Tempo (chess)

Example
abcdefgh
8
h8 white circle
h5 white circle
h1 white rook
8
77
66
55
44
33
22
11
abcdefgh
Moving the rook to h5 and then to h8 would lose a tempo.
Euwe and Hooper, 1959
abcdefgh
8
f8 black king
h7 white rook
b4 black pawn
c3 black pawn
g2 white king
8
77
66
55
44
33
22
11
abcdefgh
An important tempo – whoever moves wins.[1]

In chess and other chess-like games, a tempo (from Italian: tempo, lit.'time') is a "turn" or single move (a half-move or ply made either by White or Black). When a player achieves a desired result in one fewer move, the player is said to "gain a tempo"; conversely, when a player takes one more move than necessary, the player is said to "lose a tempo". Similarly, when a player forces their opponent to make moves not according to their initial plan, one is said to "gain tempo" because the opponent is wasting moves. A move that gains a tempo is often called "a move with tempo".

A simple example of losing a tempo may be moving a rook from the h1-square to h5 and from there to h8 in the first diagram; simply moving from h1 to h8 would have achieved the same result with a tempo to spare. However, such maneuvers do not always lose a tempo—the rook on h5 may make some threat which needs to be responded to. In this case, since both players have "lost" a tempo, the net result in terms of time is nil, but the change brought about in the position may favor one player more than the other.