This article is about the Western board game. For other chess games or other uses, see
Chess (disambiguation).
Chess is a two-player
strategy board game played on a
chessboard, a checkered gameboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid.
[1] Chess is played by millions of people worldwide, both amateurs and professionals.
Each player begins the game with 16
pieces: one
king, one
queen, two
rooks, two
knights, two
bishops, and eight
pawns. Each of the six piece types
moves differently. The most powerful piece is the queen and the least powerful piece is the pawn. The objective is to '
checkmate'
[2] the opponent's king by placing it under an inescapable threat of capture. To this end, a player's pieces are used to attack and capture the opponent's pieces, while supporting their own. In addition to checkmate, the game can be won by
voluntary resignation by the 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.
Chess is believed to have originated in
India, some time before the 7th century, being derived from the Indian game of
chaturanga. Chaturanga is also the likely ancestor of the Eastern strategy games
xiangqi,
janggi and
shogi. The pieces took on their current powers in Spain in the late 15th century; the rules were finally standardized in the 19th century. The first generally recognized
World Chess Champion,
Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886. Since 1948, the World Championship has been controlled by
FIDE, the game's international governing body; the current World Champion is the Norwegian
Magnus Carlsen. FIDE also organizes the
Women's World Championship, the
World Junior Championship, the
World Senior Championship, the
Blitz and Rapid World Championships and the
Chess Olympiad, a popular competition among teams from different nations. There is also a
Correspondence Chess World Championship and a
World Computer Chess Championship. Online chess has opened amateur and professional competition to a wide and varied group of players. There are also many
chess variants, with different rules, different pieces, and different boards.
FIDE awards
titles to skilled players, the highest of which is
grandmaster. Many national chess organizations also have a title system. However, these are not recognised by FIDE. The term "master" may refer to a formal title or may be used more loosely for any skilled player.
Since the second half of the 20th century,
computers have been programmed to play chess with increasing success, to the point where the strongest home computers play chess at a higher level than the best human players. Since the 1990s, computer analysis has contributed significantly to chess theory, particularly in the endgame. The computer IBM
Deep Blue was the first machine to overcome a reigning World Chess Champion in a match when it
defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997. The rise of strong computer programs (known as "engines") that can be run on hand-held devices has led to increasing concerns about
cheating during tournaments.
