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. 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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Xiangqi board and starting setup

Xiangqi (Chinese: 象棋; pinyin: xiàngqí; Wade–Giles: Hsiang ch'i; English: /ˈʃɑːŋtʃi/), commonly known as Chinese chess or elephant chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is the most popular board game in China. Xiangqi is in the same family of games as shogi, janggi, Western chess, chaturanga, and Indian chess. Besides China and areas with significant ethnic Chinese communities, this game is also a popular pastime in Vietnam, where it is known as cờ tướng, literally 'General's chess'.

The game represents a battle between two armies, with the primary object being to checkmate the enemy's general (king). Distinctive features of xiangqi include the cannon (pao), which must jump to capture; a rule prohibiting the generals from facing each other directly; areas on the board called the river and palace, which restrict the movement of some pieces but enhance that of others; and the placement of the pieces on the intersections of the board lines, rather than within the squares. (Full article...)

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General images

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

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