THC Science

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

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 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. The game is won by checkmating the opponent's king, i.e. threatening it with inescapable capture. There are 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 and is played by millions of people worldwide. (Full article...)

Selected article - show another

Capablanca in 1931

José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera (19 November 1888 – 8 March 1942) was a Cuban chess player who was the third world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. A chess prodigy, he is widely renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play.

Capablanca was born in 1888 in the Castillo del Príncipe, Havana. He beat Cuban champion Juan Corzo in a match on 17 November 1901, two days before his 13th birthday. His victory over Frank Marshall in a 1909 match earned him an invitation to the 1911 San Sebastián tournament, which he won ahead of players such as Akiba Rubinstein, Aron Nimzowitsch and Siegbert Tarrasch. Over the next several years, Capablanca had a strong series of tournament results. After several unsuccessful attempts to arrange a match with then world champion Emanuel Lasker, Capablanca finally won the world chess champion title from Lasker in 1921. Capablanca was undefeated from February 10, 1916 to March 21, 1924, a period that included the world championship match with Lasker. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

General images

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

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

Selected image

Image 1Click to enlarge and view description
Image 2Click to enlarge and view description
Image 3Click to enlarge and view description

FIDE world ranking

Rank	Player	Rating
1	Magnus Carlsen	2832
2	Hikaru Nakamura	2802
3	Fabiano Caruana	2793
4	Arjun Erigaisi	2778
5	Ian Nepomniachtchi	2767
6	Gukesh D	2766
7	Nodirbek Abdusattorov	2762
8	Wei Yi	2762
9	Alireza Firouzja	2751
10	Wesley So	2751
11	Viswanathan Anand	2751
12	Praggnanandhaa R	2749
13	Leinier Dominguez	2748
14	Anish Giri	2746
15	Ding Liren	2745
16	Quang Liem Le	2741
17	Shakhriyar Mamedyarov	2733
18	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	2733
19	Levon Aronian	2729
20	Parham Maghsoodloo	2723

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