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 which involves no hidden information and no elements of chance. It is played on a square game board called a chessboard containing 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; then moves alternate. The object of the game is to checkmate (threaten with inescapable capture) the enemy king. There are also 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 modern rules of chess 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, with millions of players worldwide. (Full article...)

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In chess, a fortress is an endgame drawing technique in which the side behind in material sets up a zone of protection that the opponent cannot penetrate. This might involve keeping the enemy king out of one's position, or a safe zone the enemy cannot force one out of (e.g. see the opposite-colored bishops example). An elementary fortress is a theoretically drawn (i.e. a book draw) position with reduced material in which a passive defense will maintain the draw.

Fortresses commonly have the following characteristics:

Useful pawn breakthroughs are not possible.
If the stronger side has pawns, they are firmly blocked.
The stronger side's king cannot penetrate because it is either cut off or near the edge of the board.
Zugzwang positions cannot be forced because the defender has waiting moves available. (Full article...)

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General images

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

Image 1Iranian courtiers of the Qajar dynasty playing chess in Mazandaran. (from History of chess)
Image 2Two Georgian writers, Ilia Chavchavadze and Ivane Machabeli, playing chess in Saint Petersburg, 1873 (from Chess in the arts)
Image 3Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official World Chess Champion (from History of chess)
Image 4Antonis Mor, 1549, Von Sachsen vs. a Spaniard (from Chess in the arts)
Image 5Stamp of the USSR devoted to the accomplished Estonian player and analyst Paul Keres, 1991 (from History of chess)
Image 6The 12th-century Lewis chessmen in the collection of the National Museum of Scotland (from History of chess)
Image 7Hans Muelich, 1552, Duke Albrecht V. of Bavaria and his wife Anna of Austria playing chess (from Chess in the arts)
Image 8Bobby Fischer vs. Mikhail Tal (from History of chess)
Image 9Cocowood chess set (Philippines craft) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 10Current World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju (from History of chess)
Image 11These seven ivory chess pieces are the oldest-known, dating to about 700 CE. The ivory came from India. They were excavated in 1977 by archaeologist Yuriy Buryakov, at Afrasiyab in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. They are housed today at the Samarkand State Museum. Taken during a loan of the pieces to the Silk Roads Exhibition at the British Museum (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 13Iranian shatranj set, glazed fritware, 12th century, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (from History of chess)
Image 14An illustration from a Persian manuscript "A treatise on chess". The Ambassadors from India present the Chatrang to Khosrow I Anushirwan, "Immortal Soul", King of Persia (from History of chess)
Image 15Honoré Daumier, 1863, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 16Krishna and Radha playing chaturanga on an 8×8 Ashtāpada (from History of chess)
Image 17Edward Harrison May, 1867, Lady Howe mating Benjamin Franklin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 18John Lavery, 1929, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 19Chess game between Tha'ālibī and Bākhazarī, 1896 painting by Ludwig Deutsch (from History of chess)
Image 20The Chess Players by Henry Fox Talbot, 1847 (from History of chess)
Image 21Bauhaus chess set by Josef Hartwig (from Chess in the arts)
Image 22RZA at a Hip Hop Chess Federation Tournament (from Chess in the arts)
Image 23Lucas van Leyden, c. 1508, The Game of Chess, oil on oak, 27 x 35 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 24Thomas Eakins, 1876, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 25Sofonisba Anguissola, The Chess Game, 1555, National Museum, Poznań, Poland (from Chess in the arts)
Image 26Final match of the 1575 tournament in El Escorial. Painting by Luigi Mussini. (from History of chess)
Image 27Richard Creifelds, c. 1886, The Veterans, Brooklyn Museum (from Chess in the arts)
Image 28Liberale da Verona, The Chess Players, c. 1475 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 29Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from History of chess)
Image 30Book of the customs of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess (1473) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 31Niccolò di Pietro, 1413–15, The Conversion of Saint Augustin, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon (from Chess in the arts)
Image 32Persian manuscript from the 14th century describing how an ambassador from India brought chess to the Persian court (from History of chess)
Image 33Paris Bordone, c. 1545, Chess players, oil on canvas, Mailand, Wohnhaus (from Chess in the arts)
Image 34Shams-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 35Chess Set by Man Ray (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 37Some 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 38World Champions José Raúl Capablanca (left) and Emanuel Lasker in 1925 (from History of chess)
Image 39Animation of the Immortal Game, in which Adolf Anderssen, playing white, beat Lionel Kieseritzky in June 1851 (from History of chess)
Image 40Karel van Mander, 1600 (attributed to), Les joueurs d'échecs (from Chess in the arts)
Image 41A Chess Dispute (1903) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 42Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from Chess in the arts)

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FIDE world ranking

Rank	Player	Rating
1	Magnus Carlsen	2831
2	Fabiano Caruana	2803
3	Hikaru Nakamura	2802
4	Arjun Erigaisi	2801
5	Gukesh Dommaraju	2777
6	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	2768
7	Alireza Firouzja	2763
8	Ian Nepomniachtchi	2754
9	Wei Yi	2751
10	Viswanathan Anand	2750
11	Levon Aronian	2747
12	Wesley So	2747
13	R Praggnanandhaa	2741
14	Leinier Domínguez Pérez	2741
15	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	2740
16	Lê Quang Liêm	2739
17	Ding Liren	2734
18	Hans Niemann	2734
19	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	2733
20	Vincent Keymer	2733

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