Play Chess 101

Chess Game
Chess is a game of logic played between two players, and requires mental skill and concentration. It is a complex mind game with infinite possibilities of moves and tactics. There are sixty four squares with alternating colors of white and black. There are eight rows (called ranks) and eight columns (called files) on the chessboard. There are thirty two pieces in all, with each player controlling sixteen pieces. Each piece moves in a defined direction and aims to eliminate the enemy pieces from the board. The sixteen pieces comprise eight Pawns, two Knights, two Bishops, two Rooks, one Queen and one King. All pieces eliminate enemy pieces by landing on the space they occupy. One player controls the white pieces and the other player controls the black pieces .The player with white pieces is always the first player to move. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent's King. When a King is directly threatened with capture by one or more of the opponent's pieces the player is said to be in a 'Check' situation. When in check, only those moves that can evade or block the check, or eliminate the threatening piece are permitted. The situation progresses to 'Checkmate' if King is checked and there is no way to escape. Checkmate is usually a combined effort involving the participation of more than one piece. Effectively, the King is surrounded, and there is no way out. When the players are unable to check the King and no more legal moves are available, the game results in a draw, called a stalemate. A draw can also occur if there are insufficient pieces left on the board to produce a checkmate. At the beginning of a game of chess, the players decide on the colors of the pieces they are playing with either by friendly agreement or a game of chance such as pick-a-hand. The players can also be allotted a set of pieces by the tournament director. The chessboard is placed so that each player has a white square in the near right hand corner. Over time, the game of chess has seen many variations introduced to make the game more interesting and appealing to the common people. Nowadays, chess enthusiasts can play online chess, blitz chess (timed by a chess clock), bullet or lightening chess (very fast), correspondence chess (by mail), and computer chess.