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 generically 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 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, with millions of players worldwide. (Full article...)

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Photo shows the six types of chess pieces in the Staunton style. — Staunton style chess pieces. *Left to right:* king, rook, queen, pawn, knight, bishop

The rules of chess (also known as the laws of chess) govern the play of the game of chess. Chess is a two-player abstract strategy board game. Each player controls sixteen pieces of six types on a chessboard. Each type of piece moves in a distinct way. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king; checkmate occurs when a king is threatened with capture and has no escape. A game can end in various ways besides checkmate: a player can resign, and there are several ways a game can end in a draw.

While the exact origins of chess are unclear, modern rules first took form during the Middle Ages. The rules continued to be slightly modified until the early 19th century, when they reached essentially their current form. The rules also varied somewhat from region to region. Today, the standard rules are set by FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs), the international governing body for chess. Slight modifications are made by some national organizations for their own purposes. There are variations of the rules for fast chess, correspondence chess, online chess, and Chess960. (Full article...)

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General images

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

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

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FIDE world ranking

Rank	Player	Rating
1	Magnus Carlsen	2831
2	Fabiano Caruana	2805
3	Hikaru Nakamura	2802
4	Arjun Erigaisi	2799
5	Gukesh Dommaraju	2783
6	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	2777
7	Alireza Firouzja	2763
8	Ian Nepomniachtchi	2755
9	Wei Yi	2753
10	Viswanathan Anand	2750
11	Wesley So	2747
12	Leinier Dominguez	2741
13	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	2740
14	Levon Aronian	2739
15	Vidit Santosh Gujrathi	2739
16	Quang Liem Le	2739
17	Shakhriyar Mamedyarov	2738
18	R Praggnanandhaa	2737
19	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	2737
20	Hans Niemann	2734

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