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 typically 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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In chess, there is a consensus among players and theorists that the player who makes the first move (White) has an inherent advantage, albeit not one large enough to win with perfect play. This has been the consensus since at least 1889, when the first World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, addressed the issue, although chess has not been solved.

Since 1851, compiled statistics support this view; White consistently wins slightly more often than Black, usually achieving a winning percentage between 52 and 56 percent. White's advantage is less significant in blitz games and games between lower-level players, and becomes greater as the level of play rises; however, raising the level of play also increases the percentage of draws. As the standard of play rises, all the way up to top engine level, the number of decisive games approaches zero, and the proportion of White wins among those decisive games approaches 100%. (Full article...)

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General images

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

Image 1An 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 2A Chess Dispute (1903) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 3Bauhaus chess set by Josef Hartwig (from Chess in the arts)
Image 4Some 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 5In 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 6Antonis Mor, 1549, Von Sachsen vs. a Spaniard (from Chess in the arts)
Image 7Iranian shatranj set, glazed fritware, 12th century, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (from History of chess)
Image 8Bobby Fischer vs. Mikhail Tal (from History of chess)
Image 9Hans Muelich, 1552, Duke Albrecht V. of Bavaria and his wife Anna of Austria playing chess (from Chess in the arts)
Image 10Krishna and Radha playing chaturanga on an 8×8 Ashtāpada (from History of chess)
Image 11Gustaf Lundberg, 1775, Portrait of Gustav Badin, pastel, 74 x 57 cm, Nationalmuseum, Sweden (from Chess in the arts)
Image 12Richard Creifelds, c. 1886, The Veterans, Brooklyn Museum (from Chess in the arts)
Image 13Liberale da Verona, The Chess Players, c. 1475 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 14Niccolò di Pietro, 1413–15, The Conversion of Saint Augustin, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon (from Chess in the arts)
Image 15Animation of the Immortal Game, in which Adolf Anderssen, playing white, beat Lionel Kieseritzky in June 1851 (from History of chess)
Image 16Georgian writers, Ilia Chavchavadze and Ivane Machabeli playing chess in Saint Petersburg, 1873 (from Chess in the arts)
Image 17Current World Champion Ding Liren (from History of chess)
Image 18Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from History of chess)
Image 19Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official World Chess Champion (from History of chess)
Image 20Chess game between Tha'ālibī and Bākhazarī, 1896 painting by Ludwig Deutsch (from History of chess)
Image 21Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from Chess in the arts)
Image 22Persian manuscript from the 14th century describing how an ambassador from India brought chess to the Persian court (from History of chess)
Image 23Karel van Mander, 1600 (attributed to), Les joueurs d'échecs (from Chess in the arts)
Image 24Sofonisba Anguissola, The Chess Game, 1555, National Museum, Poznań, Poland (from Chess in the arts)
Image 25Honoré Daumier, 1863, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 26Lucas van Leyden, c. 1508, The Game of Chess, oil on oak, 27 x 35 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 27Edward Harrison May, 1867, Lady Howe mating Benjamin Franklin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 28The 12th-century Lewis chessmen in the collection of the National Museum of Scotland (from History of chess)
Image 29Stamp of the USSR devoted to the accomplished Estonian player and analyst Paul Keres, 1991 (from History of chess)
Image 30John Lavery, 1929, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 31World Champions José Raúl Capablanca (left) and Emanuel Lasker in 1925 (from History of chess)
Image 32Paris Bordone, c. 1545, Chess players, oil on canvas, Mailand, Wohnhaus (from Chess in the arts)
Image 33The Chess Players by Henry Fox Talbot, 1847 (from History of chess)
Image 34Final match of the 1575 tournament in El Escorial. Painting by Luigi Mussini. (from History of chess)
Image 35Book of the customs of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess (1473) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 36RZA at a Hip Hop Chess Federation Tournament (from Chess in the arts)
Image 37Thomas Eakins, 1876, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 38Iranian courtiers of the Qajar dynasty playing chess in Mazandaran. (from History of chess)
Image 39Chess Set by Man Ray (from Chess in the arts)
Image 40Shams-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)

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FIDE world ranking

Rank	Player	Rating
1	Magnus Carlsen	2831
2	Hikaru Nakamura	2802
3	Arjun Erigaisi	2797
4	Fabiano Caruana	2796
5	Gukesh D	2794
6	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	2783
7	Alireza Firouzja	2767
8	Wei Yi	2763
9	Ian Nepomniachtchi	2755
10	Wesley So	2751
11	Viswanathan Anand	2751
12	Praggnanandhaa R	2746
13	Leinier Dominguez	2741
14	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	2740
15	Quang Liem Le	2739
16	Levon Aronian	2738
17	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	2735
18	Shakhriyar Mamedyarov	2733
19	Hans Niemann	2733
20	Anish Giri	2728

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