Chess
Chess
From left to right, a white king, a black rook, a black
queen, a white pawn, a black knight, and a white
bishop (all Staunton chessmen)
Players
2
Setup
time
One minute
Playing
time
Casual games without time control last
usually 10 to 60 minutes; tournament
games can last anywhere from less than
ten minutes (blitz chess) to six hours or
longer.
Skills
required
Tactics, Strategy
Chess
is a recreational and competitive
game played between two players. The cur-
rent form of the game emerged in Southern
Europe during the second half of the 15th
century after evolving from similar, much
older games of Indian and Persian origin.
Today, chess is one of the world’s most popu-
lar games, played by millions of people
worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by cor-
respondence, and in tournaments.
The game is played on a square chequered
chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an
eight-by-eight grid. At the start, each player
(one controlling the white pieces, the other
controlling the black pieces) controls sixteen
pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two
knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. The
object of the game is to checkmate the
opponent’s king, whereby the king is under
immediate attack (in "check") and there is no
way to remove it from attack on the next
move.
The tradition of organized competitive
chess started in the 16th century and has de-
veloped extensively. Chess today is a recog-
nized sport of the International Olympic Com-
mittee. The first official World Chess Champi-
on, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in
1886; Viswanathan Anand is the current
World Champion. Theoreticians have de-
veloped extensive chess strategies and tac-
tics since the game’s inception. Aspects of art
are found in chess composition.
One of the goals of early computer scient-
ists was to create a chess-playing machine.
Today’s chess is deeply influenced by the
abilities of current chess programs and the
ability to play against others online. In 1997,
Deep Blue became the first computer to beat
the reigning World Champi