Portal:Chess

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 an abstract strategy game that involves no hidden information and no elements of chance. It is played on a square board consisting of 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, with each type of piece having a different pattern of movement. An enemy piece may be captured (removed from the board) by moving one's own piece onto the square it occupies. 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 dates back to the emergence of chaturanga in 7th century India. Chaturanga is also thought to be an ancestor of similar games like Janggi, xiangqi and shogi. After its introduction to 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, becoming standardized and gaining 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.

Organized chess arose in the 19th century. International chess competitions today are governed by FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs), the International Chess Federation. The first universally recognized World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886; Gukesh Dommaraju is the current World Champion, having won the title in 2024. (Full article...)

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Xiangqi board and starting setup

Xiangqi (/ˈʃɑːŋtʃi/; Chinese: 象棋; pinyin: xiàngqí), 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', in contrast with Western chess or cờ vua, literally 'King'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 1World Champions José Raúl Capablanca (left) and Emanuel Lasker in 1925 (from History of chess)
Image 2Edward Harrison May, 1867, Lady Howe mating Benjamin Franklin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 3A Chess Dispute (1903) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 4RZA at a Hip Hop Chess Federation Tournament (from Chess in the arts)
Image 5Lucas van Leyden, c. 1508, The Game of Chess, oil on oak, 27 x 35 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (from Chess in the arts)
Image 6Book of the customs of men and the duties of nobles or the Book of Chess (1473) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 7Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from Chess in the arts)
Image 8These 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. Photographed during a loan of the pieces to the Silk Roads Exhibition at the British Museum. (from History of chess)
Image 9Thomas Eakins, 1876, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 10Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official World Chess Champion (from History of chess)
Image 11Sofonisba Anguissola, The Chess Game, 1555, National Museum, Poznań, Poland (from Chess in the arts)
Image 12John Lavery, 1929, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 13Chess game between Tha'ālibī and Bākhazarī, 1896 painting by Ludwig Deutsch (from History of chess)
Image 14Stamp of the USSR devoted to the accomplished Estonian player and analyst Paul Keres, 1991 (from History of chess)
Image 15Current world champion Gukesh Dommaraju (from History of chess)
Image 16Iranian courtiers of the Qajar dynasty playing chess in Mazandaran (from History of chess)
Image 17Gustaf Lundberg, 1775, Portrait of Gustav Badin, pastel, 74 x 57 cm, Nationalmuseum, Sweden (from Chess in the arts)
Image 18Animation of the Immortal Game, in which Adolf Anderssen, playing White, beat Lionel Kieseritzky in June 1851 (from History of chess)
Image 19Antonis Mor, 1549, Von Sachsen vs. a Spaniard (from Chess in the arts)
Image 20Persian manuscript from the 14th century describing how an ambassador from India brought chess to the Persian court (from History of chess)
Image 21An 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 22Hans Muelich, 1552, Duke Albrecht V. of Bavaria and his wife Anna of Austria playing chess (from Chess in the arts)
Image 23The 12th-century Lewis chessmen in the collection of the National Museum of Scotland (from History of chess)
Image 24Paris Bordone, c. 1545, Chess players, oil on canvas, Mailand, Wohnhaus (from Chess in the arts)
Image 25Shams-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 26Two Georgian writers, Ilia Chavchavadze and Ivane Machabeli, playing chess in Saint Petersburg, 1873 (from Chess in the arts)
Image 27Moors from Andalusia playing chess, Book of Games by King Alfonso X, 1283 (from History of chess)
Image 28Final match of the 1575 tournament in El Escorial. Painting by Luigi Mussini. (from History of chess)
Image 29Richard Creifelds, c. 1886, The Veterans, Brooklyn Museum (from Chess in the arts)
Image 30Cocowood chess set (Philippines craft) (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 32Bobby Fischer vs. Mikhail Tal (from History of chess)
Image 33Krishna and Radha playing chaturanga on an 8×8 ashtāpada (from History of chess)
Image 34Karel van Mander, 1600 (attributed to), Les joueurs d'échecs (from Chess in the arts)
Image 35In 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 36Bauhaus chess set by Josef Hartwig (from Chess in the arts)
Image 37Liberale da Verona, The Chess Players, c. 1475 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) (from Chess in the arts)
Image 38Honoré Daumier, 1863, The Chess Players (from Chess in the arts)
Image 39Iranian shatranj set, glazed fritware, 12th century, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (from History of chess)
Image 40Some 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 41Chess Set by Man Ray (from Chess in the arts)
Image 42The Chess Players by Henry Fox Talbot, 1847 (from History of chess)

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FIDE world ranking

Rank	Player	Rating
1	Magnus Carlsen	2839
2	Hikaru Nakamura	2813
3	Fabiano Caruana	2795
4	Vincent Keymer	2773
5 (tied)	Anish Giri	2769
5 (tied)	Arjun Erigaisi	2769
7	R Praggnanandhaa	2768
8	Wesley So	2764
9	Gukesh Dommaraju	2763
10	Alireza Firouzja	2762
11	Wei Yi	2753
12	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	2750
13	Viswanathan Anand	2743
14	Shakhriyar Mamedyarov	2742
15 (tied)	Richárd Rapport	2740
15 (tied)	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	2740
17 (tied)	Leinier Domínguez	2738
17 (tied)	Ding Liren	2738
19	Ian Nepomniachtchi	2732
20	Hans Moke Niemann	2729

Did you know...

... that there have been attempts to make chess an Olympic sport since at least 1924?

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