Chess in the arts)
Image 39Thomas Eakins, 1876, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)

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FIDE world ranking

Rank	Player	Rating
1	Magnus Carlsen	2832
2	Hikaru Nakamura	2802
3	Fabiano Caruana	2796
4	Erigaisi Arjun	2778
5	Ian Nepomniachtchi	2770
6	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	2769
7	Gukesh D	2763
8	Praggnanandhaa R	2757
9	Wesley So	2757
10	Wei Yi	2755
11	Viswanathan Anand	2751
12	Leinier Dominguez	2748
13	Ding Liren	2745
14	Anish Giri	2745
15	Alireza Firouzja	2744
16	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	2733
17	Quang Liem Le	2731
18	Levon Aronian	2729
19	Shakhriyar Mamedyarov	2726
20	Parham Maghsoodloo	2725

Did you know...

... that Magnus Carlsen, the current World Chess Champion, resigned a recent tournament game after only one move?

Reviewed articles

Featured articles	Good articles
First-move advantage in chess	42nd Chess Olympiad	Goryachkina, Aleksandra
Gossip, George H. D.	43rd Chess Olympiad	Guramishvili, Sopiko
List of female chess grandmasters	Abdumalik, Zhansaya	Kazarian, Anna-Maja
Mechanical Turk	Alekhine, Alexander	Kristjánsson, Stefán
44th Chess Olympiad	Anderssen, Adolf	Lasker, Emanuel
	Belenkaya, Dina	Mammadzada, Gunay
	Bindrich, Falko	Milner-Barry, Stuart
	Blübaum, Matthias	Modern Benoni
	Budapest Gambit	Muzychuk, Anna
	Bughouse chess	Nadanian, Ashot
	Carlsen, Magnus	Rudolf, Anna
	Chess in Armenia	Rules of chess
	Cramling, Anna	Staunton, Howard
	Deep Blue (Chess computer)	Steinitz, Wilhelm
	En passant	Turochamp
	Endgame tablebase	World Chess Championship 1972
	Fischer, Bobby	Zhou, Qiyu